thoughts on The Doom Awards™

[roadworx]

so, there's this new thing that's popped up called "the doom awards" that seems to be ripping off the cacowards very, very poorly. the entire thing comes across as an ai-generated clusterfuck. here's an excerpt:

 

Quote

Veddge's emergence as a pivotal figure in video game modding culminated with his creation, 'MyHouse', a mod for Doom. His unique blend of personal storytelling and technical prowess in this project not only redefined the scope of modding but also earned him the title of Creator of the Year at the Doom Awards 2023.

 

In 'MyHouse', Veddge's artistic vision shines through. He reimagined the classic Doom landscape into a narrative-rich, psychologically engaging journey. The mod's ever-changing environment and atmospheric design not only captivated Doom enthusiasts but also attracted a broader audience, including those who typically don't engage with Doom mods.

 

Veddge's technical acumen is evident in the innovative features of 'MyHouse'. By altering core gameplay elements like the automap and player perspective, he enhanced the narrative depth and challenged traditional gameplay conventions, showcasing his mastery over the technical aspects of game modding.

 

outside of looking like it's the skinwalker version of the cacowards, there's been quite a bit of drama surrounding it (apparently the discord was full of gigaracists n shit). what do you guys think of this? also, uh, who the hell made this lmao?? information regarding the creation of this would be appreciated because it's honestly kinda hilarious

Edited December 20, 2023 by roadworx

[Dynamo]

Well, this has been all over social media, so it makes sense to explain this... rather peculiar occurrence to forumgoers who don't happen to have looked much at the Hellsite formerly known as Twitter. In essence, a new awards ceremony was announced some months ago, and while I was very skeptical of some of the methods utilized (such as direct voting) I was actually somewhat happy about it because I do think having more reviews and more ceremonies to celebrate the community's accomplishments is a good thing. The team behind it appears to be called Boomers Dimension, and is (or was?) at least partially affiliated with the Bloom total conversion, but the main guy running the show now is @hakros, as some of the previous admins left the server after its initial announcement.

 

The elephant in the room is indeed the fact that the writeups turned out to be almost entirely generated by ChatGPT. As a result, they come off as extremely hollow and devoid of any substance, to the point that a lot of the reviews feel like they could be referring to just about any wad or game ever made. For example this is how one of the boss encounters is described: "It features a new boss encounter that tests players' skills to the limit, set in a moody, atmospheric environment with highly detailed structures."

 

For whatever reason, the Doom Awards twitter account and website have expressed great contempt towards certain community members, including the ones they have awarded, resulting in a lot of the Doom Awards winners being blocked by the Doom Awards twitter account. Some people have also asked to have their work taken out of the site, but hakros has refused to do so.

 

Like I said earlier, I personally highly welcome new reviews and reviewers as ever since the days of /newstuff it's been one of the principal ways to let people know what's good in the community. But unfortunately what little expectations I personally had for these were drowned in a sea of AI generated streams of consciousness.

[Cardboard Marty]

I would love to see alternate awards write-ups and presentations, especially if they're focused on niches that the Cacowards don't cover in-depth or just stuff that we missed for whatever reason. The main issue (focusing on just the Doom Awards themselves) is that I think people greatly underestimate the amount of work and conversation that goes into making the Cacowards each year. It's a tremendous effort, and there's heavy discussion internally on what gets chosen. On the surface, it might just seem like "hey, play a bunch of Doom wads and write about them", but it's ridiculously thorough. It's the reason why the write-ups for the golden cacos tend to be 500+ words.

 

I just don't think you can outsource that level of compassion the Cacowards usually give off to ChatGPT and expect anything remotely similar in return. A lot of the Doom Awards write-ups (I'm a bit hesitant to call them that) are full of filler words, don't really explain anything unique about what they're awarding, and generally don't sound like the person writing them is knowledgeable about the topic. It comes across as incredibly lazy. Why bother doing it if you're not going to put the effort into it? It's a waste of time for both parties. And that's not even going into obvious pitfalls like community voting (the ZDoom forums vaguely tried to do something similar that never got off the ground if I recall correctly), unclear rules on what is eligible for an award, very messy presentation, the list goes on.

[PsychEyeball]

9 minutes ago, Dynamo said:

For whatever reason, the Doom Awards twitter account and website have expressed great contempt towards certain community members, including the ones they have awarded, resulting in a lot of the Doom Awards winners being blocked by the Doom Awards twitter account.

This seems... very counter productive. Am I confused for not understanding what's their end goal here? Why have a ceremony if you're gonna hate the people you claim you speak for?

 

Not that it matters if their writeups are not even made by human beings. At this point, do they just wanna parody the Cacoawards for laughs or out of spite?

[Rudolph]

More like the DOOMED Awards, if you ask me...

[Dynamo]

14 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

This seems... very counter productive. Am I confused for not understanding what's their end goal here? Why have a ceremony if you're gonna hate the people you claim you speak for?

 

Not that it matters if their writeups are not even made by human beings. At this point, do they just wanna parody the Cacoawards for laughs or out of spite?

I was very confused too, but when I had a look at the Discord server, it turned out to be filled with bizarre conspiracy theories about the Cacowards and the Doom community as a whole. To me it sounds like a classic case of clout-chasing which ended up cutting every corner imaginable just to get a... competitor? of sorts out. But it doesn't make it any less strange to me, even if you are correct in saying spite ended up being the primary motivator.

[Li'l devil]

Didn't we already just have a thread about Doom Awards today that got disappeared? lol

[Endless]

19 minutes ago, Cardboard Marty said:

I would love to see alternate awards write-ups and presentations, especially if they're focused on niches that the Cacowards don't cover in-depth or just stuff that we missed for whatever reason.

In the danger of coming off as an unwanted ad, the Wadazine has had similar features in the past as a companion piece to the Cacoawards. And as it has been mentioned; it is an excruciatingly challenging endeavor that takes a lot, lot of time. From the gathering of the judges, to the selection process, the playtesting, the reviewing, the rankings and/or critiques, and of course, the presentation of it. It has been probably the hardest thing I've done with the Wadazine but it is something I do wish to keep expanding and improving. Meanwhile, to just relegate the entire task to a Chatbot and do the entire thing for you as if it was your school homework, well, that's fucking lazy and dishonest.

 

I initially was optimistic for these new Doom Awards and their community-vote type of system for something that could work well while trying to be its own thing, but at the best of my ignorance, the entire thing was a fiasco since day one, and I didn't realize it until the very last moment when the AI shit came down and they reacted in the absolute worst way possible.

 

Should be noted that they straight up delete and censor anyone that does not 100% agree with their views. My twitter thread had at least 10 different answers from different persons, but because they were comments under a post by the DA twitter account, they were all soon deleted.

 

They tried to ''expose me'' by sharing our private DMs, as if that somehow would make them look better?

 

 

They even plastered the Wadazine logo on top of the screenshot. They really thought they had something, somehow.

[roadworx]

55 minutes ago, Cardboard Marty said:

I would love to see alternate awards write-ups and presentations, especially if they're focused on niches that the Cacowards don't cover in-depth or just stuff that we missed for whatever reason...I just don't think you can outsource that level of compassion the Cacowards usually give off to ChatGPT and expect anything remotely similar in return. A lot of the Doom Awards write-ups (I'm a bit hesitant to call them that) are full of filler words, don't really explain anything unique about what they're awarding, and generally don't sound like the person writing them is knowledgeable about the topic. It comes across as incredibly lazy. Why bother doing it if you're not going to put the effort into it? It's a waste of time for both parties. And that's not even going into obvious pitfalls like community voting (the ZDoom forums vaguely tried to do something similar that never got off the ground if I recall correctly), unclear rules on what is eligible for an award, very messy presentation, the list goes on.

alternate awards are great and all, i agree (see: the crackowards and the not-cacowards), but when the execution and purpose are this blatantly awful then it kinda deserves all the shit that gets flung at it. all i've seen regarding it is ridicule, and from what i can tell it seems to be completely deserved. it's like if i started my own awards because my own shitty wad didn't get mentioned, but was so incomprehensibly lazy and inept that i couldn't even be bothered to do a masturbatory write-up on my own work and had to get some rando with zero knowledge of doom to do it for me

 

i had actually heard about them blocking people left and right on twitter like dynamo mentioned, i had just completely forgotten about it under the weight of a million other things lol.

 

30 minutes ago, Li'l devil said:

Didn't we already just have a thread about Doom Awards today that got disappeared? lol

was there a thread on this already? sorry, i didn't even see it, rip

Edited December 20, 2023 by roadworx

[OpenRift]

An awards show hosted by hacks, for hacks!

[Dynamo]

1 hour ago, Li'l devil said:

Didn't we already just have a thread about Doom Awards today that got disappeared? lol

I see that thread was posted while I was asleep, and devolved into off topic discussion, but in retrospect it makes sense to clear up what actually happened for those who are puzzled about this whole thing. I saw some people on social media asking if the Doom Awards and the Cacowards were the same... I was going to stay silent on this whole matter but I think setting the record straight at this point could help avoid any confusion.

[Li'l devil]

"It features a new boss encounter that tests players' skills to the limit, set in a moody, atmospheric environment with highly detailed structures."

Honestly, this is memeable.

[Bobby :D]

It really saddens me to see how some people will just use whatever means necessary to manifest their spite. I love writing for doom, and a lot of other people do as well, it’s just a tragedy people just want to pimp out chatbots to do it for themselves. I’m glad that because of its fumbling carcass nature it hasn’t taken away that much from the amazing write ups and other work that people have put out for the 30th that have already motivated me to be a better person, let alone creator, myself.

[PsychEyeball]

48 minutes ago, Endless said:

They tried to ''expose me'' by sharing our private DMs, as if that somehow would make them look better?

 

 

They even plastered the Wadazine logo on top of the screenshot. They really thought they had something, somehow.

I got curious and decided to look their post up on Twitter, only to find it had 8 replies, all of which condemned The Doom Awards for their conduct. Obviously the account decided to hide every reply and also disabled future replies.

 

What a transparent group of people! 

[bioshockfan90]

I'm not gonna sit here and call myself the best writer or reviewer of WADs... the primary reason my blog exists is to journal what I've played and give new mappers feedback, but this is pretty sad. Didn't read up on everything nor am I going to pretend I know the whole situation, and to echo what others have said in this thread it'd be interesting to see Cacowards alternatives. But it seems that really in a community as (I'm going to risk coming across as maybe a bit off in saying this) small and as niche as Doom's, we don't need that much variety. I see the Cacowards as a commemoration of what was accomplished that year, not a be-all end-all selection of what is objectively the best. There is no such thing as an objective best WAD.

 

The wadazine's awards seem nice, Endless' top 50 of '94 was great, and as per usual there is the hidden gems thread. Do we really need much more? 

 

This reads as a poor trolling attempt from those that disdain Doomworld and like to wear tinfoil hats. Is what it is though. I wouldn't put too much stock into it, it seems admins have addressed the majority of concerns and discourse around it. Interesting situation nonetheless.

[Mr. Freeze]

I've seen a few variants of that "Cacoward winners are only friends of the mods" conspiracy before and it's always said by the most copium-huffing, skill-deprived losers around. 

[Deadwing]

I would say that more awards = good, but if the texts/images are generated by IA why not just make a list? Lol

[D4NUK1]

Like more people say here's, I'm all out for a alternative awards, even I want to create something like my personal doom awards where I am the judge of a topic of something like mega wads, individuals wads, level music wad, gimmicks wads, and creators of my personal test. But that's because everyone can do they own personal Doom awards.

[Xaser]

People often underestimate just how much time, effort, and skill go into making the Cacowards what it is. This whole ordeal is a fine example of what happens if you half-ass it.

[LuciferSam86]

Ah, the famous one-side "policy of transparency" and then blocking the critics and profiles. What a childish way to do damage control or better, a childish way to manage a situation.

[Novaseer]

25 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I've seen a few variants of that "Cacoward winners are only friends of the mods" conspiracy before and it's always said by the most copium-huffing, skill-deprived losers around. 

which is always made funny when relative newcomers win

[Mystic 256]

I'm gonna make my own Doom/Retro FPS award show that's better than the Doom Awards

[bioshockfan90]

1 minute ago, Mystic 256 said:

I'm gonna make my own Doom/Retro FPS award show that's better than the Doom Awards

In all seriousness, I've wanted a Quake equivalent of the Cacos for a long time, or just more games in general. Making it more like the Game Awards would be cool as well, having announcements for new wads (imagine seeing a trailer for BTSX E3 after you see a WAD win) and the likes. But it's hard enough on the team as is, so no pressure there.

 

Actually to chime in a bit, the IWBTG fangame community has its equivalent to the Cacowards, called "The Fangame Awards". They stream it every January and it's a lot like what I just spoke about, announcements interspersed with award winners and the winners coming up to give a speech and interviews. Check it out if that's up your alley.

[Antkibo]

The funny part is that sht like this happens every year

[xScavengerWolfx]

The what awards? The only award thing i know of is the Cacoawards.

 

Besides i like reading about the winners and how they won.

 

And Endless.....Next issue of Wadazine when? lol

[DogsRNice]

[Gez]

28 minutes ago, bioshockfan90 said:

Making it more like the Game Awards would be cool as well

Oh yeah, I can see that

Quote

THE DOOM AWARDS 2023

 

First place: Eviternity II is the sequel to Eviternity and this times features even more WRAP IT UP

Second place: Sigil II is the new offering by the legendary John Romero and celebrates WRAP IT UP

And people say writing those is hard?

[No-Man Baugh]

What's really sad is that all this IA nonsense and rushed presentation was due to a real big self-inflicted crunch.

 

Harkos mentioned that he made the site and it's contents up withing 15 days while juggling a 10-hour a day job and to what end? He could've easily sat on the idea for next year, or even a couple months, and have gotten way more polish done on the site and actual artist and writers on board.

 

Did he really hate how the Cacowards presented myhouse that bad that it NEEDED to have a flat top spot without any of the personal touches Doomworld gave it? was getting something done on Doom's 30th really that necessary? were the Cacowards not including any Doomer Boards Projects fueling the spite engine so much that you had to rectify it immediately? and if so: Was Zeppelin Armada really just THAT good?

 

[bioshockfan90]

36 minutes ago, Gez said:

And people say writing those is hard?

This would be a hypothetical video-form alternative. Assuming, you know, people submit their wads ahead of time and hire editors for trailers and... you get the idea. Exactly why I said it probably wouldn't work out. I still stand by it being a neat concept however. :p

 

EDIT: Okay, on PC now. Can give more detail.

 

My comment was not meant to suggest the 'wards be put 'up-to-date' and compete with what is a soulless husk of commercialism. I love the Cacowards as they are due to their text-only format. I should've specified that if there were to be a Cacowards alternative, it'd be neat to have something like the aforementioned Fangame Awards in video format, preferably as a livestream. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by bioshockfan90

[Terminus]

More than everything that's already been said here, I tried giving a chance to the Twitch Stream of the Doom Awards on the debut of the ceremony.

From the mere 15 minutes I spent there, I saw that the stream was done on a flat background with no actual list of the winners, the streamer (who I assume was hakros?) flatly reads the AI-generated articles with zero enthusiasm in his voice, all while Discord is blaring at the background with the chat spamming him to turn down the volume.

Anyone in the chat complaining about the AI articles would have their comment deleted, and then if you ask why your comment was deleted, you get kicked off the stream.

He couldn't even be bothered presenting his own award ceremony in a way that would make it engaging and fun. And that's just sad.

 

Joining the Cacowards team really made me understand just how difficult and thought-out the whole process is. Seeing someone attempt to half-ass this job with AI garbage is just upsetting. If you want to write for a wad that you enjoy, do it yourself. AI can't replicate soul.