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Community Choice Awards 2018

Welcome to this year’s Community Choice Awards! We’re confident that many of you enjoyed at least 1 product (or more) from 2018’s massive collection of new releases. Whether that was a new aircraft, impressive piece of scenery or useful utility – there was something for everyone.

Over the past 3 years, we have run our Community Choice awards as a way for the community to provide feedback to developers who have released a product from the past year, and to give you an opportunity to vote for the best of the best. It’s like the Oscars of Flight Simulation. The winners get something: the recognition they deserve.

Phase One

Voting Opens: 19-Jan-2019

Voting Closes: 24-Jan-2019 (23:59z)

The first part is ‘Open Voting’. We list all of this year’s categories and you, as a community, have free reign over which products are then put forward for us to shortlist.

For example, in the category of “Aircraft of the Year”, you will be able to submit whatever choice you’d like into the box. (Providing it was released during 2018).

After phase 1 is closed, we gather all the votes and then we compile our shortlist of appropriate products. The shortlist is a choice of the most popular/reoccurring products/developer in each category.

Phase Two

Voting Opens: 26-Jan-2019

Voting Closes: 31-Jan-2019 (23:59z)

This is where the real voting counts. We will release a final voting form which is split into the various categories. Under each category will be a selection of shortlisted products from phase 1.

You can only vote under each category just once.

Once phase 2 closes, we’ll count the votes. There will be two prizes: 1^st Place and Runner Up.Once we are confident with the final vote counts, we’ll then award the winning product/developer with a Community Choice Award.

DEVELOPERS

Congratulations to all of the developers, publishers and individuals who made the short list this year.

We have big plans to make the Community Choice awards even bigger and better next year.

Best of luck for the future!

How Did the Winners Get Picked?

The whole point of the Community Choice Awards is to let the community decide. Myself, the team or anyone involved with FSElite have zero input into the data. Every single result, choice and award was decided by the community. Whether that was in Phase 1 which was a free text vote, or via Phase 2 which relied on people picking from the final selection.

We appreciate that not everyone’s favourite developer, product or freeware was picked and the big names took home a lot of awards. That shouldn’t take away from anyone’s contributions because everyone who provides a good service for the community should be celebrated.

You can view the ENTIRE list of votes on our Google Sheet – which includes a further breakdown of percentages and exact number of votes cast per category.

What Lessons Have We Learned This Year?

Yes – as always. Each year we do this, each year we learn something new. As usual, we have taken into account a range of feedback from developers, publishers and of course community members. Next time, we’ll consider some of the following different ways to make it as robust of a process as possible.

– Start the awards earlier (December-ish)

– During phase 1, have a list available to users of all products

– Give developers more lead time on the event happening

Regardless of the learnings, we’re pleased to have seen so many people get involved.

We want to make sure that the Community Choice Awards have a positive impact on the community, help developers understand the standard that the community seeks and also rewards developers for their hard work.

Until the next one!