Critical Hits

The Journal of Gamer Culture

Inq. of the Week: Gaming Awards?

Posted by on July 9, 2007 · 5 Comments 

Filed under Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games

Calliope, the Origins Award

Last week, we tried to find out if any of you were as amused by some of the critiques of what we know of Fallout 3. The majority of people did not call me a moron, but only by a slim margin, as most of you picked that all the complains were reasonable. Second place was that many of you rightly thought that no game is worth wishing someone to choke.

With the Origins Award coverage, I got to wondering:

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

There are arguments against all the awards out there (not just those limited to gaming) but I’m wondering in general how many people actually find pay attention to award winners, and if that makes a difference in what they buy. Any comments why or why not would be welcome.

TheGame is Dave Chalker, a lifelong gamer, freelance game designer, Master of Arts, and son of Jack L. Chalker. Dave is the Editor-in-Chief of Critical Hits and so runs the place. He is the envy of geeks everywhere because he's dating e, the Geek's Dream Girl. (Email Dave or follow him on Twitter).

Comments

5 Responses to “Inq. of the Week: Gaming Awards?”
  1. Dave says:
    July 9, 2007 at 11:08 pm

    Another option is that people care about awards for games they already purchased/played/enjoyed. Something of a validation of their selection.

  2. Jay says:
    July 10, 2007 at 3:01 am

    How about an option that most awards are just part of the rigged game that is marketing/merchandising, and no self-respecting consumer would blindly follow an award tag? Hello, academy award says what?

    I say this in full knowledge of the fact that there are exceptions, such as the Nobel, that seem to rise above the crowd. On the other hand, you got all of America (the few who read books still, anyway) reading whatever Oprah puts on her book list, and what that person actually knows about literature is a complete mystery to me.

    Also, since you referenced Fallout 3 in this poll, I’ll reference an earlier post and again vote “Aye!” to Groin Attacks and killable kids.

    Peace,

    JP.

  3. The Game says:
    July 10, 2007 at 5:49 pm

    Dave: That’s true, but I’m mostly looking at the correlation between awards and sales.
    Jay: We always recap the results of the previous poll on every Inquisition of the Week, which is why the reference to Fallout is there.

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