Do Awards affect your Shopping habits?

[Verdande]

I, personally, ignore game awards because I'm an idiosyncratic gamer. I don't really care if everybody else in the world likes Shadowrun and Pathfinder, as the EnWorld awards show, because neither of those games provide the game experience that I prefer. I know that, which is why they're unimportant to me. I know that EnWorld regulars tend strongly towards 3rd edition D&D and 4th edition D&D, and that the awards would be useful to me if I played those games. I know that my tastes aren't in the mainstream, or even shared by a great many people. That's fine.

But, these awards are about as useful as the Grammies are to my music selection choices, or as the magazine "Teen Vogue" is to my clothes selection. For the market they're aimed at, they're certainly useful. Unfortunately, they're not aimed at me.

 

[jasonbostwick]

I suppose that the Ennies might have made me notice a few games this year, but they haven't influenced my buying habits. I bought all of the Pathfinder products before they were nominated based more on word of mouth.

For most of the other products [Shadowrun, Eclipse Phase], even though they won Ennies I'm unlikely to pick them up because I'm not really interested in the genre.

 

[DragonLancer]

I ignore them. Just as a I ignore reviews for movies, resturants and such.

 

[Nifft]

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.

This.

I only buy games that I've looked at, and I only look at games that I know exist. Awards do help with the "knowing it exists" step.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Wicht]

Nope. Word of mouth and reviews are what will make me look at a product I hadn't noticed before, not awards.

Don't Awards contribute to Word of Mouth?

I know that Mouse Guard, last year, was much more talked about after it won awards than before. Likewise, Eclipse Phase was a game I had heard mentioned, but more so after the ENnie nod this year. That is, the Award gives people an opportunity to talk when they might otherwise not mention how much they like the game.

Likewise, the Awards stimulate reviews as well, do they not: forcing people that write reviews to take a closer look if they had previously not written about a certain game.

 

[Dice4Hire]

As a general rule of thumb, I play WOTC games, which I can get over here, and most of the Ennie award winners were games I have never heard about and could only get by ordering from the states, which is quite expensive.

But admittedly my gaming experience is a narrow one.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Awards have no bearing on what games I purchase. Judges clearly base their assumptions on what is good and what is not based on their own tastes, which in all likelihood will not reflect my own. Also, judges can be bias (pro or anti something) based on their previous experiences, which again will not reflect my own.

I tend to read reviews and look through forums for people's experiences and opinions. People that play the game are (for me) based place to judge it.

 

[Bluenose]

The only attention I pay to awards is when the nominations come out. If I look through them and see an unfamiliar name I will take a look at the game behind it. But honestly a game that wins awards is no more likely to be one I end up buying than a game which doesn't. Reviews influence me a lot more, if they're from someone whose other reviews have suggested their tastes are similar to mine.

 

[IronWolf]

Don't Awards contribute to Word of Mouth?

I know that Mouse Guard, last year, was much more talked about after it won awards than before. Likewise, Eclipse Phase was a game I had heard mentioned, but more so after the ENnie nod this year. That is, the Award gives people an opportunity to talk when they might otherwise not mention how much they like the game.

I agree with this thought. There are many people that while they may not buy the game simply because it won an award (a wise practice in my eyes), but they will at least take a look to see what it is all about and see if it fits in with their preferred genre of game. During this phase there is a good chance talk and discussion of the game will increase contributing to word of mouth.

So I suspect that while people saying word of mouth is where they get info on games, this is an indirect result of the increased visibility for a game being nominated for an award. No proof of that of course, but it seems reasonable.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I ignore award shows in general so I'm not really picking on the ENNIES or anything when I say they have no influence in what I purchase. The sole exception I can remember would be Mouse Guard - I am really interested in that one and had never heard of it before last year. I still haven't actually bought it though