[spielfrieks] 2016 Meeples Choice Award Results

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

The voting for the 2016 Meeples Choice Awards is over. In my Geeklist listing the nominated games for this year, I commented favorably on the fact that there were games from every corner of the world represented this year. I have also mentioned numerous times that my favorite aspect of the MCAs is their ability to consistently surprise me, that this group always honors quality games, but not necessarily the ones you’d expect. Perhaps the reason behind this blathering will become clear when I say that I’m pleased to announce that the winners of this year’s Meeples Choice Awards are:

TERRAFORMING MARS
GREAT WESTERN TRAIL
YOKOHAMA


There were no shortage of outstanding games last year. Check out the Geek and you’ll see three 2016 titles in the top 10 and a total of 7 games in the top 25. But when I did my usual personal (and private) prediction of this year’s winners, three games stood out: Terraforming Mars, Scythe, and Great Western Trail. The first two are in the top 10 and GWT looks to be well on its way to joining them. Star Wars: Rebellion is ranked even higher than the trio, but it’s been a while since a primarily 2-player game took one of the awards. My trio were accessible, exceedingly well regarded, and had the heaviness that Spielfriek voters tend to like. There were certainly other possibilities (if A Feast for Odin snuck in, it wouldn’t have shocked me), but I felt pretty comfortable with my picks.


And then came the results of the first round of voting. There were a few surprises, as always. I certainly didn’t expect Friedemann Friese’s games to perform as well as they did. Fabled Fruit making the top 25 didn’t shock me, but having it finish as high as seventh place did. And I never expected Fuji Flush to get a nomination, so nice job, Friedemann! However, the main interest, of course, were the games on top. Terraforming Mars had a sizable lead in the top spot and GWT’s lead over the rest of the field was just as large. Both Scythe and Odin did very well. But the third place game was a shocker, at least to me: Yokohama. Now, Hisashi Hayashi has established himself as one of Japan’s leading designers, particularly of meatier games. And Yokohama sports an excellent Geek rating over 8.0 and no doubt was benefiting from it’s recent English language release. But even with all that, I never saw it as a contender for the award. The question was, could it hold on to its support during the final round, against some very tough competition?


At first, the answer was yes, but not in the way I expected. TM raced to the top spot during the first days of voting, but right on its heels was Scythe. Yokohama was third and it was GWT that was lagging behind in fourth. Pretty soon, it became obvious it would be a four game race, with only Odin having an outside chance of pushing its way into the top 3. Then, at the midway point, GWT had a rush of votes, putting it back in second. At the same time, Scythe’s support dried up and suddenly IT was the game being threatened by Yokohama, which kept hanging around. TM’s and GWT’s vote totals were such that they had all but clinched their awards, but the third spot was very much in question. By Wednesday, Scythe’s lead over Yokohama was a mere 2 votes. Then 1 vote! By Friday, the two were tied and late on Saturday, Yokohama edged ahead. When it picked up yet another vote on Sunday, it was all over but the shouting. Yokohama was one of the three winners of the Meeples Choice Awards.


I think this is a pretty big deal. No game outside of Europe or the U.S. had ever won an MCA and very few had even been close. This was particularly true for games from the Far East. In 2012, Love Letter made a spirited run for one of the three slots, but it fell two votes short. But this year, another corner of the world claimed its place in the pantheon, providing yet more evidence of how global our hobby has become.


So congratulations to designers Jacob Fryxelius, Alexander Pfister, and Hisashi Hayashi, and to publishers FryxGames, eggertspiele, and OKAZU Brand, as well as Tasty Minstrel, who produced the English language version of Yokohama. Congrats as well to Jamey Stegmaier, who came so close with Scythe. It’s the first MCA win for each of the designers. It’s Fryxelius’ first nomination, while Hayashi got an earlier one for 2012’s Trains, and Pfister’s recent hot streak has earned him no fewer than six nominations over the last three years!


Every nominated game got at least two votes, which is nice. The results are listed at the end of this note. The games are shown in the order of the votes they received during the final round, with the number of votes received during the first round shown in parentheses. In just a bit, I’ll unhide the results on the application and you’ll be able to see all the voting for both of this year’s elections, as well as last year’s, by clicking on the “See Results” button on your Home page. All four elections are summarized there and you can check out the results by advancing the page. Alternatively, you can click on a specific election and the entire set of results will be viewable on one page. If you click on a game title for a particular election, you can see all the public votes for that game, so you can check out how your buddies voted. I hope everyone enjoys these new features and if there are any glitches with them, please post about them here.


Before I release the full results, I want everyone to check that their preferences are set correctly. Just to remind you, you set these by clicking on the Vote button on the Home page and then click on the Change This toggle at the top of that page. The sentence there states whether you want your votes to be public or hidden. Please make sure that your preferences are the way you want them. I’ll give you all a little time to do this and then I’ll unhide the election results.


70 people voted during the final round. That’s a healthy number, but we’ve seen decreases in the voting during the last two years and that’s a troubling trend. If anyone has any suggestions for reversing that, I’d love to hear them. Moving away from Yahoo Groups has been discussed in the past and the majority has always rejected it, so I’m not sure that’s the answer. But please, suggest away if you think you have an idea for how to increase our numbers.


Thanks to everyone who did participate this year. It was a blast as always and I look forward to doing it again next year!


Here are the final results of the 2016 Meeples Choice Awards:


1. Terraforming Mars – 26 (40)
2. Great Western Trail – 24 (32)
3. Yokohama – 19 (24)
4. Scythe – 17 (22)
5. A Feast for Odin – 13 (21)
6. Fabled Fruit – 8 (17)
6. Lorenzo il Magnifico – 8 (11)
6. Star Wars: Rebellion – 8 (11)
9. First Class – 7 (16)
9. Imhotep – 7 (7)
9. Kingdomino – 7 (8)
12. The Oracle of Delphi – 6 (14)
13. Arkham Horror: The Card Game – 5 (7)
13. Clank! – 5 (16)
13. Flamme Rouge – 5 (10)
13. Oh My Goods! – 5 (8)
13. The Colonists – 5 (12)
18. Captain Sonar – 4 (8)
18. Santorini – 4 (7)
20. Colony – 3 (7)
20. Mansions of Madness: Second Edition – 3 (8)
20. Tramways – 3 (7)
23. Fuji Flush / Doppelt und Dreifach – 2 (8)
23. Honshu – 2 (7)
23. Mystic Vale – 2 (8)
23. Railroad Revolution – 2 (9)

[Brian Frahm [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

A worthy 3 winners of the award.

I voted Terraforming Mars, Scythe & Colonists over Yokohama, but I really
appreciate Yokohama as well. For me, Yokohama wasn't a 2016 release, but
was certainly made more widely available in 2016 with the TMG reprint. I
was

Kudos to the voters for the selections!

['Charlie Wilson' [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
70 people voted during the final round. That’s a healthy number, but we’ve
seen decreases in the voting during the last two years and that’s a
troubling trend. If anyone has any suggestions for reversing that, I’d
love to hear them. Moving away from Yahoo Groups has been discussed in
the past and the majority has always rejected it, so I’m not sure that’s
the answer. But please, suggest away if you think you have an idea for
how to increase our numbers.

The reason that I didn't vote was quite simple; I hadn't (indeed still
haven't) played enough of them (and those that I have played not enough
times) to make a reasoned decision.

Charlie Wilson [a bearded one] ;-{)}

[Phil Alberg [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I am with Charlie. Of the 26 finalists, I have played only 9 of them (with
4 of them garnering only single plays). I own over 400 games, and am quite
happy with these; they, like my opponents, are my friends, and I try to get
them to the table as often as I can. While this doesn't preclude playing
new games, it does mean that I don't seek out the new games as often as I
once did. Perhaps I shouldn't be voting anymore either...

- Phil
...who still gets excited about new games, but tends to cherry-pick those
titles that appeal to him...

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]

70 people voted during the final round. That’s a healthy number, but

we’ve

seen decreases in the voting during the last two years and that’s a
troubling trend. If anyone has any suggestions for reversing that, I’d
love to hear them. Moving away from Yahoo Groups has been discussed in
the past and the majority has always rejected it, so I’m not sure that’s
the answer. But please, suggest away if you think you have an idea for
how to increase our numbers.

The reason that I didn't vote was quite simple; I hadn't (indeed still
haven't) played enough of them (and those that I have played not enough
times) to make a reasoned decision.
Charlie Wilson [a bearded one] ;-{)}

[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Great job running this competition! (I'm not sure how many different
people were involved) I think watching the trend over three years is more
telling and would not be concerned about decreasing numbers yet. To be
honest, I almost missed the email announcing the vote when it came amidst a
flurry of other emails. The move to the new voting website was a huge
improvement and that could take another year for some people to notice or
appreciate. But that was a step in the right direction.

My wish for every year going forward is that less games would be
published. I realize that's not realistic, but I believe that would help
the hobby. There are too many games out there I have to wonder who has the
money to buy them all let alone the time to play them? I even get jaded
now walking into the game store and not knowing some of the titles. I like
the games I voted for but I've only played them once. I would probably be
more excited about the winners if I could appreciate them more but I'm too
busy playing other games.

I've started buying less and focusing more on games I love. I do this
knowing a lot of games are going to pass me by. I may have less awareness
of games in next year's voting but I expect to rally for my favourites a
lot more. I was kind of indifferent to this year's contenders not having
played them enough, but I don't disagree with their victory!

Jacob

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
The voting for the 2016 Meeples Choice Awards is over. In my Geeklist
listing the nominated games for this year, I commented favorably on the
fact that there were games from every corner of the world represented this
year. I have also mentioned numerous times that my favorite aspect of
the MCAs is their ability to consistently surprise me, that this group
always honors quality games, but not necessarily the ones you’d expect. Perhaps
the reason behind this blathering will become clear when I say that I’m
pleased to announce that the winners of this year’s Meeples Choice Awards
TERRAFORMING MARS
GREAT WESTERN TRAIL
YOKOHAMA
There were no shortage of outstanding games last year. Check out the
Geek and you’ll see three 2016 titles in the top 10 and a total of 7 games
in the top 25. But when I did my usual personal (and private) prediction
of this year’s winners, three games stood out: Terraforming Mars,
Scythe, and Great Western Trail. The first two are in the top 10 and GWT
looks to be well on its way to joining them. Star Wars: Rebellion is
ranked even higher than the trio, but it’s been a while since a primarily
2-player game took one of the awards. My trio were accessible,
exceedingly well regarded, and had the heaviness that Spielfriek voters
tend to like. There were certainly other possibilities (if A Feast for
Odin snuck in, it wouldn’t have shocked me), but I felt pretty comfortable
with my picks.
And then came the results of the first round of voting. There were a few
surprises, as always. I certainly didn’t expect Friedemann Friese’s
games to perform as well as they did. Fabled Fruit making the top 25
didn’t shock me, but having it finish as high as seventh place did. And
I never expected Fuji Flush to get a nomination, so nice job, Friedemann!
However, the main interest, of course, were the games on top. Terraforming
Mars had a sizable lead in the top spot and GWT’s lead over the rest of the
field was just as large. Both Scythe and Odin did very well. But the
third place game was a shocker, at least to me: Yokohama. Now, Hisashi
Hayashi has established himself as one of Japan’s leading designers,
particularly of meatier games. And Yokohama sports an excellent Geek
rating over 8.0 and no doubt was benefiting from it’s recent English
language release. But even with all that, I never saw it as a contender
for the award. The question was, could it hold on to its support during
the final round, against some very tough competition?
At first, the answer was yes, but not in the way I expected. TM raced to
the top spot during the first days of voting, but right on its heels was
Scythe. Yokohama was third and it was GWT that was lagging behind in
fourth. Pretty soon, it became obvious it would be a four game race,
with only Odin having an outside chance of pushing its way into the top 3.
Then, at the midway point, GWT had a rush of votes, putting it back in
second. At the same time, Scythe’s support dried up and suddenly IT was
the game being threatened by Yokohama, which kept hanging around. TM’s
and GWT’s vote totals were such that they had all but clinched their
awards, but the third spot was very much in question. By Wednesday,
Scythe’s lead over Yokohama was a mere 2 votes. Then 1 vote! By Friday,
the two were tied and late on Saturday, Yokohama edged ahead. When it
picked up yet another vote on Sunday, it was all over but the shouting. Yokohama
was one of the three winners of the Meeples Choice Awards.
I think this is a pretty big deal. No game outside of Europe or the U.S.
had ever won an MCA and very few had even been close. This was
particularly true for games from the Far East. In 2012, Love Letter made
a spirited run for one of the three slots, but it fell two votes short. But
this year, another corner of the world claimed its place in the pantheon,
providing yet more evidence of how global our hobby has become.
So congratulations to designers Jacob Fryxelius, Alexander Pfister, and
Hisashi Hayashi, and to publishers FryxGames, eggertspiele, and OKAZU
Brand, as well as Tasty Minstrel, who produced the English language version
of Yokohama. Congrats as well to Jamey Stegmaier, who came so close with
Scythe. It’s the first MCA win for each of the designers. It’s
Fryxelius’ first nomination, while Hayashi got an earlier one for 2012’s
Trains, and Pfister’s recent hot streak has earned him no fewer than six
nominations over the last three years!
Every nominated game got at least two votes, which is nice. The results
are listed at the end of this note. The games are shown in the order of
the votes they received during the final round, with the number of votes
received during the first round shown in parentheses. In just a bit,
I’ll unhide the results on the application and you’ll be able to see all
the voting for both of this year’s elections, as well as last year’s, by
clicking on the “See Results” button on your Home page. All four
elections are summarized there and you can check out the results by
advancing the page. Alternatively, you can click on a specific election
and the entire set of results will be viewable on one page. If you click
on a game title for a particular election, you can see all the public votes
for that game, so you can check out how your buddies voted. I hope
everyone enjoys these new features and if there are any glitches with them,
please post about them here.
Before I release the full results, I want everyone to check that their
preferences are set correctly. Just to remind you, you set these by
clicking on the Vote button on the Home page and then click on the Change
This toggle at the top of that page. The sentence there states whether
you want your votes to be public or hidden. Please make sure that your
preferences are the way you want them. I’ll give you all a little time
to do this and then I’ll unhide the election results.
70 people voted during the final round. That’s a healthy number, but
we’ve seen decreases in the voting during the last two years and that’s a
troubling trend. If anyone has any suggestions for reversing that, I’d
love to hear them. Moving away from Yahoo Groups has been discussed in
the past and the majority has always rejected it, so I’m not sure that’s
the answer. But please, suggest away if you think you have an idea for
how to increase our numbers.
Thanks to everyone who did participate this year. It was a blast as
always and I look forward to doing it again next year!
1. Terraforming Mars – 26 (40)
2. Great Western Trail – 24 (32)
3. Yokohama – 19 (24)
4. Scythe – 17 (22)
5. A Feast for Odin – 13 (21)
6. Fabled Fruit – 8 (17)
6. Lorenzo il Magnifico – 8 (11)
6. Star Wars: Rebellion – 8 (11)
9. First Class – 7 (16)
9. Imhotep – 7 (7)
9. Kingdomino – 7 (8)
12. The Oracle of Delphi – 6 (14)
13. Arkham Horror: The Card Game – 5 (7)
13. Clank! – 5 (16)
13. Flamme Rouge – 5 (10)
13. Oh My Goods! – 5 (8)
13. The Colonists – 5 (12)
18. Captain Sonar – 4 (8)
18. Santorini – 4 (7)
20. Colony – 3 (7)
20. Mansions of Madness: Second Edition – 3 (8)
20. Tramways – 3 (7)
23. Fuji Flush / Doppelt und Dreifach – 2 (8)
23. Honshu – 2 (7)
23. Mystic Vale – 2 (8)
23. Railroad Revolution – 2 (9)

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Okay, I've unhidden the results of the two elections from this year and last year. Click on the election to see all the results in a single page. You can click on a header to sort the list by that category. And if you click on a game title, you can see all the public voters who selected it. Have fun with it. Please let me know if there are any problems and if there's a feature you'd like to see, post it here!


Oh, and this is all Wei-Hwa's baby (well, his OTHER baby), so if you enjoy checking this out, he's the guy you should thank for it.


Larry

[Richard Trout [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Regarding increasing participation, I'm a newcomer, but happily volunteer
my ideas and have no issues with being shot down if discussed before or not
suitable :-)

I've found communities need regular discussion, and was surprised this
doesn't happen so much on spielfreaks. I respect the views of a good number
of the participants, which is what drew me here, and thought there may have
been more comments from them. So are there topics we could discuss, or
encourage more posting of opinions on new games? Maybe even post on plays
of current year games?

Also Mei-Hwa's voting system is awesome. With comments that it is hard to
get plays on the most recent games to the point of being able to judge
them, would it be fun to vote on some look backs, e.g. vote again on 2015
and see what has changed, or look back 5 years etc? Perhaps a category
which may otherwise be overlooked in the MCA voting e.g. 2 player games, or
family/SdJ weight games? Maybe 2 or 3 additional (unofficial) votes during
the year would be enough to encourage discussion?

Regards, Richard in Australia

[Ravindra Prasad [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Richard,

Your Australia is showing: turn your M upside down and you'll have Wei-Hwa's name right :P

I like the idea of revisiting past years! With the huge number of game releases now, it seems more and more likely that people will not have played the latest and greatest by voting time. Of course, I'm not certain that changes with time (if you're always chasing the new stuff), but people have probably at least played a few more things!

Sent from my iPhone

Regarding increasing participation, I'm a newcomer, but happily volunteer my ideas and have no issues with being shot down if discussed before or not suitable :-)
I've found communities need regular discussion, and was surprised this doesn't happen so much on spielfreaks. I respect the views of a good number of the participants, which is what drew me here, and thought there may have been more comments from them. So are there topics we could discuss, or encourage more posting of opinions on new games? Maybe even post on plays of current year games?
Also Mei-Hwa's voting system is awesome. With comments that it is hard to get plays on the most recent games to the point of being able to judge them, would it be fun to vote on some look backs, e.g. vote again on 2015 and see what has changed, or look back 5 years etc? Perhaps a category which may otherwise be overlooked in the MCA voting e.g. 2 player games, or family/SdJ weight games? Maybe 2 or 3 additional (unofficial) votes during the year would be enough to encourage discussion?
Regards, Richard in Australia

[Clay Blankenship [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Ooh, I'd support doing a retrospective award. It would reflect a little
more what games have staying power rather than initial market penetration.
(I know it's not just that but it's certainly a factor.) And I'd probably
be better informed on the voting since I don't always get to play a lot of
games as soon as they come out (or even within a year).

Clay

Post by Ravindra Prasad ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
Richard,
Your Australia is showing: turn your M upside down and you'll have Wei-Hwa's name right :P
I like the idea of revisiting past years! With the huge number of game
releases now, it seems more and more likely that people will not have
played the latest and greatest by voting time. Of course, I'm not certain
that changes with time (if you're always chasing the new stuff), but people
have probably at least played a few more things!
Sent from my iPhone
Regarding increasing participation, I'm a newcomer, but happily volunteer
my ideas and have no issues with being shot down if discussed before or not
suitable :-)
I've found communities need regular discussion, and was surprised this
doesn't happen so much on spielfreaks. I respect the views of a good number
of the participants, which is what drew me here, and thought there may have
been more comments from them. So are there topics we could discuss, or
encourage more posting of opinions on new games? Maybe even post on plays
of current year games?
Also Mei-Hwa's voting system is awesome. With comments that it is hard to
get plays on the most recent games to the point of being able to judge
them, would it be fun to vote on some look backs, e.g. vote again on 2015
and see what has changed, or look back 5 years etc? Perhaps a category
which may otherwise be overlooked in the MCA voting e.g. 2 player games, or
family/SdJ weight games? Maybe 2 or 3 additional (unofficial) votes during
the year would be enough to encourage discussion?
Regards, Richard in Australia

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

It's kind of a busy time for me right now, but I'd be happy to set up a set of retrospective awards in the near future. In the meantime, why don't we discuss how we want to do this.
Do we want to look at something like the last 5 years? Or do we want to limit it to, say, 5 years ago (and maybe 10 years ago as well)? In the latter case, this would be something we do every year: look at what we think 5 and 10 years later. Do we just want to revote for the 25 or so MCA nominated games for each year we look at? That would certainly make it easier for me to set up. We might also be able to add additional games, via a nomination and seconding process (although we might want to have a thirding of each game as well). How far back do we want to go? The first MCA was for 1995. Do we really want to do things like a 15 or 20 year retrospective, or just limit it to 5 or 10 years? Another idea is to just revote for the previous year, although that might reduce the impact of our main awards. Still, it could be interesting. Post your thoughts here. The more people post, the more we'll know how interested you all are in supporting something like this.

[Clay Blankenship [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I would say do a rolling retrospective award with a 5 (or 3) year delay,
with an initial set of votes (maybe in wave, or once per month) to fill in
all the old years.

It would be nice to allow a way to include games that got missed in earlier
years, I know there was at least one popular game that slipped through due
to a limited early release.

Clay

[Brian Frahm [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I also like the rolling retrospectives (5 year lookbacks seem appropriate)

Post by Clay Blankenship ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I would say do a rolling retrospective award with a 5 (or 3) year delay,
with an initial set of votes (maybe in wave, or once per month) to fill in
all the old years.
It would be nice to allow a way to include games that got missed in
earlier years, I know there was at least one popular game that slipped
through due to a limited early release.
Clay

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Assuming we do the 5-year rotation, how far back should we go? Just 5 and 10 years, or also include 15 and/or 20 years? Do we have enough people who are familiar with the games that debuted during the late 90's or early 00's?

[Ravindra Prasad [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Thirded! Or fourthed? I'd suggest going back all the way (and then some?), although slowly. 5 years back to start. Maybe vote along with the main voting, and "award" two more games? Alternatively, wait 6 months to induct into the Meeples Hall of Game?

Sent from my iPhone

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Assuming we do the 5-year rotation, how far back should we go? Just 5 and 10 years, or also include 15 and/or 20 years? Do we have enough people who are familiar with the games that debuted during the late 90's or early 00's?

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

So here's what I'm thinking. 5 and 10 years ago means the 2012 and 2007 games. Assuming we do this every year, I really don't want to wait 5 years to vote on the 2011 designs. I mean, it's more like 5 years away than the eventual 10 years away it will be in 2021, when we finally get around to voting on it.


So here's what I propose. We vote on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 games (in separate polls) this year. Assuming that we're getting some decent participation, we'll also do 2005, 2006, and 2007 (the approximately 10-year-old games). If we're still getting support, extend it back to 2000, 2001, and 2002, and finally to 1995, 1996, and 1997, if folks still care.


That would just be for this year. Next year, assuming that y'all are still keen about this, we'd vote on 2013, 2008, 2003, and 1998.


That's a lot of voting and we can take our time with it. I would start with just the 2012 year to see if we have enough support to make this meaningful and then keep going backwards as long as folks are interested. How does that sound?

[Brian Frahm [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Sounds great!

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
So here's what I'm thinking. 5 and 10 years ago means the 2012 and 2007
games. Assuming we do this every year, I really don't want to wait 5 years
to vote on the 2011 designs. I mean, it's more like 5 years away than the
eventual 10 years away it will be in 2021, when we finally get around to
voting on it.
So here's what I propose. We vote on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 games (in
separate polls) this year. Assuming that we're getting some decent
participation, we'll also do 2005, 2006, and 2007 (the approximately
10-year-old games). If we're still getting support, extend it back to
2000, 2001, and 2002, and finally to 1995, 1996, and 1997, if folks still
care.
That would just be for this year. Next year, assuming that y'all are
still keen about this, we'd vote on 2013, 2008, 2003, and 1998.
That's a lot of voting and we can take our time with it. I would start
with just the 2012 year to see if we have enough support to make this
meaningful and then keep going backwards as long as folks are interested.
How does that sound?

['Stephen and Christine Smith' [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I'm certainly interested. This is similar to how Counter did their Hall of
Fame in the past.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
So here's what I'm thinking. 5 and 10 years ago means the 2012 and 2007
games. Assuming we do this every year, I really don't want to wait 5
years to vote on the 2011 designs. I mean, it's more like 5 years away
than the eventual 10 years away it will be in 2021, when we finally get
around to voting on it.
So here's what I propose. We vote on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 games
(in separate polls) this year. Assuming that we're getting some decent
participation, we'll also do 2005, 2006, and 2007 (the approximately
10-year-old games). If we're still getting support, extend it back to
2000, 2001, and 2002, and finally to 1995, 1996, and 1997, if folks
still care.
That would just be for this year. Next year, assuming that y'all are
still keen about this, we'd vote on 2013, 2008, 2003, and 1998.
That's a lot of voting and we can take our time with it. I would start
with just the 2012 year to see if we have enough support to make this
meaningful and then keep going backwards as long as folks are
interested. How does that sound?

------------------------------------

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[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Larry, I will participate in anything you set up, but I know all about
having limited time so don't burn yourself out. Voting on what's already
happened is a novel approach. Who does this? Anything that gets me to
revisit "older" games would be a fun context for playing my favourites from
years back.

We should acknowledge that this vote is not "official" (or is it?). It's
just a way to check back on how our perspectives have changed. If we only
had to worry about one year so we have a chance to catch up on the games
that came out that year I think that would improve our memory.

Looking forward to this!
Jacob

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
So here's what I'm thinking. 5 and 10 years ago means the 2012 and 2007
games. Assuming we do this every year, I really don't want to wait 5 years
to vote on the 2011 designs. I mean, it's more like 5 years away than the
eventual 10 years away it will be in 2021, when we finally get around to
voting on it.
So here's what I propose. We vote on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 games (in
separate polls) this year. Assuming that we're getting some decent
participation, we'll also do 2005, 2006, and 2007 (the approximately
10-year-old games). If we're still getting support, extend it back to
2000, 2001, and 2002, and finally to 1995, 1996, and 1997, if folks still
care.
That would just be for this year. Next year, assuming that y'all are
still keen about this, we'd vote on 2013, 2008, 2003, and 1998.
That's a lot of voting and we can take our time with it. I would start
with just the 2012 year to see if we have enough support to make this
meaningful and then keep going backwards as long as folks are interested.
How does that sound?

[Andrew Heim [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Yes this sounds great.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
So here's what I'm thinking. 5 and 10 years ago means the 2012 and 2007
games. Assuming we do this every year, I really don't want to wait 5 years
to vote on the 2011 designs. I mean, it's more like 5 years away than the
eventual 10 years away it will be in 2021, when we finally get around to
voting on it.
So here's what I propose. We vote on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 games (in
separate polls) this year. Assuming that we're getting some decent
participation, we'll also do 2005, 2006, and 2007 (the approximately
10-year-old games). If we're still getting support, extend it back to
2000, 2001, and 2002, and finally to 1995, 1996, and 1997, if folks still
care.
That would just be for this year. Next year, assuming that y'all are
still keen about this, we'd vote on 2013, 2008, 2003, and 1998.
That's a lot of voting and we can take our time with it. I would start
with just the 2012 year to see if we have enough support to make this
meaningful and then keep going backwards as long as folks are interested.
How does that sound?

[Mark Johnson [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

That's how the award started, for what it's worth. It was retrospective.

Post by Clay Blankenship ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
Ooh, I'd support doing a retrospective award. It would reflect a little
more what games have staying power rather than initial market penetration.
(I know it's not just that but it's certainly a factor.) And I'd probably
be better informed on the voting since I don't always get to play a lot of
games as soon as they come out (or even within a year).
Clay

Post by Ravindra Prasad ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
Richard,
Your Australia is showing: turn your M upside down and you'll have
Wei-Hwa's name right :P
I like the idea of revisiting past years! With the huge number of game
releases now, it seems more and more likely that people will not have
played the latest and greatest by voting time. Of course, I'm not certain
that changes with time (if you're always chasing the new stuff), but people
have probably at least played a few more things!
Sent from my iPhone
Regarding increasing participation, I'm a newcomer, but happily volunteer
my ideas and have no issues with being shot down if discussed before or not
suitable :-)
I've found communities need regular discussion, and was surprised this
doesn't happen so much on spielfreaks. I respect the views of a good number
of the participants, which is what drew me here, and thought there may have
been more comments from them. So are there topics we could discuss, or
encourage more posting of opinions on new games? Maybe even post on plays
of current year games?
Also Mei-Hwa's voting system is awesome. With comments that it is hard to
get plays on the most recent games to the point of being able to judge
them, would it be fun to vote on some look backs, e.g. vote again on 2015
and see what has changed, or look back 5 years etc? Perhaps a category
which may otherwise be overlooked in the MCA voting e.g. 2 player games, or
family/SdJ weight games? Maybe 2 or 3 additional (unofficial) votes during
the year would be enough to encourage discussion?
Regards, Richard in Australia

--
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." --Helen Keller

[Clay Blankenship [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I remember either voting in or following along in some kind of
retrospective gaming awards but I can't remember what it was. Can you fill
me in on how the MCAs started?

Post by Mark Johnson ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
That's how the award started, for what it's worth. It was retrospective.

[Mark Johnson [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

You have to use the Wayback Machine at the internet archive to find it now,, but Kevin Whitmore's original website for the award says, "In 2001, a series of retrospective polls from the membership of Spielfrieks were conducted. Awards spanning back to 1995 were awarded." Sure enough, any listing of Meeples Choice Awards goes back to that year (the year of Settlers). Are we going to go back and redo those earlier years? We could, I guess, though they were comfortably retrospective even back then.

In general, I really like the retrospective approach. Just don't want to "overwrite" the old selections. However, I figure Larry is putting in the effort here, so I'm willing to follow his lead.

http://web.archive.org/web/20111127142545/http://www.meepleschoice.org:80/

-Mark

I remember either voting in or following along in some kind of retrospective gaming awards but I can't remember what it was. Can you fill me in on how the MCAs started?

Post by Mark Johnson ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
That's how the award started, for what it's worth. It was retrospective.

--
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." --Helen Keller

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I wasn't part of Spielfrieks back then, but I have gone back and read the message streams. In 2001, Stephen Glenn proposed the user group vote on a Game of the Year award, but that they would be picking their three favorite games, instead of just one. The first vote was for the 2000 year games only and was a one-step process; I think Snoop just listed about 25 leading games for the members to vote on, although there may have been some discussion on these. Once that was successfully done, Snoop said what the hell, and set up a series of retrospective polls going back to 1995. So the results from the 90's are all retrospective ones, while from 2000 on, they were based on picking from the games of the previous year.


I don't view these new elections we'll be doing as having any "official" status, but just as a fun exercise. For one thing, the membership has changed a lot over the years, so we'd be undoing the efforts of a lot of smart and dedicated gamers. However, if people feel differently, please let us know.


Larry

[Chris Sjoholm [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Heck, if we're going to do that, let's start with some really old date,
like pre-1960 and work our way forward.

-- Chris

Post by Richard Trout ***@trouty.com [spielfrieks]
Regarding increasing participation, I'm a newcomer, but happily volunteer
my ideas and have no issues with being shot down if discussed before or not
suitable :-)
I've found communities need regular discussion, and was surprised this
doesn't happen so much on spielfreaks. I respect the views of a good number
of the participants, which is what drew me here, and thought there may have
been more comments from them. So are there topics we could discuss, or
encourage more posting of opinions on new games? Maybe even post on plays
of current year games?
Also Mei-Hwa's voting system is awesome. With comments that it is hard to
get plays on the most recent games to the point of being able to judge
them, would it be fun to vote on some look backs, e.g. vote again on 2015
and see what has changed, or look back 5 years etc? Perhaps a category
which may otherwise be overlooked in the MCA voting e.g. 2 player games, or
family/SdJ weight games? Maybe 2 or 3 additional (unofficial) votes during
the year would be enough to encourage discussion?
Regards, Richard in Australia