The Diana Jones Award

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming was founded and first awarded in 2001. It is presented annually to the person, product, company, event, movement, concept or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its committee, best demonstrated the quality of “excellence” in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year. It has been described as “the Nobel Prize of gaming.”

The Diana Jones Award committee is a mostly anonymous group of over 50 tabletop games industry professionals that includes game designers, publishers, creatives, and consultants.

Past winners of the Diana Jones Award include industry figures such as Peter Adkison, Jordan Weisman, and Eric Lang, the boardgames Dominion and Ticket to Ride, the roleplaying game Fiasco, the YouTube show TableTop with Wil Wheaton, and the concept of streaming tabletop RPGs known as Actual Play.

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming: This is the full name of the award. It’s also referred to in brief as the Diana Jones Award, and winners are selected by the Diana Jones Award committee.

Diana Jones Award Winner: The person, product, company, event, movement, concept, or thing that has won the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming for a particular year.

Diana Jones Award Honoree: One of several exemplars of a Diana Jones Award winner that is a concept. They’re mentioned by name in the press release for that year’s award.

Diana Jones Award Finalist: One of 3 to 7 people, products, companies, events, movements, concepts, or things that are mentioned by name at the Diana Jones Award presentation. One of them is selected by committee vote to be the winner. A finalist is equivalent to a silver medal or second place in some other awards.

Nominees: One of possibly several dozen people, products, companies, events, movements, concepts, or things that are put forward by Diana Jones Award committee members for voting. 3 to 7 of them are selected as finalists. Nominee identities are not released publicly.