Board game awards

In the world of board games, which already has both events and tournaments, as well as blogs and video channels, of course you can't do without prizes. The prizes are many and varied. In addition, their number has increased significantly in recent years, and their diversity and spectrum have become more and more extensive. Below will be a short description of the prizes in general, as well as the most famous prizes in the world of board games.

Of course, there are no laws, rules, or specific guidelines for awarding someone a prize related to board games. Basically any person, company, movement, etc. can create your own prizes and distribute them left and right. Clearly, a large proportion of such awards would have (almost) no value, because who cares about "Edgar's Game of the Year", for example. So for an award to be taken seriously, it would have to come from an official organization, a well-known board game critic or reviewer, festival organizers, etc. The more well-known the person, organization or event, the more valuable the prize, of course.

Spiel des Jahres (SdJ)

I will start with the most famous award in the world of board games, which has been presented since 1979. In the board game industry , SdJ ("Game of the Year") still seems to be considered the highest award, often compared to the "Oscar" of board games . There is some justice there - the games go through a huge selection and many rounds until only three remain, whose authors then come to the award ceremony where the winning game of the year is announced. Everything is quite serious.

Over time, as the variety of games developed, the SdJ Association also realized that one award was no longer enough, so two more related awards have been born, the " Kinderspiel des Jahres" ("Children's Game of the Year") since 1989 and the "Kennerspiel des Jahres" ("Expert Game of the Year"), since 2011. As a result, games are essentially divided into three groups - children, family/ mass market and experts ( gamers ). Each of them has three finalists, as well as several more recommended games, so even though there is only one winner in each group, there are many more games that get attention.

The evolution of these awards is quite interesting. SdJ itself slowly moved from easy endgames to harder ones (not particularly hard, but still more strategic) and then back to easier endgames (partly due to the appearance of "Kenner SdJ"), in recent years even more reminiscent of "Party Spiel des Jahres” (okay, okay, not that crazy, but it kind of feels like it). In the case of "Kenner SdJ", it can be observed that the winners (and nominations) are getting closer to the light end every year, while no special changes can be observed in "Kinder SdJ". It is clear that this is mainly due to the growth of the hobby - more and more people are playing, so the awards must also become more accessible, resulting in the nominated / winning games being more understandable and accessible to the mass market audience.

SdJ has produced many well-known games over the years, such as "Catan" (1995), "Carcassonne" (2001), "Ticket to Ride" (2004), "Dixit" (2010), "Codenames" (2016 ) and"Just One" (English "Just One", 2019). From "Kenner SdJ" the best known could be "7 Wonders" (2011), "Exit" (2017) and "Spārnotie" (English "Wingspan", 2019), while from "Kinder SdJ", of course, Latvian authors (Reiņa, Jāņa , Egil and Edgar) created "ICECOOL" (2017), as well as"Speedy Roll" (2020) from the Lithuanian author Urtis Šulinskas, who also had another "Kinder SdJ" nomination in 2018 with "Emojito".

There are authors who have won the SdJ multiple times (for example, Wolfgang Kramer has done it five times and Klaus Toiber four times), and there are also authors who have won it in two different categories, but if I'm not mistaken, no one yet , which would have won it in all three. Sometimes the question may also arise, why a good and popular and appropriate game is not even nominated for SdJ, and the answer is mostly as follows - in order for the game to be nominated, it must have been officially released in Germany, and this condition is not always fulfilled.

In general, there is much to discuss about the SdJ - on the one hand, it is the best-known and oldest award, the acquisition of which is considered a prestigious and important event. On the other hand , it's like a pop culture award that doesn't always go to the best games, but simply to the ones that have the potential to reach the masses. Of course, in any case, it is very well-known and recognizable in board game circles, but even if this award is won, it does not mean long-term success (for example, how many people in Latvia know and have played the 2011 winner "Qwirkle"?).

"Golden Geek Award"

In the gamer community, GGA could probably have more weight, because the spectrum covered is more diverse, and there are also a lot more categories. Since 2006, this award has been presented within the framework of "BGG.CON", so it can be said that it is directly related to the virtual mecca of board game enthusiasts - "BoardGameGeek".

If SdJ is compared to "Oscar" on a more emotional level (the more popular), then GGA is more similar to it directly in terms of content - there are quite a few categories in which awards are given (the best games in various categories (war, children, family, two-player), artistic design, expansion, thematic, abstract play, etc.). As a result, quite a few games are reviewed each year and receive a lot of attention, giving pundits and followers the opportunity to learn about current events in various genres and categories.

If you look at the historical award winners of the various categories, then GGA no longer observes such large deviations, which of course is logical, because of the many categories it is possible to stay within the genre in the long term. The game of the year has pretty consistently been one of the more difficult endgame, wargames really are wargames and so on. True, looking at the winners, it can be observed that "hot" games at that moment mostly become such, but the question remains open, which is the cause, and which is the effect (besides, there are usually several "hot" games, therefore it is only logical that one of them wins).

"As d'Or", "Jogo de Ano" and "Deutscher Spiele Preis"

Two big prizes, at least on a local scale, in two of the top table game countries in the world. These really have a more local meaning, but are considered quite valuable in their own circles.

DSP (since 1990) of course overlaps quite a bit with SdJ (although SdJ is formally a global award, it is still concentrated in Germany, as mentioned above, the game must also be published in Germany). DSP is quite simple - the main category is "Game of the Year", and every year they publish the TOP 10, as well as "Kids' Game of the Year " (received by "ICECOOL" in 2017). Here, however, a significant difference from SdJ is that the top is mostly expert-type games, just with some separate family games in between.

As d'Or has followed a remarkably similar path to SdJ, only starting nine years later (since 1988). At first there was only the general category (which, moreover, has changed its name a bit over the years), then it was joined by "Kids' Game", and a little later - "Expert Game". There won't be much more to say about this award, because it is not very well known outside of France.

"Jogo de Ano" is based in Portugal and has grown a lot over time, the court only presents the main award - "Game of the Year in Portugal". Their mount is medium/moderately difficult euro -type games, however, every now and then their top 5 (of which one wins) is also made by this other.

Of course, other countries also have their own local gaming awards, but rarely are they known outside their borders. If I'm not mistaken, there is still no board game award in Latvia, the closest is the "Latvian Game Developers Association" award, which is aimed at locally created computer games (I don't want to get confused here).

The Dice Tower Gaming Award

For those who follow board game reviews (especially in video format) 'The Dice Tower' will be a familiar name - one of the most popular review channels back in the day, started by Tom Wessel, who has become one of the most important names (and opinions) over the years ) in the board game industry. This is an interesting example of how a group not so directly related to the board game industry (publishers, authors) has over time created "weight" for its opinion. This award is certainly well known in gaming circles (of course, those whose tastes don't quite align with TDT might have a different opinion).

Like the GGA, the TDTGA covers a wide variety of categories - Best Game (with various subcategories), Visual Design, Teaching the Rules, and many more. As with GGA, thanks to the many categories, a very wide spectrum of games is covered.

Reflection and comparison

The prizes described here are just a fraction of what's going on in the world of table games in terms of giving ratings. There are many, many more awards, some bigger and more important, some not so big (of course, each of them is important for authors and publishing houses, because it proves that the work invested was not in vain). It is also clear that the best games win more than one award, which you can also see in the table below. All you have to do is choose which organization is closer to your taste in order to keep up with the current events of the current year and find something new for yourself or at least find out what is currently on top.

The article was written by Edgars Zaķis