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Pillars of the Earth Wins Deutscher Spiele Preis 2007

Pillars of the Earth, designed by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler, has won the Deutscher Spiele Pries for 2007 by a huge margin over second-place finisher Notre Dame. Here’s the rundown of the top ten vote-getters, along with the number of points they scored:

  1. Pillars of the Earth, by Rieneck & Stadler (Kosmos / Mayfair) - 3957 points
  2. Notre Dame, by Stefan Feld (alea / Rio Grande) - 2980 points
  3. Vikings, by Michael Kiesling (Hans im Glück / Rio Grande) - 2576 points
  4. Yspahan, by Sebastien Pauchon (Ystari / Rio Grande) - 2298 points
  5. Zooloretto, by Michael Schacht (Abacusspiele / Rio Grande) - 1293 points
  6. Arkadia, by Rüdiger Dorn (Ravensburger) - 1222 points
  7. Imperial, by Mac Gerdts (Eggertspiele / Rio Grande) - 1177 points
  8. Leonardo da Vinci, by Acchitocca (daVinci / Mayfair) - 1016 points
  9. Thebes, by Peter Prinz (Queen / Rio Grande) - 965 points
  10. Colosseum, by Wolfgang Kramer & Markus Lübke (Days of Wonder) - 855 points
Four of the five Spiel des Jahres nominees, including the winning title Zooloretto, placed in the DSP, although the highest any of these titles finished is fourth; The Thief of Baghdad is the only nominee outside the top ten.

Burg Appenzell, designed by Bernhard Weber and Jens Peter Schliemann and published by Zoch Verlag, won the DSP for best children’s game as well as the game with the best rules presentation. Burg Appenzell will be released in French by Gigamic and English by Rio Grande under the title Chateau Roquefort.

The awards will be handed out at a ceremony during Spiel 07 in mid-October.

Source: Friedhelm Merz Verlag



Posted by W. Eric Martin on Sep 16, 2007 at 11:00 PM in Game News,  Boardgame News / 817

Comments:

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Well, of the games that did well, my clear favorite is Notre Dame, so I guess it’s a little disappointing not to see it win.  But, in retrospect, Pillars was the obvious choice for the DSP for the same reason many of us thought it would win the SdJ:  it’s very attractive theme (for Europeans, at least).  The mistake we made was underestimating its weight, but since the SdJ Jury considered it complex (presumably, too complex to nominate), the DSP award makes sense.

I’m not saying that Pillars is a poor game--I think it’s quite good.  But if you compare it to Notre Dame, its real advantage would seem to be its theme, rather than its gameplay.

The games I really would have liked to see compete for the DSP, like Through the Ages and Canal Mania, had no real chance:  too heavy and way too few copies produced.  Even if these games had had greater coverage, I’m not sure they would have finished that high; the list is very much dominated by middleweight designs.  It’ll be interesting to see how TtA and CM do in the IGA awards, which still feel wide open to me.

Posted by Larry Levy on Sep 17, 2007 at 12:11 AM | #

I like all of the games on the list a lot, although I think Imperial might be the best.

Posted by Surya Van Lierde on Sep 17, 2007 at 03:07 AM | #

It is interesting analyze the overlap between awards:

4 of the 5 SDJ in DSP top 10
3 of the 5 SDJ in IGA top 10
7 of the 10 DSP in IGA top 10

Yspahan, Arkadia and Thebe are in all 3 awards finalist list.

DSP is a sort of gamers vote indeed (I don’t’ know how many occasional go online voting).

The 3 DSP not in IGA are Leonardo (very close to reach the IGA top 10), Zooloretto (that is a great SDJ but I think not a gamers game) and Vikings.

On the other side, the 3 IGA top 10 not in DSP are: Through the Ages (that suffers from a really small production/distribution), Factory Fun (I think it halves the gaming world in two ... also the people voting on the DSP probably are on the other half) and Ages of Empires III (I think released too late for getting the needed attention by the mass).

I’m now really curious to know the IGA winner.

What we can say (and see) is that are more common nice games that are enough simple and well-dressed to satisfy the mass but also enough deep and intriguing to satisfy gamers too ... do you agree ?

good play
Liga

Posted by Andrea Liga Ligabue on Sep 17, 2007 at 08:35 AM | #

Not a surprising result for the top 2, but surprised Imperial didn’t do a bit better.  My top 3 would’ve been Imperial, Notre Dame, and Arkadia.

Posted by Tom Rosen on Sep 18, 2007 at 09:43 PM | #

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