The Games Manufacturers Association announced the opening up of its Origins Awards Nominations for 2025, which will happen on January 9, 2025.
For 2025, the categories have been completely revamped to reflect what the GAMA perceives the current landscape of the games industry to be. The categories have also been aligned with GAMA’s interests as an organization. The Origins Awards categories have been in flux for a number of years now, seemingly seeing different numbers and types of awards on a yearly basis since the pandemic (see “GAMA Changes Origins Awards’ Categories for 2022,” “Origins Award 2023 Winners Announced,” and also, “Origins Award Winners Announced“).
The 2025 categories have changed yet again, which are as follows:
- Board Games Categories: Gateway Game of the Year, Cooperative/Solo Game of the Year, Heavy Strategy Game of the Year, Light Strategy Game of the Year, Party Game of the Year, and Constructable Game of the Year.
- Miniatures Categories: Miniatures Game of the Year, Paint/Hobby Accessory of the Year, and Miniature of the Year.
- Roleplaying Games Categories: Roleplaying Game of the Year and Supplement of the Year.
- Product of the Year Categories: Product of the Year (Randomized) and Product of the Year (Fixed).
- Overall Recognition Categories: Game of the Year
Of note, two of the largest categories in the games industry, TCGs and TCG Accessories, have been largely left out of this Awards roster. These two product types, which make up some hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue within the games industry, were not allotted a specific product category of awards. However, they can still be nominated for Product of the Year and the Overall Recognition categories in hopes of winning one of the top awards at the show. It is unclear if Constructable Game of the Year has anything to do with TCGs, but even if it does, lumping TCGs into the Board Game Category is a bit of misnomer.
Also of note, there are no media or artist Origins Awards for 2025, which is a major change for a post-publisher-controlled GAMA board world (see “GAMA Publishers Give Up Control of Organization“). These two groups of members had been routinely included in the awards since they gained representation in GAMA on the board.
Nominations for the Origins Awards can be made via the following link. Finalists will be announced on or around February 27, 2025, and the winners will be announced at Origins Game Fair on June 20, 2025.
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