Have you bought any books because they won an ENnie?

[Gez]

Nope, never had.

However, it could happen, if I hesitate between two similar products, then I'll go for the one which seems the better -- and one with an ENnie while the isn't don't would get an advantage there.

The last time this happened, though, was when I wanted a sourcebook for naval combat and hesitated between Mongoose's Seas of Blood and FFG's Seafarer's Handbook.

 

[tensen]

Are sales really a major goal of the ENnie (either for those awarding it or the publisher)? If so, then there are a number of categories to remove. Will winning the award for best cover art sell a book? If I like a cover I might buy a book. However, I won't buy a book because it's cover won an award. It doesn't make sense.

Well, certain categories like that sell the artist. Not to the buyers of the book, but the buyers of the art. Aka, the artist gets a good selling point to the publishers.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The ENnies don't make me buy something, but they have made me look at products that I had not looked at before. Sometimes I have then bought these books, sometimes I have not. I won't buy something just because it wins an award, but I will certainly look and see what made it so good and then judge for myself whether it is something I will use.

I have limited time and money - a book may be outstanding, but if I will never use it, I won't buy it just to reward or encourage those who published it - I am not a charitable foundation.

 

[skinnydwarf]

Yeah, I look to the Ennies to seperate the wheat from the chaff. I know the reviews section helps there, too, and I do use it a lot. My gaming dollars are so few, and I look to the Ennies for ideas of D20 stuff to buy. I probably never would have gotten The Vault of Larin Karr if it hadn't been nominated, for example.

 

[fusangite]

I don't use the ENNies to determine what specific books to buy. What I do use them for is figuring out what third party publishers are safe to buy from. If a firm has never won, I'm much less likely to buy their products. Green Ronin is the main publisher I would cite on that front. I trust Green Ronin products the way I trust WOTC products -- I just purchase them without worrying too much that they are crap or might unbalance my game. And I do that because of the ENNies.

 

[Berandor]

I bought "Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" due to its ENnie publicity. I am considering "Redhurst: Academy of Magic" and "Grim Tales" as soon as I have a little funding (though, to be fair, Grim Tales since before ENnies as an idea, but its success has overcome my doubts).
I also plan to go over the nominee/winner list of this and last year as soon as my bank allows me to buy RPG books again, looking primarily for products I don't know much about (preferably PDF books, but not exclusively) to check them out.

ETA: I just wanted to say that I do *not* care for ENnie winners, but for the nominees. With winners, I feel a big user base might still prevails against a slightly better small product (which makes counter-examples all the more worth checking out, I think). But it is nice to own a product that won an Ennie, that's for sure.

 

[Leopold]

no. I have looked at items that won ennies to see what they are about but never bought one cause of it.

 

[megamania]

I buy books that interest me and my players talk about. I can't really say I am influenced by ENnies. I don't pay enough attention to it to say it influences me.

HOWEVER-

Reading what people have to say about books on the threads here does influence me.

So, the ENnies don't influence me but EN World does. Go figure.

 

[Meadred]

Speaking for myself, I have never ever bought "any" book because it has won "any" sort of award Ennie or otherwise.

I buy books based on "need", "content" and "review" in that order, indeed the only thing if anything, which can ever make me impulse buy is good art.. i'm a sucker for a pretty book or picture.

I have to agree with Neo. My primary decision support tools when purchasing a new product are also "need", "content" and "reviews". Furthermore, my book case is filled with RPG books, so I wouldn't buy another book simply because it won an award.

However, I read the list of products nominated for the ENnies, and I will usually browse the web site of any publisher that has had a product nominated and that I haven't heard of before. If that publisher then has something interesting it'll end up on my "I want"-list. So, while I probably wouldn't buy a product solely because it won an ENnie, it will make me interested in the publisher and that publisher's products.

Cheers,
Meadred

 

[D_Sinclair]

Well, I don't think it quite counts, but the office got a copy of Sidewinder: Recoiled because it was on sale because of the ENnies..

On a side not, I think another question needs to be asked in conjunction with this. Have any publishers seen a sales spike due to the awards given out an Origins every year? Those have been going for like 20 years, so I think they'd be a far clearer indicator of the influence of awards on sales than awards as young as the ENnies.