Didn’t I just talk about the Boardgamegeek Awards a few days ago?
You’d think a super niche hobby like German boardgaming, barely a blip on the entertainment radar outside of its native Deutschland, would have one or maybe two awards. Well, ok maybe that’s true. The Spiel des Jahres, the national boardgaming award of Germany is the Oscars of this hobby. The Deutsche Spiele Preis gets the Golden Globes mantle, especially after letting people vote on the web. (Yeah, we have no idea if those votes actually count, or they just have a good laugh at the stuff people nominate and award the prize to whoever they prefer.) The SdJ generally gives their big prize to a family game, though they had a combined seizure in 2000 and finally gave the big daddy trophy to a deserving masterpiece, Wolfgang Kramer’s Torres. Otherwise, it’s been mostly bland, mediocre games like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride and in what must have been a decison made over bad sauerkraut, the completely forgettable Niagara.
The DSP on the other hand is positioned as the award for the best strategy games. Awardees include titans like Puerto Rico, Amun-Re and Taj Mahal. Sure there are occasional disasters like the mindless Carcassonne and the skin-deep St. Petersburg, but the DSP is magnitudes more likely to gild games I enjoy with their gold than the SdJ is. 
The International Gamers Awards positions itself as the non-German award for German boardgames. On the Spielfrieks discussion group, the IGA jury asserts that all boardgames are eligible. However, I think a game like Descent (or Fluxx) will be hard pressed to get a serious look. The day ongoing joke awards like the Origins Awards or the Mensa Select Awards for boardgames choose the same awardee as the IGA is the day Greg Schloesser stops being friendly. (I don’t know Greg, this is completely from my impression of his demeanor from online posts and Geekspeak interviews.)
Whatever the case, the question is whether or not the IGA is anything more than a group of gamers choosing what they think the “best” game is using an esoteric elimination system. What’s the difference between the IGA and the Meeple’s Choice Awards or the BGG Awards or the Dream Weaver Seven Boardgame Awards? Other than I’d probably be the only person on the jury in the latter case, not much.
Despite that, they’ve got nominees, so I guess I should pick a winner.
General Strategy Games, Multi-Player Category
Jeez, even their categories are strange. Easy pick for me here. Hacienda wins easily, with Blue Moon City playing bridesmaid. Just like the BGG awards, I’d put money on the massively overhyped Caylus taking home the award.
General Strategy Games, 2-Player Category
I don’t get this kind of category. 2P games have no hope of beating out multiplayer games? Another easy choice for me, as Pünct kicks ass. It’s identical to the BGG category. The clunky Twilight Struggle will figure in the race.
Historical Simulation Games
I don’t do these things.
Right now I’d put the odds of the IGA and the BGG awards having identical awardees at 3-to-1.
I can only guarantee that the Dream Weaver Seven Boardgame Awards will be more discriminating.
By the way,
I don’t know statistics for the other awards, but the German ones increase the number of sales significantly. I believe that a SdJ is worth about 250,000 extra in sales.
Yehuda
That’s only the SdJ, which has an effect similar to the Oscars on boardgames. I’ve not seen any effects arising from any of the other awards. Publishers like to stick logos of awards such as the Games 100 or Mensa awards, but since no one talks about the effects of this practice on sales we can surmise that it’s negligible.