Should WOTC participate in the ENnies?

[Dextra]

They did that last year, if I remember correctly.

I'm just sayin' is all.

Yep. They were there to collect their Silver ENnie for Best Publisher.

 

[Riley]

If the ENnies were decided by jury, I'd say yes. As they are, no way.
EN World is a D&D fansite. Look at the 2002 results to see what that means.
http://www.ennieawards.com/2002.html

I'd be happy to see WOTC return to the ENnies.

IMO - based on familiarity with most, but not all, of the 2002 nominees - WOTC deserved to win most, if not all, of the awards it received for 2002. Wheel of Time had better art than Deities and Demigods, though.

The d20 competitors have come far since then, and a few should be able to compete with WOTC. Still, I'm glad to hear the voting system has been tinkered with.

 

[Dextra]

I voted yes.

I'd like to submit that in 2002, the ENnies were still basically a d20 Award. Over the years, they've moved further away from being d20 or D&D awards and are now simply RPG Awards.

The judges are selected from online gamers, not just from EN World. Even then, EN World is not exclusively d20. The judges may have played d20, but are not necessarily primarily d20 players. They are familiar with and are fans of many different systems.

Those voting for the judges are online gamers, not just from EN World.

So the first hurdle WotC would have to surmount would be getting nominated.

I'm not making assumptions on the quality of their future product. I'm willing to bet that they should be able to turn out some tremendous work. That's the great thing about having a good budget- being able to afford great talent. And I suspect one of the reasons they have the money is that they sold lots of product. And the reason that lots of product was sold probably has a lot to do with it being good stuff.

I don't really see how punishing the big gaming company who helped resussitate RPGing, brought RPG books into mainstream bookstores and is enjoying some success is really helpful. We all know that the ENnies, once it comes down to the fan vote, are a popularity contest. But to say that larger companies shouldn't compete because they have a larger market share and thus an advantage (and no, it's not an unfair advantage- they earned it) seems wrong to me. Should we say that Paizo with its huge circulation shouldn't be allowed to compete in this year's awards because it isn't fair to "smaller" publishers?

Chances are, if WotC gets nominated in a category, it'll probably win so long as they drive the voters to the polls. In which case, I thank in advance the marketing machine of Hasbro for the additional traffic and visibility of the ENnies! But even then it's not a locked victory: with the new counting methods in place, even then "encumbents" aren't guaranteed victory.

I'm not concerned about the legitimacy of the awards based on which company or companies participate. We've already got legitimacy through a lot of hard work and support from a variety of publishers over the years. I'm also not about to start changing the rules to prevent a company from entering. We've never discriminated or promoted based on size of company or release, and I'm proud of it.

Quite frankly, I've felt sorry for the Wizards employees and freelancers who did so much work, not getting a shot at recognition from the fans because they couldn't enter. And I love Scott's comment about how if WotC did get beaten it could stir greater effort on their team.

Maybe I've got a unique perspective, having been the only product to beat WotC in a -however "minor" some may call it -category. But it really does feel good to compete (and win) against the big boys. Victory is so much the sweeter when the competition is made of truly opponents.

But finally, I love that people care so much about the Awards that they'll get fired up about them. We may not see eye to eye on some issues, but I respect the passion that you all feel on the subject.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Dextra, slayer of WotC!

 

[billd91]

The Best Picture award, for instance, is voted on by all members of the Academy. Which is why it's often a synonym for "the nominated film with the biggest box office." Return of the King wins, not because it's the best movie, but because vastly more Academy members saw it than any of the others.

I think you may be forgetting an even more likely motivation for voting for Return of the King... the Academy voters wanted to reward the trilogy and waited until the last one was out before collectively awarding the Best Picture Oscar to any of them.. even if that last member of the trilogy was weaker than the first. Oscar likes the big, previously thought impossible, project that a director and band of producers manage to complete.

Your analysis of the Academy awards also fails to easily account for Saving Private Ryan from losing to Shakespeare in Love.

That said, I can understand the concern about the big selling product walking away with the win if it gets nominated. There is value in being widely recognized. But I'd rather not rely on a jury to pick the award winners. We already rely on a jury to produce the list of nominees. I'd rather keep the fan involvement once the jury has narrowed the selection.

 

[Glyfair]

Yeah. Those aren't awards, they're marketing. It didn't occur to me that anyone thought the goal of the ENies was to act as a marketing arm for the product best able to afford it.

I suppose you have a different idea of the purpose of the awards than I do.

The website states:

The Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (the "ENnies") are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENnies give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples' choice award, and the final winners are voted upon by the gaming public at EN World.

I don't see anything about "excellence except when it's already a commercial success."

Now, it's been a while since it was first brainstormed, and my searching can't bring up the early posts (if they indeed still exist). However, I recall that the purpose of the awards was for us to recognize the products we felt were best in d20. WotC stopped being an option not because we chose to eliminate them (athough there were those who advocated that from almost the beginning), but because they decided to not submit anything.

Since then the awards have expanded not contracted. The voting has evolved to minimize the advantage better distribution has. In fact it gives me hope that Castle Shadowcrag might make the showing it deserves based on its quality, even though its distribution is very limited.

In my opinion the ENnies took a hit to their meaning when WotC dropped out. They overcame that. WotC coming back will certainly add to the prestige of the award.

 

[blargney the second]

As a casual observer, I think it'd be great to have WotC in the ENnies. I looked over the list of nominees this year, and really didn't recognize many of them. If PHB2 was an entry in one of the categories, it'd give me an idea of the calibre of contestants. Hell, if something beat PHB2, I'd be forced to have a look over it at some point!

WotC = very good point of reference.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

How other people perceive WotC because of an action by somebody else is not really a concern of mine. To be brutally frank, if WotC gains the reputation of being arrogant as a result of that, well, *IMO* it is about time...

However, that is not the purpose here.

Because of my bias against WotC, and because this poll is clearly not about whether WotC is arrogant or not, that is why I am refraining from voting. The statement I would be making with the vote is not the one I am trying to convey. However, I cannot, in good conscience, support WotC in any way either. Hence my stance in this thread.



PS. You might, Scott, want to explore the reasons behind my anti-WotC stance instead of trying to accuse me of being arrogant, if you really want to help WotC gain a wider audience. Not that I am so important that my words mean something, mind you, but because I believe that if the most active "faces" of WotC on the internet (the mods the regulate the forums there and thus have the highest contact with the general public) are turning people off WotC products, that should be a legitimate concern by the powers that be at WotC. That is basic business sense, isn't it?

Hey Cameron, you are getting me wrong. I am not calling you arrogant. I am saying our lack of particpation may be perceived as arrogant like we are better than all the other publishers out there.

I would never be as stupid as to flame someone on the boards like that. It wouldn't be a smart move on my part. Sorry you misunderstood what I meant.

 

[Pants]

PS. You might, Scott, want to explore the reasons behind my anti-WotC stance instead of trying to accuse me of being arrogant, if you really want to help WotC gain a wider audience. Not that I am so important that my words mean something, mind you, but because I believe that if the most active "faces" of WotC on the internet (the mods the regulate the forums there and thus have the highest contact with the general public) are turning people off WotC products, that should be a legitimate concern by the powers that be at WotC. That is basic business sense, isn't it?

I hear that Rodney and Scott regularly dine upon puppies and babies, but that's nothing compared to what the Mods do!

 

[TheYeti1775]

Why not let them? Heck considering how much I spend on RPG's from WOTC products alone, I would most likely pay more attention to any product that gave a WOTC product a run for it's money.

Also, it lets the lesser knowns compete directly against the '800lbs gorilla' better known as the industry standard (leader).