Celebrate The Best of Board Gaming with the 2026 BGA Awards!

[PuertoGeeko84]

Well then, I guess I'll never be able to vote on a "BGA award" ever again.

There are many games I won't ever touch with a ten foot pole. Bummer I can't vote for games I like because I won't play games I have absolutely no interest in.

Who cares?
Now we have game haters? What a world

[Wander81]

I agree, forcing people to play games that they may not like just so that they can vote for something that they do like feels terrible. Guess I also will not be voting.

[mrmivo]

On the other hand, it's an opportunity to try out new, more popular games. Various of the games on the awards page have a solo mode, too.

[mbl663]

This is such a fun idea. I love the lay out. I've only played 2 of the 20 and look forward to learning some new games!

[Meeplelowda]

Some of these post remind me of this rule change by The Oscars last year.

[katmk]

In a way, this is like the second round of voting.

Given it's a pool of the most popular games (however that is measured), playing a game is in itself a vote.

I don't think it's very controversial to expect voters to then have full knowledge of the shortlist before voting.

[Boulezianman]

I've always been critical of the various awards out there where people don't need to have experienced to vote (looking at you Oscar's, where people didn't even have to have watched the film to decide if it should win or lose).
There are games on here that I prob would never normally play and now I'm trying so I can vote. Seems like a good idea. In fact I can think of one game I will never own in person but actually enjoy on BGA... Carcassonne. It just works better on here than on a table (my opinion of course)
Flip side, there have been games I wouldn't have normally been drawn to and played on here and now I own physical copies. I get why people are disappointed they cannot vote because games they don't like need to be played on BGA before voting, but it does level the field and ensures every vote given is from someone who has at least tried all the options.

[Jertian]

I am curious about the percentage of BGA players who would be eligible to vote in one category, all categories, and the percentage of eligible voters who participate in voting.

[Exotic Dreams]

I looked at this and seems I need to play a lot more games on this list to be able to vote.
Why is it setup like this?. I see for instance azul duel. I already have played azul and have a dislike for this game. So in order to vote on this poll, I need to try azul duel ( a game that based on my experience with azul) that i will probably dislike to fill quota?.

[mrmivo]

Why is it setup like this?

To ensure that voters have first hand experience with all of the candidates they vote for or against, and probably to incentivize people to go outside of the comfort zone and try out new games.

The latter is working on me. I've already tried a few of the games on the list and will probably work through the rest. There's a whole month of time for this and many of these games are fairly short, except for the ones in the expert category.