THE SOTY CONTEST IS HERE!

The RPG Site of the Year Award, or SOTY, is Stuffer Shack’s way of rewarding our community’s awesome gaming bloggers.  It’s a celebration of gaming, showcasing the best of the best gaming blogs. It’s a free contest in which readers submit their table-top gaming websites – in the hopes of taking home the prizes and SOTY Shield, but more importantly, the title of RPG Site of the Year.

Our first award went to a very deserving Critical Hits in 2011, and we’re looking forward to this year’s contest. 2012 will see a few changes from how things were done in 2011, but it’s all for the better!

A Proper Introduction…

My name is Tourq Stevens, and this contest is being hosted by Stuffer Shack. Every month Stuffer Shack showcases a great blog in a feature called Site of the Month. Well, after a year of being online, it only seemed natural to begin a Site of the Year feature. However, wherein our Site of the Month stems from a simple arbitrary decision on which blog to showcase, our SOTY contest is a much more involved event.

This contest is free, yet yields some impressive prizes. Our first contest had 26 contestants all vying for both the RPG Site of the Year title, and a prize package worth over $250.  This year we’ll have more submissions, AND we have several more sponsors this time around, as well.  That means we have more prizes!  We’ll anounce those prizes in the coming weeks.

How many winners will there be? Will there be different categories?

There will be one winner, always. The category is simply “RPG Site of the Year.” This contest is geared specifically for independent, non-corporate, fan-based, table-top gaming blogs (text blogs, audio, and video – it’s all the same!).

And how is the winner determined?

It will be determined in two phases:

1. All sites will be put into one of five groups, and readers will vote online for their favorite site in each group.
2. Then, the five winning sites will be examined in a variety of categories by several judges, with their combined efforts to determine the winner.

The sites will be put into groups for the initial voting?

Yes. As an example, one group might be “News and Industry Event RPG Blogs,” while another might be “Game-Specific Resource Blogs.” We do it this way so that when readers begin the voting, sites are competing against similar sites. In the second phase of the contest, judges will look at each of the five finalists and determine how well those blogs perform their intended function.

The groups will not be so obscure that only a couple of readers would find those blogs interesting. “How to Design the Perfect Sci-fi Campaign Blogs” would not be a group, while “Blogs designed to help Gamemasters” would.

That seems interesting, but is it fair?

Well, there are several ways one could go about having a free contest, and this is the direction we’ve chosen. We’ve set it up so that the younger, lesser known, or more specialized gaming blogs have a better chance against the big dogz. This is not exactly a popularity contest, or a contest among only the heavyweights; we’re simply leveling the playing field.

Ah, so it’s a Pound-for-Pound type of competition?

Exactly. Our contest format will bring to light some of the gaming blogs that you may not have ever seen, yet are true gems uncovered.

And when does the contest actually take place?

• We’ll be accepting submissions until the end of March. 
• Reader voting will take place in the middle of April.
• The judges will go over the finalists near the end of April.
• And the winner will be anounced on April 30th! 

My name is Tourq Stevens. If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them below in the comments, or you can get in touch through our contact page.

Take it easy, and good luck!

Prizes
Submissions
Submit your Site
Schedule
Rules
2012 Judges

The 2011 SOTY