International Gamers Award Game of the Year 2020 Nominees Announced

The games nominated for the IGA are usually pretty interesting, and worth taking note of. Although, it seems to me that they were more interesting back when Moo Frank was still a member.

More importantly, the judges are 20 men and 1 woman. They are all white/European except except for Dale Yu and Takuya Ono. WTF IGA. It's 2020.

Especially now with the market utterly glutted , awards mean less than zero IMO. How can anyone even begin to think they can comprehend even a fraction of the output ? Its way worse than trying to sift thru TV or film. And in those cases, they at least break it down into categories. Comparing IMPERIAL STRUGGLE to Azul is like comparing a BMW to a grapefruit.

The actual award winner is less interesting than the list of nominations. I like perusing the long list of nominations (usually 15 games), but I couldn't find it for this year.

I must be confused as to the criticism here.

TWBG is just as white, if not whiter %-wise. Are we supposed to discount anything said here as a result? I'm one of the few non-white folks here and I'm super pale/white passing/whatever term, should I not feel like words here have weight? I don't get what this is trying to say.

Maracaibo is a real distasteful pick though.

Deleted. I don't care about the award or the judges.

Vysetron wrote: I must be confused as to the criticism here.

TWBG is just as white, if not whiter %-wise. Are we supposed to discount anything said here as a result? I'm one of the few non-white folks here and I'm super pale/white passing/whatever term, should I not feel like words here have weight? I don't get what this is trying to say.

Maracaibo is a real distasteful pick though.

The IGA is a prestigious committee that you must be invited to join. They were established in 1999 with the sole purpose being to judge and award the IGA. It is also the defacto old boy network of the board game world. I don't discount any of the members opinions. However, after 21 years, I would expect them to have inducted more than one woman into the club. And maybe expand their definition of "International" to mean slightly more International than the US, Europe (actually northern Europe except for Italy), Australia, Japan, and the Dutch guy that lives in Africa.

Alan How (UK)
Andrea "Liga" Ligabue (Italy)
Andreas Keirat (Germany)
Ben Baldanza (US)
Dale Yu (US)
Erwin Broens (Netherlands)
Ferdinand de Cassan (Austria)
Frank Schulte-Kulkmann (Germany)
François Haffner (France)
Greg Schloesser (US)
Han Heidema (Netherlands)
Herb Levy (US)
Joel Eddy (US)
Knut Michael Wolf (Germany)
Larry Levy (US)
Mauro Di Marco (Italy)
Melissa Rogerson (Australia)
Mik Svellov (Germany)
Mike Clifford (UK)
Mike Siggins (UK)
Peter Sarrett (US)
Ronald Hoekstra (Netherlands)
Scott Alden (US)
Simmy Peerutin (Africa)
Stuart Dagger (UK)
Takuya Ono (Japan)
W. Eric Martin (US)

That is a very white list. Also just because the make up of this site is mostly white, doesn't preclude commenting on this kind of issue. Awards can be used to lift up minority voices in the industry, promote games that are a bit different to the mainstream, and improve the hobby for the better. We all benefit from more diverse voices at every level in the industry and Shellie is right to point out that only 1 women on the awards panel seems archaic, for want of a better word.

At Pax Unplugged last year, The Crew was one of the most popular games. What a great way to introduce classic trick taking cooperation. I can't ever imagine turning down a game.

Barrage is also super fun with plenty of opportunity that mess with your opponents plans and income. However, the crew is 5 min of rules and barrage is 45.