Do Awards affect your Shopping habits?

[hutchback]

Do awards influence my purchases of RPGs? No. Things like theme, the likelihood I can get enough people to play and the scope of materials available for a game are important factors to me. Awards don't typically take these into account.

However awards for gaming accessories and support materials? Yes, I would say awards can influence my purchases. I feel that due to the specific focus that these types of projects tend to have. The criteria for the awards they win can a lot less subjective. An award for a specific accessory is a good indication that it does what it claims to do well.

 

[Crothian]

I am more likely to buy and look at winning and nominated products. Sunday when I was able to get into the dsealer hall I took the list and went around and looked at all the products on the list that were there that I was not already familiar with. Some that I like I bought.

 

[Princesskeyblade]

I am more likely to buy and look at winning and nominated products. Sunday when I was able to get into the dsealer hall I took the list and went around and looked at all the products on the list that were there that I was not already familiar with. Some that I like I bought.

This. Although I accidentally chose the wrong choice on the poll.

Without the nominee list, I may never have checked out Spirit of the Century, Qin, HEX or Monsters and Other Childish Things. Before the nominations, I had never heard of these games. Now they are among some of my favorites.

 

[Morrus]

Don't Awards contribute to Word of Mouth?

I think so.

I've tried analysing my behaviour towards the Oscars before. Now, I'd be the first to declare that I utterly ignore the Oscars. But the thing is - I'm not sure that I do. Sure, I don't look at the list of Oscar nominees and select my movie-viewing from that list. And of course I don't ever think "it won an Oscar, so it must be good".

But I think it's hard for anyone to honestly say that the Oscars don't influence their opinion or awareness of certain movies at all. Sure, I can't read minds - there are probably people out there who are utterly immune to advertising, to awards, etc.; if there were some way to objectively test that, I'd put money on the number of people who actually were unaffected by such things is smaller than the number of people who believe they are. The sample of people who claim to be unaffected by advertising out of those I've ever discussed it with is so disproportionately high as to not jove even vaguely with the market research and financial investment that companies put into these things; if they didn't work, they wouldn't do it. If the percentage of people who claimed to be unaffected by advertising was real, it wouldn't be a viable investment. But they do do it - all of them do, and they spend a lot of money doing it and measuring the effects.

For example, I, a steadfast critic of Oscar choices, am fairly sure that some nominated movies I might have flicked past without a second glance have become movies that, upon seeing them, I (maybe not even consciously) recall the positive buzz and pause and check it out a little. Maybe I still decide it's not for me, but I'm fairly sure it has an effect, if only small.

Of course, I can't claim to be a representative sample of anything except me. And certainly the ENnies don't have a teeny percentage of the influence that something the size of the Oscars has. But I think the effect is there, if not on the same scale.

However - that's not what I see as being the value of the ENnies. I believe that the ENnies true value is saying to a writer, an artist, etc. "Hey - you did a great job!" And I've heard so many people tell me how damn good it feels to get that ENnie that I see value right there.

 

[Psion]

To me, the average game has to catch my attention to in some way convince me it's worth taking a look at and not just part of the morass of middling games that will be gone inside of a year.

Awards are one way to make me do that. Though I will say I don't think that awards are a definitive sign of the viability of a game.

 

[Wicht]

But I think it's hard for anyone to honestly say that the Oscars don't influence their opinion or awareness of certain movies at all.

I don't pay too much attention to the Oscars at all, though I'm an avid movie watcher, but I know I first heard of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," because it won an Oscar. And it sounded cool so I watched it.

 

[Morrus]

I don't pay too much attention to the Oscars at all, though I'm an avid movie watcher, but I know I first heard of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," because it won an Oscar. And it sounded cool so I watched it.

But the effect might not be first-hand, might not mention the word "Oscar" and, indeed, might not even be conscious.

Of course, I'm only talking in generalities.

 

[Starfox]

I thought awards was something you got when your product became popular, fashionable, and sold well. Not the other way around. Especially public-poll awards like the ENies.

To serve as a recommendation to me, an award would have to be handed out by a panel of judges reading many, many published works - not the public itself. Having the public judge just makes it a popularity contest. You will never catch the odd gem in a popularity contest.

 

[IronWolf]

To serve as a recommendation to me, an award would have to be handed out by a panel of judges reading many, many published works - not the public itself. Having the public judge just makes it a popularity contest. You will never catch the odd gem in a popularity contest.

And this is why a lot of people actual value the nomination list as much as the award itself when it comes to discovering new RPG products. The ENnies judges do read a very large number of submitted products and select the nominations from those. Then the public gets to vote.

 

[Wicht]

I thought awards was something you got when your product became popular, fashionable, and sold well. Not the other way around. Especially public-poll awards like the ENies.

To serve as a recommendation to me, an award would have to be handed out by a panel of judges reading many, many published works - not the public itself. Having the public judge just makes it a popularity contest. You will never catch the odd gem in a popularity contest.

And yet many of us continue to find hidden gems we were unaware of during the ENnie process.