Spiel des Jahres FAQ: Frequently asked questions
The awards
The Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) is an award for analogue board games in German-speaking countries, first presented in 1979. German-language games from the current year and the previous year are considered. Since 2001, there has also been a Kinderspiel des Jahres (Children’s Game of the Year) award, and since 2011, a Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur Game of the Year) award. The award does not come with any prize money. The winners are allowed to advertise with the jury’s logo, but licence fees are payable for this. These revenues are used to cover expenses incurred by the registered association Spiel des Jahres.
No one. Due to the necessary independence, there can be no higher state or private authority that appoints a jury and grants it competence. The authority and credibility of the jury stems from its many years of recognised successful work. The right to make decisions of great significance requires the ongoing competence, independence and incorruptibility of the jury members. Apart from that, it was the jury that established the prize in the first place – so it created the right for itself.
None – the jury makes its decisions independently of external influences. Because this has been known for many decades, there are no such attempts.
Yes – however, there is no single, objectively best game. Depending on the number of players, their experience, the time frame, etc., a jury member might choose one game or another because it best suits the group in question and playing games is a communal experience. Ultimately, the jury’s aim is to select and award the game that seems best suited to promoting games as a cultural asset across society.
The Jury Spiel des Jahres
The jury consists of critics from German-speaking countries. There is no target number, and there is no automatic rule that new members must replace other jurors, or vice versa. The members work as journalists and report on games. They serve on the Spiel des Jahres jury on a voluntary basis.
Game critics who work for German-language media outlets are appointed to the jury – and they have been doing so for so long that their expertise is proven. The members of the jury look for such colleagues and decide on their admission by vote. You cannot apply yourself. Anyone who is involved in any way with the invention, production or marketing of games cannot become or remain a member of the jury.
Each member has their own circle of friends, acquaintances or colleagues, which varies in size and meets more or less regularly. It is impossible to give exact figures because everyone is busy with their main job to a different extent and because there are different phases throughout the year – the most intense period is between February and May. It is important to play with different types of players, both casual players and ‘freaks’, because this allows different aspects of a game to come to the fore. And, of course, the jury and individual members also play with each other at their meetings.
Through the office. They can provide information on all questions.
Rules and decision criteria of the jury
In the end, it is always the overall impression that counts, the feel of the game, which can hardly be broken down into individual, measurable parts. Nevertheless, there are criteria that help in evaluating a game: Does it have a new idea or does it at least combine existing elements to create a new experience? Has the idea been implemented in such a way that the game is captivating? Does it feel organic and well-rounded, or artificial and contrived? Are the rules sensibly structured, clear, understandable, without gaps, contradictions, or errors? Does the material serve its purpose, is it solid and durable? Is the design appealing, are the box, game board, rules, and materials coordinated?
Yes – if the quality of the game is appropriate for the target audience of the award, i.e. ‘society and family’ in a broad sense. However, the game must meet the following basic formal requirements:
– The rules and all other texts relevant to the game must be written in German.
– The game must have been released in the current year or the previous year. New editions of already known games that are virtually unchanged are not eligible.
– The game must be available in retail stores. Prototypes, samples or small print runs will not be evaluated by the jury.
– There must be a distributor in German-speaking countries.
– The game must be playable on its own. Mere expansions will not be considered.
(FAQ for publishers ➜)
No. In their capacity as game critics, the members of the jury request review copies of new games from publishers, just like any other game critic. So it is not the publishers who decide which games are included in the selection process, but the members of the jury themselves.
The winners of Spiel des Jahres, Kinderspiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres are selected and announced every year in July. The nomination of candidates and the announcement of the recommendation list take place in May (dates ➜). In order to be able to spend sufficient time reviewing the games, the new releases must be available by the end of March of the respective year at the latest.
In order for games to be considered, they must be available early enough to be thoroughly reviewed during the annual selection process. The jury therefore only reviews new releases that are available by the end of March and available for retail sale. Games released later than this can only be considered the following year.
Basically, no. The jury only judges the quality of the games; it doesn’t matter whether it’s a small card game or a large board game, and it also doesn’t matter which publisher or author is involved, or who has won which prizes in the past.
At the jury’s closed-door meeting in May, the games undergo a multi-stage selection process, in which the total number of eligible titles is first reduced to a longlist for the categories Spiel des Jahres, Kinderspiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres. The games are then selected from the longlist for the shortlist – three per category. Voting takes place at each stage, with the games having to achieve a majority among the jury members. The games on the longlist that did not make it onto the shortlist form the recommendation list. The shortlist contains the games that have been nominated. The winning games themselves are not chosen until immediately before the award ceremony, which takes place on a Sunday in July.
If that were the case, there probably wouldn’t be any award at all. The jury members generally support the joint decision, but some naturally find it more difficult to accept because they would have made a different choice personally. The decisions are the result of votes taken after extensive discussions and reflect the opinion of the majority, although this does not necessarily reflect the opinion of each individual. In an association consisting of members with individual preferences, it cannot be any other way.
In positive cases, i.e. when games are awarded prizes, there is always a justification in the form of a description of the merits of the respective title, generally also included in the text of the certificate associated with the prize. In the negative case, publication would not be practicable: each individual jury member would first have to announce whether they had voted against a game in order to then justify their rejection – which is impossible because individual voting behaviour should not be made public in order to maintain independence. The internal discussion is confidential and must remain so. Exceptions can only be made if a game is not eligible for objective reasons – for example, because the rules are unusable or the materials do not pass the practical test. Incidentally, all jury members regularly publish game reviews and express their opinions in them.
Revenue and use
The jury works on a voluntary basis; its members receive no financial compensation for their activities, which include playing, testing, evaluating and discussing new releases. They are only reimbursed for their expenses – travel costs, accommodation, meals – when they are travelling on behalf of the jury, attending the annual award ceremony, selected trade fairs and conventions, and internal association meetings. The association pays an expense allowance for activities that go beyond the playful tasks of membership. These include, among other things, board activities, the work of the spokesperson, moderating the award ceremony, public relations work and assisting in the pre-selection of funding applications received by the association. The amount of the expense allowance, which is taxable for association members, is 25 euros per hour.
The jury generates income solely from licence fees charged for the promotional use of the association’s logo. If an award-winning publisher wishes to advertise with the title Spiel des Jahres, they may do so free of charge. However, if they wish to print the Spiel des Jahres logo on the box, this incurs a very small licence fee per game sold. For the winning games, the nominated and recommended titles, and special prizes, the duration of use and the amount of the licence fees are regulated differently.
In the first ten years, the members of the jury paid all costs out of their own pockets. There were also no expense allowances. During this time, the award steadily gained in importance. Manufacturers and retailers made substantial profits from the awards without any additional advertising expenditure. As this also led to a significant increase in the public’s demand for information, the jury’s tasks and activities grew steadily. This situation became untenable, as the association’s only source of income was the membership fees paid by its members. In order to ensure the jury’s independence in the long term, the association therefore introduced a licensing model in 1989.
Although every manufacturer can advertise without restriction that they have been awarded by the jury, the well-known logo – the laurel-wreathed pawn with the words Spiel des Jahres, Kinderspiel des Jahres or Kennerspiel des Jahres (and possibly additional information such as ‘nominated for Spiel des Jahres’) – is the property of the association and has a market value of millions. The licensing model applies exclusively to the use of the label. If a publisher wishes to use the logo, it must enter into a contract with the association. This contract primarily regulates how the logo may (and may not) be displayed, the term of use, and the amount and timing of the licence fee. The association specifies the colour, shape, lettering and maximum size of the logo in order to prevent misuse. The association sees itself exclusively as representing the interests of consumers who play games and therefore does not tolerate any use of the label that is not clear and true.
In order to limit the number of games with the logo presented in stores, there is a time limit on the use of the logo for recommended and nominated games. This is because a ‘flood of labels’ would detract from the clarity and character of a special recommendation. The licence agreement with a winning game is open-ended, but the licensee can terminate the agreement at any time and refrain from further use of the label. Nominated games and games awarded a special prize may bear the logo for three calendar years, while recommended games may only bear it for two years. Manufacturers may, of course, continue to advertise the award after this period, but the logo may no longer be printed on the box.
The income is used exclusively to finance the work of the jury and the overarching task of promoting games in society and within families. The association has a full-time managing director, operates an office, ensures comprehensive public relations work through publications and events, pays for the young designers’ scholarship of the Spiele-Autoren-Zunft (Game Designers’ Guild), supports the ‘Spielend für Toleranz’ (Playing for Tolerance) initiative, organises events such as the ‘Tag der Brettspielkritik’ (Board Game Criticism Day) to bring together members of the gaming community, cooperates with projects taking place in Nuremberg’s museums, and funds a research position at the University of Konstanz. With its funding programme, the association provides extensive subsidies for projects carried out by associations, educational institutions, church communities, local authorities and private individuals for the benefit of games as cultural assets. Although the association pursues idealistic goals, these are not recognised by the tax office as tax-privileged purposes to the extent required by law. Therefore, the Spiel des Jahres association has to pay taxes.