It'll help filter out the "blockbuster" syndrome; people voting for what's popular so the awards looks identical to the top 10 games list.
Yes they can, possibly, filter the list, but it would still be a too small jury.
[Note: I use "you", but it's not a criticism, nor effectively directed to you. It's plural, so "all the devs that would be members of the jury"]
Firstly the list will still be limited to the games they tried, therefore some games deserving an award will still be totally forgotten, because missed by a too big part of the jury. There's around 2000 living games, do you really have the time to test at least a fourth of them, and to test them seriously enough to be able to judge them ? This in just a month, because it's obviously the last update that have to be judged. Even if you follow most of them regularly, it will take all your month, so no job and no works on your game, just testing and testing.
Testing less than that would make the selection insignificant ; hidden gems would not have been tested by enough people to make it into the selection. In fact, even testing just a fourth of the games can be too small. Every one will test the most popular games, mostly because they already play them, and lets say 200 other games. Therefore, like you said, great popular games will have 70% of the votes or more, while hidden gems will have what ? At max 20% of them, not enough to be in the list even if they are better than the ones that will finally be awarded.
And recommendation between members of the jury isn't the answer here. If someone say, "hey, you should try this game, it's a hidden gem", those who'll do it would play it with a positive bias that will prevent them to see the flaw missed by those who recommended the game. And it will also make the jury focus on some games, so forgot even more some more deeply hidden gems.
Secondly, do you really think that you can project enough in the future to judge a story ? Most of the games are works in progress, to see if the writing is good or not, you need to see where it seem to lead. A game like
Shatered, by example, is a pure gem, but it needed four/five updates before the accuracy of the writing effectively hit the players ; before that it looked like an uselessly too verbose writing.
And there's also games like
Love And Submission, alas abandoned because life happened. The relation between the MC and his neighbors is seen in the dialogs and story right from the first update, but it's only when they finally say it louder that it became obvious. Do you think that you're in position to judge such writing ?
Many (well, all is relative) people say that I have good eyes for this, yet I don't feel that I can judge. Until the moment it's finally explicitly stated by the story, it's just subjective speculations. And before this moment, it can be sign of great writing skills, as well as it can be sign of a totally incoherent writing. It's not impossible to make the difference between the two, but you need to look at the game in its whole for this, to give 110% of your attention to each single CG and text of the game, for 500 games, in a month, while working because you need to live, and also while making your game.
Thirdly there's the kinks, genre and fetishes of the game. Do you think that you can judge if a femdom, sissy, gay, whatever, story is accurately wrote ? Take femdom games by example. I like the genre in stories, but it's not my kink in real life, therefore I can't say if it's correctly wrote or not. All I can say is that it feel right for someone who like this kind of stories. But it can be totally stupid and outside of the reality for someone who is effectively into femdom.
Of course, with 200/300 devs in the jury, there will be some that are really familiar with the kinks, genre or fetishes, and that can say "this is accurate". But whatever they can say, if you really dislike this kink, genre or fetish, you'll not be able to see the positive points in the game. Many, even among devs, hate NTR, and few among them would be able to bypass this bias and possibly give their vote to a NTR game.
It works for the Oscars, and also music, book and all, because among the members of the jury, there's critics ; people who do nothing else than judge movies/musics/books, that learned how to do it, and that also learned with the time to make abstraction of their own taste. Yet, like you implied, there's still bias in the end.
But there's no such persons in the community.
The challenge tho, as others have said is ...who judges?
Which is my main point. I'm 100% for awards, just because they would do good on your shelf, but I know that it's not something that can happen actually, and even less be done here. It would need to include the whole scene, so VNDB, LewdPixels, LewdGamers, and others, not just one of the communities, even if it's the biggest, that is part of the scene.
Edit: I'd also lobby for a "scrappy underdog" award as well or "most renders made on a single PC" award because.....
Too soon for a "most computers blown up" award ?
