Chic's Purchasing Games Rule #1: Awards

How do you know if a game is good or not? Do you really want to own the game? Ask yourself the following questions and do it before you have to learn the hard way like I did.

Rule #1: Has the game won an award?

I learned my lesson the hard way. When I first got into gaming, I would pick up anything that sounded fun thus spending too much money on games we don't play much. Now I only buy games that have won some kind of award.

I like the Spiel De Jahres award the best and have found myself collecting the awarded games. The German Spiel des Jahres is perhaps the world's most prestigious game award. Consider it the Oscar of this hobby. They try and focus on games that would be great for families - fun, relatively light, and not too long. Right up my alley!

Spiel De Jahres: The Spiel De Jahres official website is all in German, so I like to reference the list of winners from Wikipedia or Fun Again Games. The Spiel De Jahres also recognizes good children's games by awarding them the Kinderspiel.

GAMES Magazine: A good mix of nonelectronic and electronic games. The winners are often times different than the Speil De Jahres, but still has good suggestions and crictiques.

International Gamers Award: These guys judge based on three different types of criteria. 1- General Stragey for multi players, 2- Two player games and 3- Historical Simulation Game or Wargames (Not my favorite, but fun for the guys.) Another good mix of recommended games.