Just saw the nominees. Lots of diy and independent games on there. Product of the Year are Frostbitten & Mutilated, Blades in the Dark, Harlem Unbound, Zweihander, Delta Green, Red Markets, Dark of Hot Springs, Starfinder, Happiest Apocalypse, Freedom City, Star Trek.

I am sure Starfinder and Star Trek will crush the completion. But it got me thinking: think that this is more a popularity contest or is there anything besides bragging rights?

They don't matter to me. I stopped paying attention to ENWorld a long time ago, put it in same dumpster as TBP.

Quote from: Chainsaw;1047335They don't matter to me. I stopped paying attention to ENWorld a long time ago, put it in same dumpster as TBP.

ENnies are a sponsor of Gen Con are they? Curious how all this works.

Never took them seriously myself.

All seems like a group of 'good mates...'

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1047339ENnies are a sponsor of Gen Con are they? Curious how all this works.

No idea, have not paid attention to anything EN-related in years.

When a product gets nominated people buy copies, when it wins people buy more copies.

It's no index of whether the product is good or bad, but winning certainly gets creators paid.

So if you want more of what someone puts out, you should probably want them to win.

I don't value EN judgements, but Saga of the Goblin Horde is an amazing free supplement for Savage Worlds.

So some props are due for them signal boosting that.

And they do matter because they are the only RPG awards I've ever heard of. And that's enough to be somewhat important to creators.
I would be interested to see Pundit do something similar on these boards because the online RPG community is only going to get more divided and awards are a decent to prop up solid games.

Except to some extent in the way Zak mentioned above, the answer is no, it doesn't matter.

I haven't bothered to check the nominees. This should probably answer your question;).
And yes, it is a popularity contest!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1047489Except to some extent in the way Zak mentioned above, the answer is no, it doesn't matter.

He mentioned that they sell copies which is pretty important and that does kind of matter.

The awards themselves only matter as much as the worth of the opinion of those granting the awards.

They don't make a product any better than it already is.  But I guess it boosts sales, and I'm sure the creators appreciate the recognition.  So while I have no use for enworld, I'm happy to see some good nominations on there and wish them luck.

In particular, Best Cartography nominee MonkeyBlood Design for The Midderlands.  Glynn Seal is an amazing cartographer who I've followed since his osrtoday weeklies.  The Midderlands may be the best setting book I've ever read, and Glynn's already begun fulfillment on his latest kickstarter 3 months ahead of time.  Dude's a pro and deserves recognition.

Hobbs and Friends of the OSR's been nominated for best podcast.  Jason Hobbs puts on a great show and is one of the more unifying voices in the community these days.  While everyone else is fortifying their tribal defenses and expelling heretics, Hobbs is having engaging discussions on a wide variety of topics of interest to but not exclusive to the OSR.  Listen to this.

I've had a few products nominated for an ennie.

I think it mostly comes down to the marketing power behind the product. Larger publishers can get their books out there to a larger audience and drum up more attention.

They don't mean a lot to me, but winning one would give me a little more marketing power (but not much).

I'm willing to believe that ennies mentions manage to increase sales to varying degrees for products.

I also suspect that for most products it's not a huge amount (still, sales are sales).  I'm betting that for Zak at least some of those sales are from people buying it based on the 'controversy' that comes up whenever he gets nominated for something and this makes the SJWs howl.

the ennies mean as much anymore as the pf books a vendor at GaryCon was selling by the pound (yes, not by the book, but he charged by the pound)

which is to say, utterly valueless

wormskin
midderland expanded
midlands for low fantasy
new SWN
Mines, Claws & Princesses

I would give these guys an award