Branstorming for ENnies 2003 -- improvements, changes, etc

[EricNoah]

Re: You may be joking but ...

Amusing, but in reality this could become a problem for morrus in a future ENnies award. Morrus runs one of the companies competing and is in charge of the rules for award. People who are regulars on these boards trust that nothing funny goes on but... there's always someone with a spinning round stone looking for an axe to grind.

Joe

Natural 20 Press is competing against other companies for consumer dollars, yes. They're not competing against other companies for the ENnies -- Natural 20 isn't eligible and it would be silly if they were. If Russ wants to give himself an award I'm sure he could do just that.

And really, with the way it's set up (popular vote rules the election of judges and selecting the final "winner") I can't see how he could possibly use that to his advantage.

 

[kingpaul]

Re: Re: You may be joking but ...

Natural 20 Press is competing against other companies for consumer dollars, yes. They're not competing against other companies for the ENnies -- Natural 20 isn't eligible and it would be silly if they were. If Russ wants to give himself an award I'm sure he could do just that.

And the winner of the "I'm so damned cool" award is...well...me!

And really, with the way it's set up (popular vote rules the election of judges and selecting the final "winner") I can't see how he could possibly use that to his advantage.

That's also why publishers can't be on the panel of judges, yes?

 

[jmucchiello]

Re: Re: You may be joking but ...

They're not competing against other companies for the ENnies -- Natural 20 isn't eligible and it would be silly if they were. If Russ wants to give himself an award I'm sure he could do just that.

Ah. Rangerwicket was joking at higher level than I realized. I wasn't aware that morrus disqualified himself originally. Thanks for the update.

And really, with the way it's set up (popular vote rules the election of judges and selecting the final "winner") I can't see how he could possibly use that to his advantage.

Neither do I. But if he were to compete and win people could take it the wrong way. That was all I was saying. The fact that he isn't competing is too bad. There could be a superhero category in 2003 with all of the companies that have d20 books in that genre coming out.

Joe

 

[EricNoah]

Re: Re: Re: You may be joking but ...

That's also why publishers can't be on the panel of judges, yes?

Yep, and why Piratecat, who was a judge the first year, couldn't do it this time for example. If, in this next year, he's not published then I wouldn't see a reason to disqualify him from trying to get nominate as a judge.

You know, one of the effects of the d20 boom is that anyone can get into publishing. Perhaps one of the drawbacks is that eventually everyone at EN World will be published and will be ineligible to vote all in one year!

 

[Ghostwind]

A plausible solution to the potential issue of Natural d20's dilemma would simply be to increase the number of judges to eight, rather than the five that exist now. The three new judges would come from outside the EN World community (by that I mean they aren't directly involved in providing content to the site, such as affiliate reviewers, or running the site) and would serve to represent the segment of the population that are not registered members of the community (per se). A suggestion as to who would be the additional judges would be individuals respected by both gamers and the industry at large. Adlon from Mortality.net, Spike Jones from the Open Gaming Exchange, and Damon White from Gaming Report.com come immediately to mind as potential candidates although I am certain there are others equally qualified.

 

[kingpaul]

A plausible solution to the potential issue of Natural d20's dilemma would simply be to increase the number of judges to eight, rather than the five that exist now.

<snip>

I like the idea of a possible increase of the panel, but I'd prefer it be an odd number, so ties are never possible.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't think Russ sees it as much of a dilemma. Natural 20 Press products will simply never be up for an ENnie. I think he sees it as a way to generate a little cash for the site and to give talented community members a boost into potentially getting published by other companies.

 

[DPGDarrin]

Natural 20 Press products will simply never be up for an ENnie.

Natural 20 can actually already boast something just as, if not more prestigious than winning an ENnie: It (he, Russ) hosts them.

 

[Morrus]

Al (my travelling companion) works for a market research company and suggested an idea to me while we travelled from NY to Boston today.

If there is a problem, then it's the market share issue. So the resolution to the problem must address that - a mechanism which allows all publishers to compete on a level playing field. In other words, a situation needs to be created whereby each of the five nominees has a "virtual" equal market share.

Of course, this would be easy if we had everyone's sales figures. An algorithm could be whipped up in a matter of minutes which nullified any advantage gained by market share. However, we don't have those sales figures, and we never will.

So we need to figure out market shares ourselves. More precisely, we need only to figure out what the market share is amongst those who will be voting. So we ask the voters.

With a properly constructed survey, we could find out what each publisher's market share is within the limits of the EN World community. We won't be able to find out what the real global market share is - but we don't need to know that. We only need to know the proliferation of various pulishers' products amongst those who will be voting.

It might take some work - "market share" has to be defined in this context (and do we count the number of people who have a book, who have seen a book, or who have heard of a book?).

There are statistical anomalies that can crop up using a method such as this, but Al tells me that there are various surveying techniques which can nullify the effect of such things.

 

[Mystic Eye]

IMHO, I don't think there should be any changes in the ENnies. As a developer, I have a lot of interest in winning a "Best of..." award someday. I have absolutely no interest in winning a "Second Best of..." award. If WotC isn't involved in the competition, I really don't see much point -- and I suspect many fans will feel the same way.

The awards should continue to be open to any company that publishes game products using the d20 System, and that most certainly includes the company that invented the system and allowed all the rest of us to use it. If third-party publishers don't want to compete with WotC, they can organize their own awards.

Good job, all. Don't go changin'.

Greg
FFG

Sorry for my late arrival to this talk but I agree with Greg, and my parnter in crime, Hal, and Eric Mona (though he failed to even mention us poor souls in his comments even though we had six nominations between MEG and TG alone-heheh).

One day we will win a " best of" against WOTC as we continually strive to raise the bar and our circulation will continue to increase. We will continue to get nominated because we will continue to provide products that get us those nominations. It may take years but it will happen for us, I promise.

I would rather strive hard for a victory against WOTC then have them removed from the running. It is a high bench mark but we are up to the challenge.

So, that is my take on it. Change nothing. Leave it as it is as far as nominations and voting because it ain't broke!