Awards & Reviews

In last week’s missive about Gale Force 9’s Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps I mentioned the game won the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best SciFi Fantasy Board Wargame in 2020. I started thinking about various issues surrounding game industry awards. It seems like summertime – and the blockbuster summertime conventions – is prime time for various game-related awards. The Origins Awards. Ennies. The aforementioned Charles S. Roberts Awards. Germany’s prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year). Awards have their place in recognizing creators and their outstanding work; but they do so using select criteria established by a governing organization and votes from a limited sampling of the overall gaming community. An award is rarely an accurate indication a game is right for any given gamer. It’s a validation of a game’s overall excellence when compared to others in its category, but individuals have other means – reviews and how-to-play videos, for instance – to evaluate whether an award-winning game (or any game) is right for them.

Frequent readers know I’m speaking from two sides of this issue, as a creator who’d love to win an award in appreciation of my work and as a consumer who researches game purchases, especially with the rising price of quality games.

For creators awards can prove uplifting (when they receive one) or frustrating (when they don’t). Getting one validates our work, gives us some official credential to tout when we promote ourselves or future projects, and puts us in the limelight momentarily. Some creators become angry and disillusioned when we don’t win awards, especially when competitors get them. Others approach it with the healthier attitude that awards are well-deserved recognition of individual excellence and indeed a celebration of our overall hobby.

Over the years I have grown jaded about official game awards. Yes, probably because I’m a little resentful my game work never won an award and only occasionally received any noteworthy recognition, but also because their process often proves problematic and they’re not always accurate criteria by which consumers can gauge whether a game is right for them. Hardly a year goes by where we don’t see some criticism about how a group administers its industry spanning award program: nomination criteria, judge qualifications, definition and inclusion of various categories, scope of considered entries, voting outreach and eligibility (and stacking). Case in point: the year a product I edited was nominated for an Origins Award.

My Origins Award Nomination

The Star Wars Adventure Journal gave West End Games a solid collection of short stories, originally published with game stats and other material at the end of each article. Bantam Spectra, having found success with several Star Wars anthology volumes, saw the Journal as a good source for two additions to the line. Bantam’s editor asked me to write an introduction (though he didn’t ask for it to be long-winded and rambling), the art department put some fantastic Matt Busch Boba Fett artwork on the cover, and Bantam released Tales from the Empire in December 1997. In early 1998, when the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design put out a call for Origins Award nominations, Wast End’s owner Scott Palter insisted we enter it for the “Best Game-Related Novel” category, though I was uneasy about it. “The worst they can say is no,” Palter insisted. And, quite surprisingly to me, it got a nomination. I recall it generated controversy at the time for a number of reasons. Some folks (justifiably) complained it wasn’t really game fiction as opposed to Star Wars franchise fiction. Many insisted it wasn’t eligible since it was a short story anthology, not a novel. Others complained West End had no claim to nominate it since its ultimate format was published by Bantam. Some felt it wasn’t fair because it included New York Times-bestselling authors among other up-and-coming writers. Ultimately the responsibility for its nomination resided with the judge panel that year (or however the administration processed nominations). Tales from the Empire didn’t win, anyway. And I felt so disheartened by the experience I rarely mentioned it again (and it was also overshadowed by West End going bankrupt in late June 1998 and sending staffers scurrying for freelance work and a dubious life of subsistence). That said, I still have the original nomination certificate in a frame somewhere (though I can’t find it at the moment) and a few photocopies ostensibly to send out to folks to promote the Journal, which never happened.

Awards & Gamers

The experience highlighted to me how rewards remain fraught with difficulties in interpretation: what does the governing body intend, how does it evaluate titles, how does it determine categories to acknowledge, how much of the gaming community votes, what does the award mean for consumer-gamers? While awards validate creators they don’t offer much to consumers other than a conditional endorsement by a governing body with its own selective criteria for excellence. They don’t offer gamers much help in determining if a winning game is right for them.

Sure, it’s always nice to see a game that interests me won an award of some sort; but it’s not an accurate indication it’s a good fit for me. I didn’t know the Aliens game won a Charles S. Roberts award when I bought it...I knew from reviews and videos it was probably a good fit for my gaming style and enthusiasm for the movie. When I bought West End Game’s first edition Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game in 1987, I didn’t know or care when it won an Origins Award; I would have bought a Star Wars roleplaying game any company published. I snatched up a bargain-priced used copy of Agricola not because it won a boatload of international awards but because someone in the gaming community I greatly respected spoke highly of it (and also taught me how to pronounce it correctly). For all of these, and many others I buy or put on wish lists, I read reviews on Board Game Geek, search for how-to-play videos, listen to recommendations from friends and trusted voices in the gaming community, and otherwise seek critical information on how a game plays to satisfy my own criteria for whether a game is worthy of buying.

Awards have their place. Creators benefit from the visibility and recognition. As an indicator of suitability for individual gamers awards have marginal value. They can validate our interest in a game, testifying to its general quality, but, as with many games across varying genres and many facets of the adventure gaming hobby, your mileage may vary.

One final note. Awards nominations serve as good resources to see what notable games were recently published. They’re like any tool, particularly the internet, that offers us a glimpse at the gaming radar of all the numerous titles out there we might not otherwise notice. Lately the more comprehensive gaming awards – with more and specific categories that sprawl over several pages – have demonstrated the increasingly unmanageable volume of new game materials on every front of the adventure gaming hobby; far more than any one person could appreciate, even in one game genre. It’s evidence of the hobby’s amazing growth, creativity, and diversity of form, quality, and content; but it can also overwhelm folks, newcomers and old grognards, trying to navigate an ocean of material to find just the right match for their own gaming needs.

Postscript

I’ve mentioned a few times above how creators gain a boost winning awards. That’s great and all, but, speaking as a creator with no awards and having heard other creators talk about meaningful recognition of their work, we derive satisfaction, validation, and encouragement, from other, more accessible forms of acknowledgment. Positive reviews. Uplifting features in magazines or online. Personal correspondence by mail, e-mail, in forums, or private messages on social media platforms. Your positive messages matter to creators. I would rather hear how one more gamer enjoyed material I developed than win any popularly recognized award. I keep files of compliments – going back to my Star War Adventure Journal Days – and occasionally peek at them when I’m feeling particularly discouraged. Let us know what you particularly enjoyed and we’ll try to keep on creating more.

“Awards mean absolutely nothing if you don’t get it. If you do get it, they’re the best thing in the world.”

– Mads Mikkelsen