How were the judges vetted? There's a lot of uproar about how one judge acted and just the comments I saw verify that feeling. Obviously people would like feedback on why a game was rejected, but personally I think "Stop spamming this shit game and leave it to your RPG marathon" is completely unnecessary and certainly isn't constructive. I would say in the future make sure the judges at least have some guidelines in how to act in a professional manner. I've already heard the "it's a joke" defense (not from anyone within the marathon I believe) and honestly if you're going to try and run at least a semi-professional marathon then that kind of defense should not be acceptable or encouraged. We all work hard, we all get invested in these games. Getting shot down is already a tough feeling, so why make it worse by saying something completely unnecessary?

I think this is a learning thing though and I'd like to see how the organizers learn & respond.