Gary Gygax - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

As the "father of role-playing games", Gygax received many awards, honors, and tributes related to gaming:

• He was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Origins Award Hall of Fame in 1980.
• Sync magazine named Gygax number one on the list of "The 50 Biggest Nerds of All Time".
• SFX magazine listed him as number 37 on the list of the "50 Greatest SF Pioneers".
• In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Gygax as one of "The Millennium's Most Influential Persons" "in the realm of adventure gaming."
• Gygax was tied with J. R. R. Tolkien for number 18 on GameSpy's "30 Most Influential People in Gaming".
• Numerous names in Dungeons & Dragons, such as Zagyg, Ring of Gaxx, and Gryrax, are anagrams or alterations of Gygax's name.
• A strain of bacteria was named in honor of Gygax, "Arthronema gygaxiana sp nov UTCC393".
• Blizzard Entertainment dedicated the 2.4.0 patch of World of Warcraft, "Fury of the Sunwell", to Gygax.
• Electronic Arts dedicated Publish 51 in Ultima Online to Gygax. This included a new room in the dungeon Doom containing a special encounter and unique decorations.
• Turbine, Inc., included two tributes in the Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach Module 7, released June 3, 2008.
• A new area in the Dungeons & Dragons Online region "Delera's Graveyard", which contains a memorial marker and a new unique item (Voice of the Master, which improves the wearer's experience awards).
• Stephen Colbert, an avid D&D gamer in his youth, dedicated the last part of the March 5, 2008, episode of The Colbert Report to Gygax.
• Gygax was commemorated in a number of webcomics, including xkcd's comic #393 "Ultimate Game", Penny Arcade's "Bordering On The Semi-Tasteful", Dork Tower's "Thanks for the Worldbuilding Rules", Order of the Stick #536 "A Brief Tribute", UserFriendly's cartoon for March 9, 2008, GU Comics' "The Journey's End", and the Unspeakable Vault (of Doom).
• The 2008 film Futurama: Bender's Game contained a post-closing-credits title card paying tribute to Gygax and a clip of him from the episode "Anthology of Interest" saying, "Anyone want to play Dungeons and Dragons for the next quadrillion years?" Many people involved in the show, including David X. Cohen, were D&D fans and played the game during production of the show.
• Gygax's voice appears as his 8-bit self on Code Monkeys.
• All three Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition core rulebooks are also "dedicated to the memory of E. Gary Gygax."
• Gygax and his love of gaming are celebrated at GaryCon, a Lake Geneva gaming convention hosted annually by family members and fans as a tribute.
• Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, has been raising funds to construct a memorial in her late husband's honor by establishing the nonprofit 501 (c) 3 Gygax Memorial Fund. As of January 2010, plans were to secure a location on the lakefront in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. As of March 28, 2011 the City Council of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin approved Gail Gygax's application for a site of memorial in Donian Park. The statue monument will include "a castle turret with a bust on top and possibly have a dragon wrapped around the turret."