I still think that standards for "game popularity" should be either dropped or lowered significantly, to the point that if a movie is
well made, game popularity shouldn't be a huge factor.
- There are people out there who would still enjoy a run of a game, even if they are not members. See: Yo! Noid TAS.
- There is a constantly diminishing pool of games to TAS for simpler consoles. Someone who makes a movie for one of their favorite games may find their movie rejected if it isn't one many people know of.
...which is why I'm all for dumping the requirement that a game must be
popular, or even
good. "Bad" games will be overlooked by people that do not care, but can possibly give someone a starting point if they happen to be looking for videos of a particular game.
To that end, I also think relaxing the restrictions on what kind of movies would be publishable is a good idea. For example, honest question:
Would the judges publish something similar to this movie? Dr. Mario: Combo Challenge 2
There are some controversial problems with this movie:
- It uses a hack, to get past the limitation of luck manipulation (or rather, a lack of it)
- It doesn't aim for speed, and instead aims for a semiarbitrary goal of entertainment and large combos.
(By "similar to", I mean one that plays though all levels, for example.)
It's just a question to test the waters if something like that would be acceptable.