I don’t really care about awards and award events.
Ennie Awards.
Origins Awards. All of them. It is not my things. To me, awards are basically high school popularity contest. Everyone makes this big deal about them and how important they are. “People” vote on them and a winner is picked. Normally what happens is you see the same old people voting for these awards and the same old people keep winning awards. Once in a while something wins that no one expects should win, but more often the person who is expected to win, wins. In the RPG industry it is even worse, because it is amazing how many of these companies win the Ennie Awards or Origins Awards on ONE product in a product line and then they never put out more products for that product line. In some even crazier cases, the winner is never heard from or seen again. WTF?!?!?!??!? It is like the
Best New Artist award in the Grammys.
I understand why people like them and in some cases need them. But for me, WASTE OF TIME!!! Instead of wasting time on seeing if you can get an award, how about making better products? How about you focus on building you fan base or expanding your
Tribe
as
Seth Godin
suggested. You think
Tony Hsieh of
Zappos.com according to the company, the core value is to "deliver 'wow' through service. Talk about an award you give to your customers. Work on getting your customer the best products they can purchase and you will win the best prize of them all: Freedom to run your RPG Hobby company as a full time profitable business. No little award will do that, but a dedicated fan base will. The only award I want is success and I work very hard everyday to win it. How about you? Talk to you later…
And yet...so many people wouldn't hear about a wide variety of games unless they see them nominated for (or winning) an award. To say that they server *no* purpose seems to be an awfully narrow view.
ReplyDelete@grayhawkfh To me that sounds like BAD MARKETING. Good things get talked about. Is Google, EBay, Amazon or Paypal popular because they won awards OR because people talked about them?
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes people talk about them because they win awards, and there are people who know about them, and talk about them, but when they win an award that is when they will buy your product sight unseen, that is when they become one of your "True Fans" You don't want them talking about them you want them spending the $100 per year on your products.
ReplyDeleteMy real problem with the awards is they are about the companies and not about the artists,
Why is it about best adventure and not best adventure writer? Why is it best cartography and not best cartographer? Best Cover Art instead of Best Cover Artist? Best Interior Art instead of Best interior artist? Best Developer? Best Graphic Designer? Best Editor?
A product does not grow your "tribe" the IP grows the "tribe" and some artists could grow their own "tribe" which would help sell your products.
Too often we are concerned with the "tribe" of Rite Publishing and LpJr Design rather than the "tribe" of Jade Oath, Obsidian Twilight, Coliseum Morpheuon, Haven, Questhaven or NeoExodus
But Yeah... as it is I expect Paizo to take a silver or gold award on anything they are nominated for because when it comes to the ENnies the nominations are by judges but the award is a popularity contest.
Steve Russell
Rite Publsihing
I agree there's little quality control other than popularity in the RPG awards. Not to mention, the very nature of these awards automatically favors the bigger, widely-recognized companies and their products, while giving very few chances for small publishers or even mid-range publishers.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, even the stuff I contributed to for you had some basic technical flaws, but nothing White Wolf isn't guilty of in their confusing supplements and corebooks. At least Magic of Neoexodus lacked major spelling flaws or "refer to page XX" like WW is guilty of.
I know I've heard of some games via awards that I've then been moved to investigate and loved. Like I ignored Kenzer & Co because I'm not into Hackmaster, but Aces & Eights won a bunch of awards and I was like "really? They make real games?" I got it and it's boss!
ReplyDelete