TL/DR: The Value Proposition of Wargaming Awards for Publishers

 

 

Reaching a targeted audience.

 

I posted a report a couple of days ago based on a survey of wargame publishers to see what they collectively thought about wargame honours like the Charles S. Roberts Awards. The truth is, not that many folks read blogs anymore. This is especially true of long posts about subjects that will probably only interest a few people. 

The full article comes out to just over 5,300 words and is a little self-indulgent. This is a “just the facts, ma’am” distillation of the results from the analysis. 

How this came about:

•   I was curious about how publishers viewed wargame awards, so I wrote to fifty-four wargame publishers with a short list of questions.

•   Remarkably, twenty-four of those companies (around a 42%) wrote back.

•   The full article is an admittedly fairly shallow analysis of the replies. I promised anonymity to respondents unless they gave permission to use their comments with attribution, and several specifically asked for complete anonymity, while some were willing to “go on the record.”

The respondents

•  The respondents were asked to describe their company in terms of size (relative to the industry).

•  Twenty respondents self-identified as “small,” three as “medium,” and just one company maintained they were “large.”

•  Most respondents explained their size in terms of staff numbers rather than output or some other measure.

The findings

•  Seventy-five percent of respondents had a broadly positive view of wargame awards generally. The reasons for this ranged from peer or market acknowledgement of exemplary design to recognition (in lieu of financial reward) for individual designers, to raising a publisher’s market presence (free advertising).

•  While the majority of respondents held a generally favourable view of wargame awards, of the concept of wargame awards, 16.7% reported that they thought that various aspects of the process could be improved upon or made more transparent, particularly the selection process for popular or open-voting  awards.

•  Twenty-five percent of respondents were ambivalent about awards in wargaming. The views expressed had a live-and-let-live tone; nobody was calling for the overthrow of the ruling class.

•  Award nominations and even award wins rarely equate to an increase in sales, and when they do it is almost always negligible, a bump rather than a spike.

•  Only one case was reported across the responses of a significant jump in sales being associated with an award win (if you want to know who it was, you’ll have the section of the article sub-headed Award win).

I would like once again to thank all the publishers who shared their time and thoughts when they were under no obligations to do so. The work is neither conclusive nor exhaustive, but it’s a start; if there is enough interest, I may revisit the subject in a couple of years.