I really think that the major slowdown of the bussiness could have a great impact over the number of submissions.
For example in our office we have more projects of civilworks than regular architecture, and the archviz projects has so much less budget in this year, so we can't spend so much time in there. Less projects with less money implies less quality, and if one project has not too much quality that is not suitable to be presented here.
Anyway we would use the 3D Awards to present two new technologies used in a pair of RealTime projects.
It really would be a shame that 3D Awards could dissapear.
Best regards, Víctor.