Note: Mark asked us to publish this article because of the many rumors and half-truths surrounding the Origins awards. Remember, he is speaking about the Origins awards, not the Charles S. Roberts awards, which are a different matter entirely ... ]

I've been Chairman of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design for a year. One of the original plans I made was to write an article about the Awards. This is that article. I'm actually glad it took a year for me to get to it. I knew nearly nothing about the Origins Awards before I took them on, and now feel I'm qualified to describe them.

The Origins Awards procedures are operated by the Chairman of the Academy, overseen by an approximately eighteen- member Awards Committee composed of representatives of all the various categories. The awards are announced each year at Origins, the international games convention. The convention has been around for over twenty years and is operated by GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association. The awards are given to winning products in eighteen publicly voted categories and four Academy member-only categories. Products published during the past year are eligible; so at this coming Origins we'll announce 1993 winners.

Who can be a member of the Academy

Any professional in the industries represented by the product categories (boardgames, miniatures, roleplaying, games periodicals, computer games & play by mail), plus people who run conventions of more than one hundred participants, can be members. Dues are $7 annual, and are usually renewed during the nominations round in the first part of each year. Currently there are about 350 members. It is my opinion that the membership should grow to at least 750 and could grow to as many as 2,000 to be comprehensive. We have a lot of work to do to find all the qualified people and get them to join.

Awards Procedures

Near the end of each calendar year we make a mailing to all publishers of game products we know of-those that are on our mailing list, currently about 300 companies. This mailing features a Product Eligibility Form. The manufacturers themselves are asked to choose what they believe to be their best product(s) in each category. They can list up to three per category.

We receive these forms, compiling their entries into a master Nominations list. A ballot is prepared, then proofed by the Awards Committee. The ballot accompanies the Nominations list in a mailing to Academy members. The members are allowed to vote for their favorites in each category. The top five vote-getters in this members-only Nomination Round go onto the Final ballot. The Final Ballot is sent to magazines in the industry to publish a different Final ballot, which contains four additional categories (two graphic arts categories and two Halls of Fame) is mailed direct to Academy members. I estimate that in 1993 these procedures caused 130,000 ballots to be printed. We received about 1,200 filled in. These were tallied here by myself and two friends. No one else saw the final ballots, which are now sealed and archived. With these procedures, we know just a few days before Origins who the winners are. No one is informed until the actual awards' ceremony, usually Saturday night during Origins.

Halls of Fame

In years past, there has been a Hall of Fame for individuals in the industry. Academy members did the nominating during the Nominations Round. The top five went onto the Academy members Final ballot. Starting this year the procedures are different. First, there are two Halls of Fame: one for people, one for products. Awards Committee members nominate, then the Academy members do the final voting.

For a product to be eligible, it must have existed at least five years, though it need not currently be in print. During the final round members can vote for up to half of the nominees. It requires 75% of the voting members to induct a nominee into the Halls of Fame. Rick Loomis is assembling historical data on Hall of Fame inductees, and preparing a display featuring them. The display will be exhibited at Origins and other appropriate venues.

Committee Fiat

The Committee, and to some extent the chairman, has the authority to add products to the ballots, determine in which category each product should be listed, and make other such adjustments as it deems necessary to make the awards as comprehensive and fair as possible. This allows us, for example, to add a product which we think should be in the running but wasn't put forward by the manufacturer during the Product Eligibility round. However, changes to the procedures must be ratified by the Board of Directors of GAMA.

Professional versus Amateur Magazines Criteria

The Awards Committee recently established criteria (there being none in the past and we being queried on it) for establishing when a magazine is considered professional. Any publication that gets four or more out of the seven points listed below is considered professional. Otherwise, it's considered amateur and goes in that category.

• Circulation over 500
• Circulation over 1,000
• Paid Staff (Any compensation)
• Paid Advertising (National / Manufacturing)
• Professional Printing (multicolor?)
• Money paid to contributors (past free copies)
• Offers quantity discount to stores

Myths

For a long time no one has told folks about the procedures used to determine Origins Awards winners. Without such active disclosure, numerous myths have developed. This article attempts to remove those I know of. As long as the magazines print this, and we disseminate it to everyone we know of, the word will get to the people who care or might care. Common misconceptions include thinking the awards are fixed in some way, from being able to be outright bought by manufacturers to being manipulable secretly by the Awards Committee or even one individual or another. None of this is accurate, unless you consider the Chairman himself. I am the only one who has the access to rig the process. The Awards Committee has specifically directed me not to tell them the details of the election (numbers breakdowns, whatever). All the forms and tallies are archived in case there is ever need for an audit. Another myth is a variation on the above; that the public isn't included, thereby the awards have no general validity. While one might argue that a professionals-only award would in fact mean something, as I detailed above, the public is definitely the final word. The 1,200 final ballots sent in by the public determined the winners, plain and simple.

Weaknesses in the system

Yeah, there are some! Folks have in fact pointed them out to me over the past year. From my perspective I'd summarize and comment on them as follows.

What goes on the Final ballot is what the Academy members vote for (the top five in each category). What goes on the Nominations ballot is what the manufacturers put forward as their best. The public may not agree with what the manufacturers think is their best, nor might the public agree with what wins in the nominations round, and most write-ins have little if any chance of winning. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a better way of distilling the 500+ releases each year into a manageable public ballot.

The Origins Awards categories do not allow for some kinds of products. Where does a fiction novel based on a game's background fit in? How can an accessory pack compete against a basic product release, which nearly always sells more and hence has more potential to garner votes? How does one classify miniatures that could be argued as either historical OR fantasy? Adding more categories could help. The Committee has many ideas on such category additions. However, the number of categories could swiftly become unmanageable. If for no other consideration, we should limit the number of categories to little more than we now have, because to have more would mean we couldn't fit them all onto a one-page ballot. If the ballot gets bigger, the magazines who donate the space couldn't afford do so. Fewer ballots would mean less sectors of the gaming public would have a chance to vote.

Computer games and Play By Mail are poorly represented. Although we have Committee members representing these categories, we do not have much active participation from the companies themselves. An active campaign to get the involvement of these companies may solve this, and is under way.

Hopes and Aspirations

Put simply, more Academy members, more manufacturer participation (particularly in PBM and computer games), more Final ballots distributed to more gamers, more Final ballots sent in.

I also hope to promote the winners much more than in the past, with nominee and winner product stickers, press releases, magazine ads and store posters. We did a lot of this in 1993, and will do more in 1994. As the Origins Awards gain more publicity, possibly equating to more sales, I expect increased participation on all levels.

Finally

The Origins Awards have a long history, and a great deal of meaning. Ask those who received them last year! We're now moving toward giving them a higher profile. I'm open to written suggestions and queries about the awards.