Or, you know, the Gamer’s Choice awards, whatever.
UPDATE: As you’ve seen if you’ve gone ahead and voted, as I’ve now had time to do, the “Gamer’s Choice” voting process A) reshapes your voting choices in some unannounced ways, and B) has more bugs than Kermit the Frog’s refridgerator. Let the complaining begin continue!
Hmmm, perhaps if no one voted, then they might get the hint…or, not, as they say.
WHAT hint?
What alleged problem do you have with the Origins Awards?
And how will your lack of participation do anything other than give you something to bitch needlessly about.
Either state your problem (and hopefully, a solution) or be silent.
Frank “Grayhawk” Huminski
who is tired of stupidities like the one above.
Oh now we are down to name calling. Very adult of you. Since the gauntlet is thrown in such a mature way, I will try and rise above, and not point any needless obsenities at you (such as idiot, or jerk, or…well I am sure you get the idea, or maybe you don’t.)
It’s simple. Read the categories. Then look at the nomines. Let’s choose one small example. I don’t want to overly tax your small mind. (Damn, went and pulled myself down to your level again. Remember, inside voice, outside voice…inside voice, outside voice. Whew…better.)
How does “Creepy Freaks” fit into “Best Board-game?” I am not ever referring to the quality of the product, because it’s not a bad game. I played it, I liked it. However, even the manufacturer called it a “Tradable Miniatures Game.” Until Origins can actually place games into the categories they really live in, the awards will be a mockery. If you go down the list, you will see this is not the only example.
Flame all you will, I am certain I am not the only one who feels they sure could have done better then they did.
Grayhawk, calm it down. Commentary and conversation are invited, not immature insults.
CF isn’t even the biggest howler on the board – try the nomination of the almost entirely abstract Senjutsu under “Historical Gaming Product.” But I’m used to miscategorizations and oversights in the Origins Awards. They’re less galling to me than the fact that we don’t appear to be invited to vote on miniatures rules _at all_. I mean, that’s one way to stop WizKids winning everything whether they deserve to or not, but come on.
Whew, glad to know it wasn’t just me having problems voting. I sent an email to them on it; if I hear back I’ll post their response.
-Tim
First and foremost, if anything I said was taken as a insult, I apologize. It was not meant as a personal attack on Penn42 or against anyone else.
Secondly, I think there is something misunderstood about the process for a game to get nominated for an Origins Award, and that is what leads to some of the “howlers” (to quote Misuba). A game is first submitted for consideration by either the company that published the game or a designer of the game for consideration. Only one product may be submitted per category per company or individual. (As a side note, this is one of the big problems that Steve Jackson has mentioned he has with the process int he past). I would believe that this restriction has been instituted by the Academy so that GW or WK doesn’t end up with 10,000 (or would that be better stated as 40k?) seperate entries. So, the miscategorizations are more the result of companies trying to get more of their products in contention.
Once all the submissions are in, the Academy members then vote on all submissions, and the top 5 or 6 vote getters are placed up for the final ballot. My understanding of the reasons behind the two different sets of awards this year (People’s Choice and Origins Awards) is that is due to the huge outcry over last year’s awards, where John Kovalic and Wizkids walked off with over half of the awards (granted, some of those that JK accepted were for his work on SJGames products, but since no one else will go up and accept the award, he does it…).
Hopefully, this explains why some things are put in odd categories (it’s the companies, not the AAGAD).
Again, I apologize to all for any perceived insults.
FYI, the voting process seems to be working now, thanks to the tech folks at Green Ronin. Give it a try, and don’t forget you can always write in something if it’s not on the list.
-Tim
As a follow up to my last post, if you go to http://www.aagad.org, there is a link near the top which reads “Origins Award Process In Detail”. Click on it to see where I gleaned much of the above information from.
Thanks for the followups Grayhawk. No harm, no foul. 🙂
I think my main concern with everything listed is (and I had read the nomination rules before I posted, but here is my main question) If the AAGAD created the categories, shouldn’t they then police them? Misuba made a much better example than mine under historical simulation. I guess my main point/problem is really this: How can the results in voting be accurate, unless the body creating the categories actually insures the playing field is a level one? When a single category mangages to run the gambit internally, as a voter, I am at a disadvantge. When voters are at a disadvantage, the whole process is put in question.
Don’t get me wrong, as a retailer, I would love for the Origins Awards to really mean something more than they do. Gaming having a meaningful set of awards, that the average person on the street might be able to read about in the newspaper would be WONDERFUL. We just aren’t there, and I see this as one more reason why…again, just my $.02.
There are the GAMES 100, which may not be better selections by our standards but do get more press, and there are a number of newspapers such as the SF Chronicle that do a breakdown of the year’s best games every so often. Maybe someone or another could hunt those down and aggregate them, but they’d also have more of a family lean.