As I've been trying to help people meet the requisite 20+ ratings to get a score, I've been noticing something really strange about smart balance scores this time around - Most of the games with under 20 ratings I've been looking at have an extremely low or negative smart balance, even with a 2:1 Ratings Given:Ratings Received ratio, and a high amount of karma from their ratings. Meanwhile, other games with much lower ratios of ratings given/karma:ratings received have a much higher smart balance. Here are some anonymized examples because I don't think anyone is trying to game the system, I'm just worried the system might not be working as intended, as I don't remember seeing this in previous jams.

As a first example, I had to scroll quite a bit to get to this game, but this game's developers have been doing a lot of rating without seeing any results back - They have a 2:1 ratings given:received ratio, and a 1:1 karma:ratings received ratio, but a miniscule smart balance

Meanwhile, this game has a 1:1 ratings given:received ratio, and a 1:4 karma:ratings received ratio, but has a much higher placement

As an even closer comparison to the first game, this one has nearly the same karma and ratings received, with half as many ratings given, but it has a higher smart balance

I don't remember seeing anything like this in previous jams, which is why I'm wondering if something isn't working as intended this time around.

Is anyone else having trouble finding active games to play this jam? It seems like there are a handful of active games that have made it to the top of Smart Balance, but past page 1, it seems that Smart Balance is only showing games that have both 0 ratings given and received. Did something change about how it's calculated?

Hop in, send me your links, and I'll check out your games on stream :)

https://www.twitch.tv/koolruz

Edit: Technical difficulties have been resolved, and I'm now actually live 😅