First Annual Virtual Pinball Awards: Update - Cancelled

TerryRed

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I am posting this here on behalf of kenswift who is creating / running this new event. Please every READ everything detailed in this post and on the link.

From kenswift:

"Hi everyone,

Want to make sure everyone knows that voting is going on now for the First Annual Virtual Pinball Awards. It’s starting off small but hopefully will grow every year and I envision it as being a way to recognize the amazing content creators who dedicate so much of their personal time to this fantastic hobby.

Two rounds of voting, the Pre-Nomination which is going on now which will determine the final Nominees, then final voting, then a big awards show live on Mystery Pinball Theater 3000 on twitch in February.

Winners will get trophy’s, and be presented them by some of the biggest names in Vpinball and real pinball.

This will be an amazing event by we need everyone’s support to vote! Details and links below:


PRELIMINARY VOTING IS NOW OPEN! PLEASE VOTE TO HELP SUPPORT THESE AMAZING CONTENT CREATORS!

CLICK THIS LINK TO VOTE:"

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zf...KzfuhYghk2-ficTA/viewform?edit_requested=true


==========================================


From TerryRed:

So I'd like to clarify some things, as some people may misunderstand how this is all working out.


- the tables and contributors listed in the categories on the voting page are NOT the only options!
- you can pick any table (released in 2020 only!) or contributor / author you want in all categories! That's what the Other selection is for! Write in what you want!
- this a preliminary vote for nominations.
This means you are voting to add in the table / person you want!
- the categories are for tables released in 2020 only. This means older tables that have not been significantly updated for many years are not included (to keep it an annual awards show)


The options shown "so far" are NOT based from one person's selection or opinion! They are only there as a "start". This idea was passed around to various other Facebook and Discord groups to gauge interest and for some categories. So the "initial" options shown are based on those for votes which are mainly cabinet based players.

"Your" votes in the preliminary will determine who gets nominated. Then everyone will vote for who wins after that!

Only vote for the categories you care about and want to vote for! If you have no interest in VPX... then don't vote for those categories, etc.



Keep in mind guys this is being run from groups that are mostly vpx and cabinet based, so there is bound to be more categories and support for that... but there are also many people that like FP and VPX as well. So Future Pinball was added as a Category for Best Table / Mod and is included in Table of the Year as well. Let's be thankful for that!


SPREAD THE WORD!

So if you want your favorite Future Pinball author / contributor / table to be considered for a nomination... add your votes and get others to add theirs!



BE RESPECTFUL!

PLEASE, be respectful with this guys. I know we all want everyone to be represented for their selfless works given to the community... but you can't make "everyone" happy. If you don't see someone's name or table shown or voted for yet (or in the end) that you wanted to see, please don't take it personally. The entire vp community will vote on this... not just this site. The intent is to bring everyone together to help bring recognition to the amazing work done by so many others.



If you have any suggestions, pass them on to @Kenswift or here in this post.


@JonPurpleHaze @shiva @GeorgeH @Gimli @wild @ravarcade @polygame @NitroNimbus @ULTIMATE Pro Pinball @popotte @francisco666_b @Ike Savage


Wasn't sure where to post this... but since this was meant to bring attention for this to the FP community, I figured this was the best place to post it.


==========================================================


Update from Kenswift":

"
I started in Virtual Pinball about a year ago. It was right around the time Scotty released Harry Potter. I had already seen his other work, as well as some of the other amazing tables from some of the other amazing creators. I couldn’t believe that this hobby was driven solely by the sacrifices of the content creators and they get zero compensation. When I saw Harry Potter I had to send this guy Scotty Wic a nice bottle of whisky to say thank you.

Shortly after, I had come across John Memeo. John took his time to help me, as he does so many other newbies, to get my cabinet working and put me on a path to really get the most out of this new hobby. He spent hours helping answer my stupid questions and fix my stupid mistakes. I would have given up on the hobby if it wasn’t for him and I wanted to pay him back somehow.

I was familiar with After Effects and video editing and compositing and I came up with an idea to do a PuPPack. I wanted to partner with John and let him upload it as the author, as a way of paying him back. John had never done a PuPPack, but I talked him into it, and that was probably 30 puppacks ago for him. We went on to do Avengers and The Getaway II together….I wanted to pay him back and I got to.

A few months ago, I was reading about the TWIPYs. A recognition award for real pinball. I thought, wow, Virtual Pin needs an awards program like that to recognize these creators who work so hard and get so little thanks. I asked a bunch of content creators if they would be interested in participating, the ones I knew and had developed a relationship like Scotty, Terry, and Nailbuster. I also asked some Real Pin folks, because I thought it would be cool to unify the hobby a bit, Zach Meny, Cary Hardy, and Jack Danger. All of who were great and said yes. I got MPT3K to agree to host the event on twitch and he’s a big advocate for both real pinball and virtual. I asked JP Salas and he recommended adding the major Vpin Website owners as presenters, and I thought that was a great idea. Most agreed to present as well.

I wanted it to be big but I was doing it primarily on my own and with my own money, and I knew I wanted to do it right so I allocated a budget of $1000 and came up with 10 Categories. I thought after year one we can expand to more categories and maybe people would want to contribute. I created a google form with just a few of what I felt were the most common names I heard come up as the initial Pre-Nominees, so people would understand the format I wanted but I stressed people to write in votes in both the video and the instructions because I knew I didn’t know everyone who contributes but the community does. My plan was to add in real-time as the community wrote in votes. I didn’t add any of my creations to the initial rollout either.

Rolling out the voting now feels like I lit a fuse to a massive pile of dynamite. I thought if someone didn’t agree they would give some constructive criticism and if I had to tweak I was totally open to it. I didn’t expect the response I got. The feedback was pretty cold and harsh. If it was the community beating it up, it wouldn’t have bothered me as much but it was the creators. The ones I wanted this awards to be for.

In retrospect, if the people I wanted to recognize, think this is a bad idea, it’s not something I want to do. I think I could redo the voting but it wouldn’t matter, people would always have an issue. I can’t recognize everyone as much as I would love to but I do appreciate everything this community does. So I’m pulling the plug and wish this community the best. I took a shot because it’s who I am. Thanks Terry an anyone else who agreed with the vision as well as those who didn’t agree but understood what I was trying to do and were constructive with their feedback. Voting is turned off."


TerryRed:

Just so you guys know... none of you guys from Pinball Nirvanna gave any indication of having issues with this. It had nothing to do with you guys.
 
Last edited:
Also guys... if you think there are tables you want everyone to be reminded of, or made aware of, that were released last year that you think should be nominated... post the names and links / videos of those tables here for others to see so they can check them out and maybe make more informed choices.

Some examples of my own personal favorites I think should be nominated are:

Jungle Girl


Blade Runner (Ultimate Pro)

Indiana Jones (Stern Ultimate Pro)



Everyone will certainly have different reasons for their choices. Some can be from a desktop players perspective, others from a cabinet players perspective.

Myself, I'd like to see tables that were either new for 2020 (Blade Runner, Jungle Girl), or had MAJOR updates to them to the point of being a completely different table (Indy Stern - Ultimate Pro).

It's tough because I would love to see other classics like polygame's tables or blindmankind tables also be included as well. I know some of them had smaller updates like physics and other things done.... but we should consider a table a 2020 release if it's a major change / update to a table.

Wild has done some neat tables as well. George and Gimli have done many updates, as has NitroNimbus recently.

Not to toot my own horn... but I know some of the cabinet guys may tend to nominate my PinEvent table updates because they had not just major table updates in some cases (Star Wars DSA Epic Space Battles, Halloween Big Bloody Mike, F-14 Tomcat), but they also had major updates to PinEvent in the form of pupdmd, pup-pack, SSF, DOF, etc. So that's probably why you see many of those nominated currently.


It's impossible to be completely fair in all cases... but I'd recommend to nominate with your heart, and for tables that truly were a major update or something amazingly new we haven't seen before, etc. Otherwise any table could have a small update and be considered for 2020, and we should be realistic and fair with our choices.


Also... maybe I missed some really cool updates or releases... so let me know about anything I may have missed myself!
 
Jungle Girl for sure. Physics is still an issue for me in FP / BAM, and JG seems to have unusually good flipper physics, the like of which I'm not sure I've seen before. I certainly think the table should be on the default list, even if it's not as 'bells & whistley' as some others. Although the graphics are indeed gorgeous.

I'd have to think if I could comment usefully in the other categories. I'd certainly be tempted to go with JP Salas due to his historic, incredibly high-quality output.

Seems like there might be room for another category too, i.e. a developer category. I guess candidates might be the pinMAME team, whoever key devs are for VPX, and Ravarcade. But maybe there's some others I don't know about working on different packages and/or tools.
 
Thanks Terry !
done
 
@Ike Savage

Yah, there are so many categories that could be added for devs and many many other things.... but this was kept to a "release or works from 2020" only awards... not a life-time or work from the last 5 years... at least for this first year. Also... some people are FP only and some are VPX only, so they may not even know who some of the contributors are.

Everyone values something different. Some may prefer physics over everything...other may prefer the visual art only... some may prefer sound and music... some may perfer fancy pupdmd and videos... others may prefer the insane level of code needed for complex tables.

It's a damned if you do... damned if you don't kind of thing. No matter what there will always be something / someone left out in someone's eyes.
 
Update from Kenswift":

"
I started in Virtual Pinball about a year ago. It was right around the time Scotty released Harry Potter. I had already seen his other work, as well as some of the other amazing tables from some of the other amazing creators. I couldn’t believe that this hobby was driven solely by the sacrifices of the content creators and they get zero compensation. When I saw Harry Potter I had to send this guy Scotty Wic a nice bottle of whisky to say thank you.

Shortly after, I had come across John Memeo. John took his time to help me, as he does so many other newbies, to get my cabinet working and put me on a path to really get the most out of this new hobby. He spent hours helping answer my stupid questions and fix my stupid mistakes. I would have given up on the hobby if it wasn’t for him and I wanted to pay him back somehow.

I was familiar with After Effects and video editing and compositing and I came up with an idea to do a PuPPack. I wanted to partner with John and let him upload it as the author, as a way of paying him back. John had never done a PuPPack, but I talked him into it, and that was probably 30 puppacks ago for him. We went on to do Avengers and The Getaway II together….I wanted to pay him back and I got to.

A few months ago, I was reading about the TWIPYs. A recognition award for real pinball. I thought, wow, Virtual Pin needs an awards program like that to recognize these creators who work so hard and get so little thanks. I asked a bunch of content creators if they would be interested in participating, the ones I knew and had developed a relationship like Scotty, Terry, and Nailbuster. I also asked some Real Pin folks, because I thought it would be cool to unify the hobby a bit, Zach Meny, Cary Hardy, and Jack Danger. All of who were great and said yes. I got MPT3K to agree to host the event on twitch and he’s a big advocate for both real pinball and virtual. I asked JP Salas and he recommended adding the major Vpin Website owners as presenters, and I thought that was a great idea. Most agreed to present as well.

I wanted it to be big but I was doing it primarily on my own and with my own money, and I knew I wanted to do it right so I allocated a budget of $1000 and came up with 10 Categories. I thought after year one we can expand to more categories and maybe people would want to contribute. I created a google form with just a few of what I felt were the most common names I heard come up as the initial Pre-Nominees, so people would understand the format I wanted but I stressed people to write in votes in both the video and the instructions because I knew I didn’t know everyone who contributes but the community does. My plan was to add in real-time as the community wrote in votes. I didn’t add any of my creations to the initial rollout either.

Rolling out the voting now feels like I lit a fuse to a massive pile of dynamite. I thought if someone didn’t agree they would give some constructive criticism and if I had to tweak I was totally open to it. I didn’t expect the response I got. The feedback was pretty cold and harsh. If it was the community beating it up, it wouldn’t have bothered me as much but it was the creators. The ones I wanted this awards to be for.

In retrospect, if the people I wanted to recognize, think this is a bad idea, it’s not something I want to do. I think I could redo the voting but it wouldn’t matter, people would always have an issue. I can’t recognize everyone as much as I would love to but I do appreciate everything this community does. So I’m pulling the plug and wish this community the best. I took a shot because it’s who I am. Thanks Terry an anyone else who agreed with the vision as well as those who didn’t agree but understood what I was trying to do and were constructive with their feedback. Voting is turned off."


TerryRed:

Just so you guys know... none of you guys from Pinball Nirvanna gave any indication of having issues with this. It had nothing to do with you guys.
 
Shame, the vp guys kind of missed a very important point. It wasn't just the big guys that would get noticed, but some of the smaller guys would have shared the spotlight as well, those that never get the attention that they deserve. That would have been a good thing.

It's nice to know the VP community can be just as dramatic as they were 15 years ago. Maybe we as a community should do something for ourselves. Not a awards type of thing, that can be really unfair, instead a post or something that highlights some of the notable acheivements within the community this year? No one gets judged, it's really just a community pat on the back for some of the great tables and advances made this year.
 
Wow, unfortunate. I'd meant to ask you when the prelim voting deadline was, but now it doesn't matter.

I see there didn't seem to be much offense taken at VPF, but it looks like it was the VPinball thread that killed it. Ah well.

You know all of us long-timers are well-familiar with how much drama there's been in the virtual PB scene going back almost twenty years, but I think sometimes (probably more for noobies & younger folks) there's a temptation to think it's more localised than not. Sadly, it's really not.

If you ever want to read some crazy tales about discordant communities, check out https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/. In a lot of ways, the virtual PB scene looks downright chummy by comparison.
 
...Maybe we as a community should do something for ourselves. Not a awards type of thing, that can be really unfair, instead a post or something that highlights some of the notable acheivements within the community this year? No one gets judged, it's really just a community pat on the back for some of the great tables and advances made this year.
I love those kinds of things, and wrote up a small collection on historic tables and stuff with the roundup series.

But I'm not nearly familiar with newer stuff to add meaningful content. Still, I think it's a great idea(!)
 
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