Ennies free RPG nominees

[Dyson Logos]

[Dyson Logos]

[Rob Lang]

Dyson, if the aim is to award the best free games (produced this year, I'll concede) then they've failed. They haven't done it. They've got two good games and three bits of marketing material. The nomination process is broken because the market for free games is different for commercial games so they need to deal with it differently.

[Dyson Logos]

[Dyson Logos]

All that said,

What do you think the nomination process should be if you don't feel that it's appropriate to ask the publishers to submit their own works for nomination?

[Denise]

Please remember that the category title is Best Free Product, not best free GAME. There's nothing in the category description to make the quick start rules entries any less eligible than the complete games offered. Take a look at the Best Game category and then tell me - and the judges who just spent the last year evaluating all of these - that the ENnies failed to recognize the best out of what submitted.

The point of the ENnie Awards is to celebrate RPG excellence of a product released in the past year, and they depend on the submissions of the publishers who produced said products. The ENnies are not going to change their entire structure to suit free RPG publishers or any other special interest group. Why should they be treated better or differently than anyone else? Every other publisher has to fill out the same form and it's hardly complicated: list your product name, publisher info, and a brief description of the product. I seriously doubt that anyone with the talent to pull together a complete RPG on their own would seriously find filling out a form and sending in 6 copies is too complicated.

Maybe you should start your own award? Who knows, maybe we could work together on it. Until then, I heartily recommend you continue with your grassroots campaign and consider mobilizing free RPG publishers to submit their stuff for next year's Awards!

[Dyson Logos]

(as a footnote, despite all my kvetching and supporting the status quo, I will be voting for one of the full games because I support them more than I do the quick-starts - I just think it's bizarre that this has become an issue this year when it's been the same every previous year. Just goes to show how good of a job the ENnies are doing when the only complaint we have is that they are allowing free products in the Best Free Product category).

[Rob Lang]

[Dyson Logos]

So, if it's available free on-line, then there is one submission process, but if it is available free in print there is another one?

[Rob Lang]

Sorry, Dyson, I don't follow you - what do you mean free in print? When I say free online I mean that anyone can go and download it right now. If there is a print version - that's a different story - but you can have more than one nomination process for games that are free to get. You tend not to get free-in-print because it costs money to actually print a game. If I am wrong, please do let me know because I'd love to cover it.