AGDQ 2015 Game Submissions - Due date is September 3rd 11:59 EDT [locked]

2014-08-22 12:55:34 pm

HELLO!

Try practicing for months on your game, being as ready as you can be, then having the game troll you and force you to reset live in front of thousands of viewers.

You'll get over it.

(I still can't bear to watch my AGDQ run though. I probably never will)

PJ

2014-08-22 12:57:45 pm

Is PJ

Quote from PotatoGrenades:

It's extremely more stressful and embarassing than it looks. I can ASSURE you of that.

Is it more or less embarrassing than making a big scene of it on the forums?

PotatoGrenades

Edit history:

PotatoGrenades: 2014-08-22 01:01:53 pm

2014-08-22 12:58:22 pm

Kappa

But yeah, your response is pretty much the reaction that wants me to undo all my submissions and never try anything again

CVagts

2014-08-22 01:03:11 pm

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

Submit if you want. Link a video, write up a pitch, send it off, hope for the best, dust off if you get rejected. You're making much more of it than you need to.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-08-22 01:07:40 pm

2014-08-22 01:06:58 pm

<(^_^)>

Quote from PotatoGrenades:

It's extremely more stressful and embarassing than it looks. I can ASSURE you of that.

Quote from CVagts:

Submit if you want. Link a video, write up a pitch, send it off, hope for the best, dust off if you get rejected. You're making much more of it than you need to.

If it's stressing you so much, i think you should go back and evaluate why you want to run your game... This is just a submissions topic. If you can't get over the chance that your game will be rejected, and if you're so stressed out about it, you should remember that this isn't like a job interview or a graduation exam or anything like that. IT'S A GAMING MARATHON.

Is it normal to be anxious about waiting for your games? Yeah, I'm honestly anxious and doing my best to be patient, but I'm not going to make it affect my daily life. This is a hobby. This isn't your job. This isn't anything like that. You're making a much bigger deal out of it than it should be.

And plenty of unknown runners have gotten games in; I was relatively unknown at the time I ran at SGDQ2013. Just because your games might get rejected doesn't mean "omg they don't like me, they don't want any unknown runners at all!". Not every game will make it. Deal with it, move on, submit in future marathons.

[quote="PotatoGrenades"]It's extremely more stressful and embarassing than it looks. I can ASSURE you of that.[/quote]

[quote="CVagts"]Submit if you want.  Link a video, write up a pitch, send it off, hope for the best, dust off if you get rejected.  You're making much more of it than you need to.[/quote]

If it's stressing you so much, i think you should go back and evaluate why you want to run your game... This is just a submissions topic. If you can't get over the chance that your game will be rejected, and if you're so stressed out about it, you should remember that this isn't like a job interview or a graduation exam or anything like that. IT'S A GAMING MARATHON.

Is it normal to be anxious about waiting for your games? Yeah, I'm honestly anxious and doing my best to be patient, but I'm not going to make it affect my daily life. This is a hobby. This isn't your job. This isn't anything like that. You're making a much bigger deal out of it than it should be.

And plenty of unknown runners have gotten games in; I was relatively unknown at the time I ran at SGDQ2013. Just because your games might get rejected doesn't mean "omg they don't like me, they don't want any unknown runners at all!". Not every game will make it. Deal with it, move on, submit in future marathons.

PotatoGrenades

2014-08-22 01:08:55 pm

It's not about the games not making it in. It's about the embarassment that will come afterwards.

AlbinoAlbatross

2014-08-22 01:09:38 pm

Why walk when you can go fast?

Quote from PotatoGrenades:

It's not about the games not making it in. It's about the embarassment that will come afterwards.

What embarrassment?

Reiska

2014-08-22 01:11:01 pm

Quote from ShadowWraith:

Submitting games shouldn't be a stressful process. If your game gets in, great. If not, you haven't lost anything. There's no lost honour or popularity from having your game rejected. It was just deemed a poor fit for the marathon. Don't take it personally, because it really isn't. Unless you're Naegleria.

I have to disagree slightly with this statement. While it should be the ideal, in practice I don't think it's exactly true.

The thing is that a lot of speedrunners who submit stuff to GDQs, and a lot of really good speedrunners in general, have very little exposure to the net at large. There are people who have very strong times or even WRs in reasonably popular games and yet can't regularly pull more than like 5-10 viewers on their streams for simple lack of exposure; they're operating under the radar, so to speak, compared to the likes of popular juggernauts like Caleb or Siglemic or Cosmo.

AGDQ is the biggest general speedrunning marathon in the world, and in that regard it attracts a lot of attention from people outside the speedrun community, people who don't regularly follow or watch speedruns. Indeed, I would be confident in saying that for a large majority of GDQ viewers, it is the only speedrunning they watch live all year. Basically, AGDQ is a lot like the Summer Olympics of speedrunning, an opportunity to showcase yourself and your run to the world at large (and, don't forget, help raise money for a great cause in the process). In that regard, I can totally understand why people stress so much over their submissions; it's quite possibly their only chance to be noticed.

To extend that analogy, look at the number of Olympic sports that don't get any televised coverage outside of the Olympics themselves. Take gymnastics; it's one of the most popular Olympic events, enough that it usually gets tape-delayed to run in prime-time for US audiences, but yet almost no one watches it outside of the Olympics and most people who watch it probably couldn't name a single competitive gymnast who hasn't made it into the Olympics and isn't their own son or daughter, and there are a lot of competitive gymnasts who never make it into the Olympics, I'm sure, for a variety of reasons.

[quote="ShadowWraith"]Submitting games shouldn't be a stressful process. If your game gets in, great. If not, you haven't lost anything. There's no lost honour or popularity from having your game rejected. It was just deemed a poor fit for the marathon. Don't take it personally, because it really isn't. Unless you're Naegleria.[/quote]

I have to disagree slightly with this statement.  While it should be the ideal, in practice I don't think it's exactly true.

The thing is that a lot of speedrunners who submit stuff to GDQs, and a lot of really good speedrunners in general, have very little exposure to the net at large.  There are people who have very strong times or even WRs in reasonably popular games and yet can't regularly pull more than like 5-10 viewers on their streams for simple lack of exposure; they're operating under the radar, so to speak, compared to the likes of popular juggernauts like Caleb or Siglemic or Cosmo.

AGDQ is the biggest general speedrunning marathon in the world, and in that regard it attracts a lot of attention from people outside the speedrun community, people who don't regularly follow or watch speedruns.  Indeed, I would be confident in saying that for a large majority of GDQ viewers, it is the only speedrunning they watch live all year.  Basically, AGDQ is a lot like the Summer Olympics of speedrunning, an opportunity to showcase yourself and your run to the world at large (and, don't forget, help raise money for a great cause in the process).  In that regard, I can totally understand why people stress so much over their submissions; it's quite possibly their only chance to be noticed.

To extend that analogy, look at the number of Olympic sports that don't get any televised coverage outside of the Olympics themselves.  Take gymnastics; it's one of the most popular Olympic events, enough that it usually gets tape-delayed to run in prime-time for US audiences, but yet almost no one watches it outside of the Olympics and most people who watch it probably couldn't name a single competitive gymnast who hasn't made it into the Olympics and isn't their own son or daughter, and there are a lot of competitive gymnasts who never make it into the Olympics, I'm sure, for a variety of reasons.

PotatoGrenades

2014-08-22 01:16:48 pm

^

Cloud8745

2014-08-22 01:18:08 pm

GDQ should always be for the cause. Not for how popular can i get?

Yashichi

(user is banned)

2014-08-22 01:18:32 pm

Quote from Reed:

Quote from Onin:

Friendly reminder that there's no way Halo 2 would've gotten into AGDQ'14 if it wasn't Monopoli running it.

This is true, but not for the reason implied. It's because at the time Monopoli was the only person able to do a marathon-quality Halo 2 Legendary run. (including skill, commentary, etc)

Also, Halo 2 did not get in because a bunch of big-name community members supported it. It got in because Mike's concerns about the run were alleviated.

Just providing some context to these types of remarks.

Yeah right, buster. It's so blatantly obvious the Halo community is behind all of this. Why else would I, a perfect speedrunner, have my runs rejected? Behind Monopoli's beautiful, enticing smile is a barrel of lies. I'm going to uncover your secrets. Just you wait.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-08-22 01:27:09 pm

2014-08-22 01:24:21 pm

<(^_^)>

So tl;dr, you want to get popular and your game more known through agdq.

Honestly this isn't exactly the place for that; most runners don't get as many followers as you'd expect from their marathon runs, even if they run popular games.

ShadowWraith

Edit history:

ShadowWraith: 2014-08-22 01:26:07 pm

2014-08-22 01:25:23 pm

.

Reiska: I'm not actually seeing the point of your post. If it's that people stress about their marathon submissions because if they don't get in, people aren't going to notice they exist, then that is unfortunate but there is nothing about that we can change, or indeed, should change. AGDQ is not a competitive event, it's a speedrunning showcase with a charity focus. There's no gold medal that everyone is chasing after to bring honour and glory to them and their community. It's just a bunch of guys getting together to play video games for donations.

You say Gymnastics gets zero televised coverage, but on Twitch streamers get as much as they want. Hell, I could start streaming now and there'd be coverage of whatever game I chose to play. Whether people would want to watch me is a different story, but you can't compare lack of interest to lack of coverage. It just doesn't work that way. AGDQ isn't a magic ticket to getting people to watch your game.

Kefka14

2014-08-22 01:27:43 pm

I like to submit things because I like to play games and speedrun. I haven't routed and practiced games just to get them into GDQ's. I do it because I think its fun. I submit the games I enjoy to run to GDQ's because I like the community (from what little exposure I have to it compared to some). If you practice a game solely for the intention of getting into a GDQ, I think you are doing it for the wrong reason.

NiL8r

2014-08-22 01:28:12 pm

Just because you only get a single digit number of viewers doesn't mean you aren't going to get into the marathon. I have no statistics on this, but I'd argue that most runners in the marathons only get 25-50. I averaged 3-5 viewers when I submitted for SGDQ and my game got in.

And if my game hadn't gotten in it... so what? A different game that multiple people, with years of experience organizing these events, felt was a better fit would've gotten in. People need to get over themselves and look at the bigger picture.

Chumlum

2014-08-22 01:28:17 pm

Ya'll didn't even watch the MM DOS run but accepted it anyway

I hope you'll at least skim the videos before the second round

CVagts

2014-08-22 01:29:18 pm

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

I watched the Mega Man Dos run and i want it in every marathon.

Kefka14

Edit history:

Kefka14: 2014-08-22 01:31:06 pm

2014-08-22 01:30:12 pm

Quote from NiL8r:

Just because you only get a single digit number of viewers doesn't mean you aren't going to get into the marathon. I have no statistics on this, but I'd argue that most runners in the marathons only get 25-50. I averaged 3-5 viewers when I submitted for SGDQ and my game got in.

And if my game hadn't gotten in it... so what? A different game that multiple people, with years of experience organizing these events, felt was a better fit would've gotten in. People need to get over themselves and look at the bigger picture.

I agree with this, as I am in a similar boat. I got a hugely unknown game into SGDQ, me being a hugely unknown runner. I showed up, had a great time. I got back. Getting salty over rejections doesn't solve anything anyway. It just makes you look silly.

Bismuth

2014-08-22 01:30:58 pm

Worthless categories WR master

I'd like to point out that even though my AGDQ2014 run had a record viewer count of ~110000, my follower count went from 480 to 1000 in the following weeks and my streams still average 5 viewers. Getting a run in AGDQ will not make you a superstar and should not be the reason to go there. Worse, if you go to the marathon trying really hard to become the new sensation, chances are it will not end so well.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2014-08-22 01:32:55 pm

2014-08-22 01:31:11 pm

<(^_^)>

Quote from NiL8r:

Just because you only get a single digit number of viewers doesn't mean you aren't going to get into the marathon. I have no statistics on this, but I'd argue that most runners in the marathons only get 25-50. I averaged 3-5 viewers when I submitted for SGDQ and my game got in.

I'd honestly say most people get like 100 or less followers, depending on their game. For example, I got around 200 followers after SGDQ2014 (and ~100 after SGDQ2013 from another 2 runs); considering I'm somewhat well-known, and I did two runs of popular games, 200 out of around 70-80k viewers isn't as much as you'd think. And my average viewer count hasn't really gone up significantly after each marathon run either.

If you want to get popular from AGDQ and get more viewers and publicity, and that's your sole primary reason, don't come crawling to anyone complaining that you don't get a few hundred viewers after AGDQ (assuming you run anything) because that's just not how it works.

TheMG2

2014-08-22 01:31:31 pm

Quote from Chumlum:

Ya'll didn't even watch the MM DOS run but accepted it anyway

I hope you'll at least skim the videos before the second round

Thanks for pointing me to the MegaMan dos run, I watched five seconds of it so far and now I want to see the rest.

Yashichi

(user is banned)

2014-08-22 01:33:20 pm

Quote from NiL8r:

Just because you only get a single digit number of viewers doesn't mean you aren't going to get into the marathon. I have no statistics on this, but I'd argue that most runners in the marathons only get 25-50. I averaged 3-5 viewers when I submitted for SGDQ and my game got in.

And if my game hadn't gotten in it... so what? A different game that multiple people, with years of experience organizing these events, felt was a better fit would've gotten in. People need to get over themselves and look at the bigger picture.

Word. I got a game in with 20 viewers, although it was a race. Viewership doesn't necessarily equal your chances of getting in. Followers gotten also don't mean much. I know Bananas got ~8k followers and only an average viewer increase of about 75. What you should really be going for at a 'GDQ is Twitter followers. Tweet the good shit. Those twitter accolades are worth dying for.

philosoraptor42

2014-08-22 01:35:55 pm

Dapper as fuck.

I'm honestly kind of confused as to what he's complaining about. I looked and he doesn't have a rejected run.

Kefka14

2014-08-22 01:36:19 pm

Quote from philosoraptor42:

I'm honestly kind of confused as to what he's complaining about. I looked and he doesn't have a rejected run.

All my lels.

Cloud8745

2014-08-22 01:37:12 pm

Quote from philosoraptor42:

I'm honestly kind of confused as to what he's complaining about. I looked and he doesn't have a rejected run.

Afraid of the rejection and not getting viewers.