The 2025 Bobby Nunes Memorial Award recipient was Amabel Holland for her Vonnegut’s Board Game: Preservation, Annotation, Context video essay. That selection was announced at SDHistCon Summit 2025 in San Diego that November. Holland’s work on that essay drew praise from award judges for its thoughtful consideration of several aspects of 2025 Summit Award runner-up GHQ, such as it being an unknown design from an iconic author, its cultural relevance when it was made, and what it signifies in the present hobby. Her discussion of the wider topic of game preservation in the essay also won plaudits.

Vonnegut’s Board Game: Preservation, Annotation, Context was one of four 2025 Bobby Nunes Memorial Award finalists announced that September following a public call for nominations over a period of months. The other finalists were (in alphabetical order) Philosophy and Board Games: The Categorical Imperative (a written essay from Player Elimination founder Charlie Theel on ethical action and game design), Space-Cast! #42. The Twilight Cardboard (a podcast interview from Space-Biff founder Dan Thurot with Francisco “Pako” Gradaille about Gradaille’s Onoda game on controversial figure Hiroo Onoda) and “Unpacking the Clean Wehrmacht’s Legacy in Wargames – Wargame Ethics” (a video panel hosted by Fred Serval on his Homo Ludens channel, featuring Professor Alastair Kocho Williams, Jan Heinemann, Volko Ruhnke, and Dr. Waitman Beorne). Three books were also selected as honorable mentions: Maurice Suckling’s Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games, Rodger B. MacGowan’s The Art of Rodger B. MacGowan, and Mark Herman’s Wargames According To Mark: A Historian’s View of Wargame Design. 

The Bobby Nunes Memorial Award seeks to recognize exceptional gaming media each year in honor of former SDHistCon board member and Conflicts of Interest founder/editor Robert “Bobby Factor” Nunes. This media should reflect Bobby’s enthusiasm for and interest in discussing important cultural issues within the historical gaming hobby.