International Gamers Award Game of the Year 2020 Nominees Announced

The nominees are:
Azul: Summer PavilionBarrageImperial StruggleMaracaiboThe...

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The games nominated for the IGA are usually pretty interesting, and worth taking note of. Although, it seems to me that they were more interesting back when Moo Frank was still a member.

More importantly, the judges are 20 men and 1 woman. They are all white/European except except for Dale Yu and Takuya Ono. WTF IGA. It's 2020.

The actual award winner is less interesting than the list of nominations. I like perusing the long list of nominations (usually 15 games), but I couldn't find it for this year.

Vysetron wrote: I must be confused as to the criticism here.

TWBG is just as white, if not whiter %-wise. Are we supposed to discount anything said here as a result? I'm one of the few non-white folks here and I'm super pale/white passing/whatever term, should I not feel like words here have weight? I don't get what this is trying to say.

Maracaibo is a real distasteful pick though.

The IGA is a prestigious committee that you must be invited to join. They were established in 1999 with the sole purpose being to judge and award the IGA. It is also the defacto old boy network of the board game world. I don't discount any of the members opinions. However, after 21 years, I would expect them to have inducted more than one woman into the club. And maybe expand their definition of "International" to mean slightly more International than the US, Europe (actually northern Europe except for Italy), Australia, Japan, and the Dutch guy that lives in Africa.

Alan How (UK)
Andrea "Liga" Ligabue (Italy)
Andreas Keirat (Germany)
Ben Baldanza (US)
Dale Yu (US)
Erwin Broens (Netherlands)
Ferdinand de Cassan (Austria)
Frank Schulte-Kulkmann (Germany)
François Haffner (France)
Greg Schloesser (US)
Han Heidema (Netherlands)
Herb Levy (US)
Joel Eddy (US)
Knut Michael Wolf (Germany)
Larry Levy (US)
Mauro Di Marco (Italy)
Melissa Rogerson (Australia)
Mik Svellov (Germany)
Mike Clifford (UK)
Mike Siggins (UK)
Peter Sarrett (US)
Ronald Hoekstra (Netherlands)
Scott Alden (US)
Simmy Peerutin (Africa)
Stuart Dagger (UK)
Takuya Ono (Japan)
W. Eric Martin (US)