Do Awards affect your Shopping habits?

[Wicht]

The question has been raised: do the ENnies (and awards like them) affect the way you shop for games.

I know, for myself, the awards inform me of games to consider. This is true of the German game of the year award, Origin awards and the ENnies. I don’t rush out and buy every award winner, but they do make me take notice. I know Mouse Guard was bought by myself because of the awards it had garnered and I am certainly now going to take a closer look at Eclipse Phase and buy a copy if I can, when I can.

 

[jonesy]

You need an option that says "I am more likely to notice award winning games". =)

Not because I intentionally search for those, but because stores tend to use them to attract sales of the product itself and the store as a whole. "Look, we sell award winning games. Here's some. Buy them. They're awesome".

I don't know if that makes me more likely to buy them, but it does give them immediate publicity. It makes me more likely to know about them. That's the first step in generating sales through addvertising.

 

[Wicht]

You need an option that says "I am more likely to notice award winning games". =)

Not because I intentionally search for those, but because stores tend to use them to attract sales of the product itself and the store as a whole. "Look, we sell award winning games. Here's some. Buy them. They're awesome".

I don't know if that makes me more likely to buy them, but it does give them immediate publicity. It makes me more likely to know about them. That's the first step in generating sales through addvertising.

Thats the third option; or was meant to be. That is, you are more likely to give them a once over (however you do that) even if you don't buy them.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I complete ignore awards when considering which games to purchase.

Self-selected fan-voted awards like the ENnies are especially cut out of my decision-making process; they're only representative of the tastes and enthusiasm of the people who vote for them.

I doubt my particular tastes are in line with the entire gaming population; even if you could get everyone who actually plays roleplaying games to vote for a set of awards, that wouldn't necessarily produce a set of winners that I would enjoy. A much, much smaller segment of the gaming population like that which decides the ENnies is even less representative - and the overwhelming performance of Pathfinder (congratulations to the Paizo crew, by the way) demonstrates that this segment definitely doesn't share my tastes.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Do I look at award results? Sometimes. Do I pay attention to the winners and read more about them? Sometimes. Have I bought something because of it? No, but it's not inconceivable that I could find something good on that basis.

 

[El Mahdi]

I voted "I buy every award winning game that I can". However, since I really don't have the money to buy any games at the moment, my answer would actually be "I didn't buy every award winning game because I can't". If I could I would though, so I tried to choose the most accurate option...

In all seriousness though, I hadn't heard of the Eclipse Phase or Diaspora games at all until I looked them up (due to their being nominees). I plan on picking both up now, because of their nominations, and especially because of their wins.

However, I think this is of greater impact for smaller companies or titles that may not necessarily have a lot of exposure to potential customers, than it probably is for larger companies or titles that do have a lot of exposure.

 

[Diamond Cross]

I generally only buy games that I like or am interested in. Rewards don't influence me, the concept should sound interesting.

And there should be a preview.

 

[deadsmurf]

An award makes more likely to check something out, but its not the be-all and end all of what makes me buy a game. But for example, I definitely still want to check out mouse guard.

 

[JeffB]

sole "less likely" vote so far.

I know my tastes are definitely not mainstream when it comes to modern RPG books (or alot of other things). As evidenced by the huge "pathfinder sweep" at the ENnies, PF products are totally opposite to my tastes-rules, art, writing style, etc (not a slight-just an example).

 

[jaerdaph]

I have learned about many games I didn't know about before because they were either nominated for or won an ENnie and subsequently checked them out further, an some of them I've even ended up buying.