The contest results are bullshit

Alright, let's see...
First things first: I'm not mad that I'm not in the top five. I'm just utterly disappointed and angry for these winners. I'll probably offend most of the winners in this post. I don't give a single shit.

First of all...

T-hug said:
We are kind of looking for something created for this contest. Stuff you already work on is fine but projects created just for this competition will be looked upon more favourably.
Click to expand...
EhytFA.gif

Yeah, sure. Four of the winners aren't bounty projects.
And you know, what's even better?

T-hug said:
In previous GBAtemp bounties, we have called upon our members to code projects for various devices. This however, left a lot of our fellow Tempers out in the dark, as not everyone has the knowledge or skill to code apps and games.
[...]
Projects can literally be anything; are you good with art? Draw, paint or craft something for us to see! Maybe you are creative with woodwork, an avid gardener or like photography? You can also enter!
The usual coding entries will still be accepted, but this time we wanted to make it possible for as many members to take part as possible!
Click to expand...

Anything, you say? Really? Yeah. Anything's accepted. Too bad not anything's appreciated. Four of the winning projects are coding projects. Makes you think, ey?


Alright. Now, I'm gonna comment on all the winners, and why they should or shouldn't be on the list. The first place is pretty rant-y, I know, but I'm pretty angry about it as well, and you'll see, why.

#5 newo: NewoSky - $25 Amazon Gift Card
NOT a Bounty project
This has been in the making for around two years.
Interesting idea, but still not made for the contest.

#4 Asia81: HackingToolkit9DS - $25 Amazon Gift Card
NOT a Bounty project
This is an around 1 year old project, that is already well-known and widely used piece of software. This feels like as if someone entered FBI or freeShop. It's just not right. Software like this basically gets a head start, which is really not fair.

#3 Dr.Hacknik: SimpliiU - $50 Amazon Gift Card
NOT a Bounty project
This tool, while useful, presents nothing original, and is just a programme that copies stuff to your SD card if you're too lazy to do it yourself.
This should not be on the list of winners.

#2 cracker: DIY PCB etching / Arduino controller shield - $100 Amazon Gift Card
Bounty project
The only project that was made for the Bounty. Are you fucking kidding me?!
This one's pretty good. It should honestly be first place out of these five. It's really creative and has a lot of work put into it.

#1 Voxel: Stick Magician - GBAtemp Bounty Demo - GPD Pocket
NOT a Bounty project
Oh, boy. OH, BOY! This should NOT be first place!
This is also a VERY old project. And you know, what's the worst thing about it? It has nothing to do with the Bounty! What's this? A test level made for his game, that he's already been working on for quite some time. The Bounty might've motivated him to make said test level, but this is something he would've done anyway in some time. Not only that, but (according to unnamed sources) it mostly just uses Unity's built in stuff, and excluding the art assets, this can be made in a couple of hours. Also, according to my experience, said art assets can be made in ~30 minutes!


Now, what can we do to avoid this in the future?
More attention to stuff other than programming
If you're gonna advertise this "anything, not just programming" shit so much and then ignore it for most of the list, we need a different system. There shouldn't be five winners from any category. There should be a couple of fixed categories, and there should be one winner per category. This would not only encourage people to make more varied submissions, but would also prevent shit like THIS.

Fuck the mods and Patrons-only system
It should either be
Just mods: so we can have some responsible adults thinking about the distribution of basically 700 US Dollars,
or everyone: if we're gonna have normal people voting basically just for stuff they like, it shouldn't be just a couple of them.


I'm actually angry at this contest. Even by just looking at the first two places you can see the problems. One is clearly much better and more creative than the other one, yet it didn't win. What the fuck?!
I'm so furious, I could literally flip my table with my laptop, phone and Wacom tablet on it. Fuck this shit!

Also, wow. I've apparently taken more than an hour to write this shit. Phew.
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Comments

Dr.Hacknik
@sarkwalvein

Indeed, all the entries were of hard work. I don't care if you think it's slop, just because it's not up to your standards. Also, @Yandere-chan ... Do you even know how to program in the first place? It takes long amounts of time, thinking, and *INHALE* compiling and releasing! So, please take your bullshit and go back home to mommy.
 
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Olmectron
Was there a PM or a locked thread for Patrons inviting us to vote? I never saw a thing about it. I should have looked it around more.
 
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F
@Olcmectron
There was. It was locked after awhile.
 
sarkwalvein
@Olmectron

There was a locked thread, but I only noticed it after seeing the news post announcing the results.
At least I didn't receive any PM.
I guess I could just have gone to the backers section of the forum and noticed the thread, but I didn't think of it, and I don't visit that section of the forums very often.
 
Alerdyy
I’m sorry your four-panel MSPaint comic didn’t get into the top 5, but you could’ve explained your points without personally attacking any of the winner’s projects :)
 
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rileysrjay
@Memoir it sounds like a bit of miscommunication to me as to why most patreons didn't vote. And besides, a normal vote would've probably been very bias imo. Remember that game of the year vote last year here? That definitely wasn't bias... That's my opinion, take it or leave it.
 
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Dr.Hacknik
Look, the staff didn't exactly do their best informing others. Yet, the results are final.

The staff have most likely realized their mistake, and will be improving their methods next time around.
Yet, the results again are final. They're not going to change them, that would be unfair to the existing winners.
 
sarkwalvein
@Dr.Hacknik yeah, I agree, the results are final. But all the feedback from this one (the only good thing about the comment section in this blog post) can be used to make the next one better, that would be great actually.
 
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YeezusWalks
I do agree that crackers entry was (imo) better... BUT Voxel worked REALLY hard on his project! And game making is not easy so...
and i do believe that Voxel made his assets on his own... Don't just disrespect Voxel and his game he worked just as hard as cracker... and probably even harder!
 
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Kioku
Results are final.. Yeah, we got that.

Here let me put this in bold letters..

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE IF THERE'S A PATRON ONLY VOTING SYSTEM IT WOULD BE BEST TO INFORM EVERY PATRON.

I don't browse the patron part of the forums. Not every one knew how the votes were tallied. We can't fix what happened. It would be good to start doing so going forward.
 
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Dr.Hacknik
Pleasure speaking with you all.

And we all came to the same conclusion. Now, let's let this post be locked and used for future reference for the staff members.

~Good day.
 
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rileysrjay
@drenal all the shitposters left the blog. :(
We could derail this blog like we did with noctosphere's fidget spinner club!
 
F
Alerdyy destroyed this blog. Time to unwatch.
This roast dropped harder than any of our comments here, holy...
 
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The Real Jdbye
Maybe Voxel's win wasn't entirely deserved, but I'm sure he'll make good use of the GPD Pocket.

I honestly don't see any reason to get so upset. It's not the staff's fault that those specific people won, it was voted on fairly by the patrons. So who are you mad at exactly?

I think part of the problem is that the bounty is still new and people didn't know when it was being held until it was announced, which didn't give people a lot of time to create entirely new projects just for the bounty. As well the bounty is still a pretty new thing and many might not be aware of it yet, but as time goes on and the prize pool grows you could see more people flocking to the site just to enter the bounty. That might not be the best thing for the site but it would be great for the homebrew and hacking community as a whole.

Despite the staff saying all projects are welcome, there will probably always be a big focus on coding projects, as this is a site primarily focused on console hacking and homebrew, and there's nothing anyone can really do to change that. That doesn't mean other projects can't win though, there just aren't going to be as many of them, and that might be why it seems like they're overrepresented in the results.
Also obviously a Switch kernel exploit or warez loader would win the bounty almost guaranteed. It's hard to compete with things like that. So people who are good at coding and especially hacking are always going to have an advantage in that regard because that's what this site is based around.

Anyway, there will be many more bounties with even greater prizes. And now people have 4 months to work on their projects for the next bounty so the next one could be even better.
 
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