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There Will Be Games
 spiel des jahres

Well, the Spiel Des Jahres nominees were announced the other day.  And of course, they were mostly boring-looking (and pretty obscure) Eurogames that will likely be forgotten within two or three years.  The funny thing is that the big hoopla games like AGRICOLA and RACE FOR THE GALAXY were ignored.  AGRICOLA got a nod for some special prize for "complex" game.  Guess the jury didn't play CODE BLUE this year.

Anyway, when the Eurogame thing started happening back in the mid-90s, all eyes were on the SDJ.  I would watch and see who won and I often used it as a guide to what the best games were likely to be- when we were having to import these games at $60 a pop or so and there wasn't any English language material on them, it was a good way to avoid throwing your money away.  But then I got ELFENLAND.  And now the award seems almost completely irrelevant.

The thing is, SDJ is now an internationally watched award yet it still retains its focus on marginal European family games.  Which is a shame, because an award of its stature and recognition could be used for good instead of evil.

You know what to do- this way to Gameshark.com.   Make Bill Abner happy!

There Will Be Games
Michael Barnes (He/Him)
Senior Board Game Reviews Editor

Sometime in the early 1980s, MichaelBarnes’ parents thought it would be a good idea to buy him a board game to keep him busy with some friends during one of those high-pressure, “free” timeshare vacations. It turned out to be a terrible idea, because the game was TSR’s Dungeon! - and the rest, as they say, is history. Michael has been involved with writing professionally about games since 2002, when he busked for store credit writing for Boulder Games’ newsletter. He has written for a number of international hobby gaming periodicals and popular Web sites. From 2004-2008, he was the co-owner of Atlanta Game Factory, a brick-and-mortar retail store. He is currently the co-founder of FortressAT.com and Nohighscores.com as well as the Editor-in-Chief of Miniature Market’s Review Corner feature. He is married with two childen and when he’s not playing some kind of game he enjoys stockpiling trivial information about music, comics and film.

Articles by Michael

Michael Barnes
Senior Board Game Reviews Editor

Articles by Michael

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