ENnies: Publisher feedback and suggestions sought on the future of the ENnies

[Paradigm]

Incidentally, it occurs to me that a question needs to be asked. The impression I get from this thread is that publishers perceive that the ENnies don't benefit them (and thus they have no motivation to offer support for them); conversely, I have indicated that the ENnies don't benefit me.

Lots of people say that the Origins Award never sold any books for them, but it doesn't stop some folks from being rabid about them,

The ENies are another reason to visit your site. The ENies are another thing that publishers can use to talk about how good their stuff is. This is about all that can be expected from awards.

What you as the site owner/admin need to decide is if the benefits of increased traffic and prestige for the site are worth the effort of putting the awards together. I happen to think that they are.

 

[Dextra]

On the topic at hand, I'm intrigued by the quarterly ENnies idea. I still heavily am in favor of all the publishers providing pdf samples of their products so that when we have voting people will be able to see what all the competition is.

So . . .

Quarter 1: May to July
Quarter 2: August to October
Quarter 3: November to January
Quarter 4: February to April

I would actually suggest Jan-March, April-June, July-September, October-December: that way it would be GTS releases, Origins releases, GenCon & DragonCon releases, and WFF & Christmas releases.

 

[Paradigm]

1. Move up the deadline date for the ENnies.

This would be good so that the nominees can be listed in the program.

2. Have publishers ship products directly to the judges..

I would have no issue with that.

3. Entry fee, donations, or some other way to pay for the ENnies

1) Increase the entry fee to $10/publishers and $2/additional product.

2) Have some kind of donation drive.

Run official ENies events for pay. An ENWorld sponsered game at GenCon that uses rules from the nominated products. Charge an additional $3.00 per ticket above what GenCon wants, a few weeks after the show you will get a check for the difference. 75 players should be achievable and that would get you about $225.00 and more if you run it twice...

And run a donation drive.

4. Change from a d20 RPG awards to a general RPG awards ceremony.

I dislike this idea.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

We certainly appreciate an awards system that, at least for the juried nomination stage, is truly a recognition of merit. I believe such nomination do benefit publishers, and we strongly support EnWorld's efforts.

A perfectly stated expression of my own opinion.

 

[dsfriii]

Eliminate the judges from the process. Make the entire awards public-vote driven with multiple rounds. Publishers merely have to submit the titles they've produced in the time period allotted (and moving up the time period sounds like a good idea). Now there's no shipping involved, and no product value to be discussed. In fact, with that decrease in cost to publishers, I'd think that a small entry fee would seem reasonable to cover the cost of the trophies and other miscellaneous stuff. Or, the money that GenCon is saving could then be used otherwise.

I like this idea alot. I elimanates the need for the the products to be review my a select group before voted on by the community. Plus saves money.

And how about this...what if the Publishers are required to ship one copy to EnWorld. But the copy be a signed copy that gets auction off to the EnWorld Comunity that uses the money to pay for the awards???

 

[PJ-Mason]

Well, i'm no expert on rpg sales. But i can tell you this. When i walk into my FLGS, They don't know ENWorld from Adam. The majority of those that do know of it, is because i told them. The Store owner certaintly doesn't care (i know him). ENWorld has real big impact on PDF and Online sales, i'n sure. For those that sell pdfs (or got started that way) i can understand why ENWorld is so dear to them. But to expect publishers whose business is based on selling print books (where i don't think ENWorld has that much of an impact) to belief that the Ennies are vital to them or has a big impact on their companies is probably a hard sell. So you really are only asking them for donations.

Now from a personal standpoint, i'd rather you toned down the awards in the first place. I think Monte's suggestion is the best. Let the people decide. I could give a crap less what 5 or 6 "judges" think. I'd rather see what 4 or 5 THOUSAND think. Even if its nothing more than a glorified ENWorld poll!!
Have the fans nominate the entries and vote on who the winners are. Give the winners a nice lollipop.

 

[Jim Butler]

Mr. Butler, I don't want to side track this thread, but I would be interested in discussing your opinion of how E.N. Publishing's presence on this site affects the value of ENWorld to you as a publisher. If you'd be willing to send me an email at RangerWickett@hotmail.com, I'd like to see if we can address your grievances without interfering with E.N. Publishing's business.

As requested, I've sent this via private email.

Vote for judges in April each year. Each quarter, the judges pick one product in each of 12 categories, and these awards are given out without a popular vote, being announced within a month of that quarter's end. Then in June the next year, in each category the four winners from the quarters, plus up to two 'wildcard' or 'merit' or 'lucky' products, go up for popular voting. The results are announced at GenCon, with a big celebration.

I'd actually like to see the popular vote each quarter. Star Chamber awards (decided by Judges in secret) aren't going to energize the marketplace or make the fans feel good about the awards. All it will do is ensure that the favorites of the judges get a shot at the yearly awards.

 

[Nikchick]

Pre-Post Disclaimer: This isn't a snarky jab at big companies in general or Green Ronin specifically. I am as big a fan of GR as anyone (maybe bigger) and think they deserve every single accolade.

That said, its easier for a bigger company to gain a benefit from the awards as they stand imo. For a company like Green Ronin or Malhavoc, the cost of entering the awards, even if increased, would not be enough to sting or hurt the bottom line.

Further you have a realistic expectation of winning, year after year, which increases your already trememendous visibility among your customers.

Now let's dial it down to a company say, of RPGObjects' size...

Chuck, first I'll say that I definitely didn't take your post as a snarky jab at Green Ronin. Thanks.

That said, I do often find myself wanting to jump in when Green Ronin is painted as big monolithic force in these sorts of discussions, as if we have unlimited resources or legions of fans and lackeys or something.

Until this year, Green Ronin was three people. We started publishing as a part-time endeavor when everyone in the company had full-time day jobs. Over the course of three years we worked up to a point that one by one we were all able to make this job a full-time occupation. Earlier this year we were able to hire two full-time developers, for the first time in our company history. We're not supported by money from day jobs, by family trust funds or outside investments, or by our spouses. We built our company facing the same hurdles and barriers that many, many other publishers have faced. We're still only a five-person company and we are far from being so "successful" that we don't need to give every expenditure very careful consideration.

I do understand that Green Ronin's success is based on good timing and good fortune as much as it's based on the quality or appeal of our products. I've been around the industry long enough to know just how much timing and flat out good luck affect these things, and I'm deeply grateful for both. There are a lot of companies out there that have been denied the opportunity to break out, despite high quality offerings, because of bad luck or bad timing or both. Still, we didn't get what we have by magic... we built it, we took the opportunities that we could, and I guess my bottom line message is that you CAN do it, too!

 

[philreed]

Still, we didn't get what we have by magic... we built it, we took the opportunities that we could, and I guess my bottom line message is that you CAN do it, too!

Words all of us should keep in mind.

Good post!

 

[JVisgaitis]

Obviously, there is no solution that is going to satisfy everyone since the awards cover companies ran by one person out of their garage on weekends, to huge companies which have an entire staff of full time designers. This is just a smattering of some ideas that I liked as well as my own rumblings.

1. The date should definitely be moved up so the Ennie nominees can be listed in the Gencon program booklet. This is a benefit to the publishers so they can push the fact that they were nominated even further. A longer period of time for the nominations to take place would also benefit publishers and probably those poor judges. I feel for you Kushner!

2. The Ennies should be a yearly award. Anything less is diluting the validity of the awards even more. While one would tend to think that the publishers could hinge more marketing potential from it, I disagree. I would think that there wouldn’t be as much hype and the community would lose interest. My response would be, “Oh the Ennies again? Big deal.”

3. Shipping the entries. Honestly, this is probably the hot subject and the largest cost to EN World. Personally, if I had to ship out 6 different packages and being as small as we are it just isn’t economically feasible. PDF is one route to consider, but I think that might raise security concerns (Lord of the Rings: Oscar Edition anyone?). An entrance fee seems kinda inappropriate to me, but I understand Morris’ point on this. I’m going to be hung for this suggestion, but I’ll throw it out there anyway. How about a fee of like $1 or $2 per product submitted? This might serve as more of a litmus test for publishers so that the judges aren’t inundated with tons of entries. Also, its kind of represented in that someone who is submitting more products makes more money and they can better float the bill. I don’t know. This subject is the stickler for me. This also won’t cover EN World’s shipping charges, but should help. We can also consider requiring that the company submitting is a community supporter.

4. I like Monte's idea of having a Judges Choice and a People's Choice award instead of gold and silver. Smaller publishers just don’t have a chance when it comes down to a popular vote against some of the more recognizable companies such as Green Ronin.

5. If a winning company wants the actual physical trophy, they should have to pay for it. Really, what do you guys do with them anyway? Looks great in your office/den, but I never see them at the shows. Since we didn't win I'm not sure who floats that bill. I would imagine that it would be EN World and that probably is a fairly substantial cost. Plaques or even just paper certificates should more then suffice. Also, if some guy had to physically carve d20’s out of solid wood that must be crazy expensive! Can’t you just cast a mold out of one of them and make them in resin? I would think that would be a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to produce. There can be just one generic award on hand that everyone could pose with and have their picture taken. Prices could be marked up a bit over actual cost so the Ennies make a profit for future shows. As a personal touch, it would be nice to have the photo of the winner accepting the actual award at the show on the plaque itself.

6. The Ennies do need to have more public recognition. Why not register a new domain name and promote them through their own website? The site could be run by volunteers. Hell, I would design the site just to keep the awards going and in the public eye. This would have a history of the awards as well as all of the previous winners along with pictures and news from the event. We could have interviews with various companies at the show and really pump it up. There could also be blurbs written about the various companies on the website which would drive more traffic to their sites and products. Again, we can do banner advertising on this website as well which would be more revenue to pay for the Ennies.

7. I'm not sure what you guys did at the Ennies Booth as I was crazy busy and only saw it in passing. If everyone is saying that product sales for the winners are dead, where is the harm in having all of the products available for purchase at the Ennies booth? A couple people knew that we were nominated, but had a real hard time finding us. If there was a centralized location where one could browse and purchase the best products in the industry I think it would be a great draw. A percentage of sales garnered could be donated to the Ennies to pay for costs. There could also be other events ran at the booth to bring people in. Designers signing autographs and being available at the booth to talk to the fans. We could have the times displayed at the booth and get people to volunteer for a one hour time slot.

8. The peer award. I'm not sure how this was arranged, but doesn't it make more sense that everyone who is nominated for an Ennie be the ones to vote on the peer award? Maybe that was the case and I missed it, but I was surprised that we didn’t get to vote at the show. I expected to be handed a ballot with little check boxes that we would hand in.

9. We can do additional Sponsorships. More money for EN World and the Ennies and more exposure for the awards and the companies that want the exposure. I think this is a no brainer. Wizards of the Coast would definitely be my first choice for such a sponsorship.

10. Program Booklets. These could be handed out at the Ennies Booth. They would have a full list of the nominees as well as advertising space for whomever wanted it. This is something else that I think is a no brainer and would be a great benefit. They could also have a price list of all the products as well as each companies booth information so con goers could easily find the company they are looking for.

11. Someone else mentioned a dinner with your favorite designer. Not a bad idea, but what not just do an Ennies raffle with that being one of the prizes? We all have old product laying around gathering dust. Put them all together and raffle them off during the event. This is cheap for publishers to get rid of stagnant product, and it also again brings more revenue to the Ennies. Signed products and prints would probably be a big plus as well. Also, offering pre-released copies of products would probably go over well.

Whatever the outcome, I really don't want to see the Ennies disappear. It was one of my highlights of Gencon. I'll help out in anyway that I can to make sure that the Ennies are here next year. Thoughts?