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Le Havre, Day & Night Win 2009 International Gamers Awards
Despite expectations on the part of many a gamer, Uwe Rosenberg’s Le Havre has won the 2009 International Gamers Award in the multi-player category, denying Donald X. Vaccarino’s Dominion one more accolade on top of the many it’s already received in 2009. Rosenberg also won the 2008 IGA award in the same category for Agricola – which like Le Havre was developed and published by Lookout Games – making him the first second designer to win back-to-back IGA awards, following the footprints of Wolfgang Kramer with Tikal and The Princes of Florence.
In the two-player category, newcomer Valentijn Eekels won for Day & Night, published by Mystics.nl. For details on the game, you can read my review from April 2009.
The IGA uses a “single transferable vote” method of determining the winner of each category. How this works is that each jury member submits an ordered list of the nominees for the award, with the top choice listed first, the next choice listed second, and so on. If a jury member has no opinion on a game, he can omit it from his list. All of the first place votes are tallied, then the game with the fewest votes is removed from consideration and anyone who voted for that title has his vote transferred to the next game on his list. (In case of a tie, the game with less support during the nomination stage is eliminated first.) This process continues until one game has a majority of the 19 possible votes. [Disclosure: I am a member of the IGA jury.]
Here’s how the voting in the two categories panned out, as described by IGA member and Counter editor Stuart Dagger:
Multi-player section
The initial count of first preferences:6: Le Havre
4: Automobile, Dominion
2: Battlestar Galactica
1: Diamonds Club, Space Alert, Steam
The games with no votes are eliminated. Next to go is Diamonds Club, which was less well supported at the nominations stage than either Space Alert or Steam. Its voter switches to Battlestar Galactica, which moves up to 3.Steam is the next to go, followed by Space Alert. Their votes transfer to Dominion and Automobile, respectively. This puts both those games up to 5.
Battlestar Galactica is now alone in last place and so it is the next to be eliminated. Of the three votes released 1 goes to Le Havre, 1 to Automobile and 1 to Dominion, giving the position:
7: Le Havre
6: Automobile, Dominion
This time the tie-break at the bottom goes in favour of Dominion. Of Automobile‘s 6 votes, 5 switch to Le Havre and 1 to Dominion, which makes the final count: Le Havre 12; Dominion 7.
Two-player section
The initial count of first preferences:
4: Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear
3: Die Säulen der Erde: Duell der Baumeister
2: Day & Night, Kamisado
1: 2 de Mayo2 de Mayo is eliminated and its vote switches to Day & Night, which moves up to 3.
Kamisado goes next and both its votes also go to Day & Night, which now moves into the lead on 5. Die Säulen der Erde: Duell der Baumeister is now in last place and is eliminated. All 3 of its votes transfer to Day & Night to give a final score of Day & Night 8; Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear 4.
Congratulations to the winners!
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Sep 27, 2009 at 02:00 AM in Game News, The Industry at Large / 1628
Comments:
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"Rosenberg also won the 2008 IGA award in the same category for Agricola, making him the first designer to win back-to-back IGA awards.” Incorrect, #1 son! Wolfgang Kramer won the first two IGA awards for Tikal and Princes of Florence. Posted by Larry Levy on Sep 27, 2009 at 02:42 AM | #
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Guess I shouldn’t be posting at 2:00 am while I’m sick. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Sep 27, 2009 at 08:50 AM | #
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Not crazy about this type of voting at all. Le Havre did have the most votes in it’s catagory but Night & Day was way down the line. Maybe we should use this method to elect our next president. We’d be rid of Democrats and Republicans. Posted by Kevin Rutherford on Sep 27, 2009 at 10:37 PM | #
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So what’s the alternative, Kevin? Yes, Day & Night had fewer first places than two other titles, and it tied one other, but the effect of the “single transferable vote” system is that you winnow choices until you’re left with the title with more support among the voting jury than any other. Day & Night was the second place choice for all those who ranked 2 de Mayo, Kamisado and Die Säulen der Erde: Duell der Baumeister first. This method of voting reflects that support in the final result. For the record, if Dominion had been eliminated instead of Automobile, Le Havre would still have won by roughly the same margin of victory. As above, this result reflects the consensus of the IGA jury – arrived at through independent voting – that Le Havre is better than any of the other nominated games. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Sep 27, 2009 at 10:49 PM | #
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I tell you what I find scary, Kevin. Suppose one of the voters who put Day & Night first had picked 2 de Mayo first instead and shifted Day & Night to second. Day & Night would still have overwhelming support, but would have been the first game eliminated. Having such a subtle shift result in a game going from a big win to a last place finish is very disturbing, at least to me. You can mathematically prove that no system can accomplish everything you’d like, so I’m not sure you can necessarily improve on the STV. And there are some other methods, like the one used for the Golden Geeks (the Schulze method) which I think are even worse. But I do wish the STV used a better algorithm for determining the order that games are eliminated. Posted by Larry Levy on Sep 28, 2009 at 12:04 AM | #
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Kevin, the Irish do use this method to elect their President, and it works better than the one you use in the States, where third party candidates affect one of the two principals more than the other and where the workings of the electoral College mean that only the “Swing States” really matter. Look back at the numbers for the Bush-Gore contest if you aren’t convinced. The point Larry makes is one I acknowledge, but that problem has more to do with the small number of voters than with the voting system. 12 voters and 5 candidates isn’t a stable set-up. My personal view is that we should have a larger committee, but whenever the matter has come up for discussion I’ve found myself in the minority.
As for alternative systems, “simple majority” voting forces voters to choose between voting for
Posted by Stuart Dagger on Sep 28, 2009 at 03:44 AM | #
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Maybe the better alternative is to not have nominations. The jury just picks one favorite for each catagory and then look at the totals to see who wins. These judges are probably mostly “cult of the new” so they’d be playing any game that is making noise in the boardgame community. Under this system only those single games that each judge likes ends up winning, not some second, third or fourth best selection. Posted by Kevin Rutherford on Sep 28, 2009 at 07:37 AM | #
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It’s called preferential voting in Australia and is used for all three tiers of government elections. We like it fine :-) Posted by Fraser McHarg on Sep 28, 2009 at 08:53 AM | #
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Something like everyone gives 5 points for best game, 3 points for second one and so on sounds more sensible for me. Posted by Tommy Ryytty on Sep 28, 2009 at 04:26 PM | #
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I like this system because when I have to decide my final votes I can say: “OK, for me this year the IGA winner bust be Green Gorilla Gamblers” and I set my first preference and than I say “OK, in the unlikely event that GGG will not win, who is, in the 9 games remained the best one ? Of course it will be Big Bamboo Boat” ... and so on ... so, I think this year for most of the Judges Day & Night was not the first choice but since there was not agreement in the first choice, the better runner up wins deservedly the award!
good play
Posted by Andrea Liga Ligabue on Sep 30, 2009 at 05:59 AM | #
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