Submissions for the 2023 Australian Game Developer Awards are officially open!

You can now submit your Australian made game for a game award as well as submit an individual or studio for a career & culture award.

IGEA is ready to celebrate and elevate our diverse and talented industry as preparation’s are already well under way for our industry’s night of nights.

The 2023 AGDAs ceremony will take place within Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW) on the evening of Wednesday 4 October at the iconic Forum venue and will also be streamed live.  2022 saw a record audience and we expect this year to be even larger as we unite to celebrate, highlight and uplift creators in the Australian industry.

The AGDAs is one of the first awards shows on the international calendar and previous winners such as Cult of the Lamb, Wylde Flowers, Unpacking, The Forgotten City, The Oregon Trail and The Artful Escape have gone onto achieve success and critical acclaim globally.

The AGDAs celebrate excellence in 13 game categories as well as 4 personal and studio awards,

Through the support of our expert judging panel, we continue to refine the award process and have again updated the publicly available judging assessment criteria to best reflect our diverse community and the games they create. This also includes renaming our “Excellence in Serious Games” award to the “Excellence in Impactful Games” award to better reflect the award’s criteria.

The AGDAs seeks to have a transparent process, so for a full understanding of the judging process, please refer to the judging page.

MAKE AN ENTRY:

Game Submissions.
Career & Culture Awards Submissions.

(Get in quick! Submissions Close June 8^th!)

If you have questions about the AGDAs please contact agdas@igea.net

This email, the judging process and all correspondence will be led by the AGDAs Team.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

To be eligible:

1. Games must be in a digital format. The AGDAs cannot currently facilitate TTRPG, Boardgames or physical only products.
2. Applicants must include the games intended full release date (Early-Access release dates do not count)with their submission, this release date must fall between 1 August 2022 and within 60 days of the 2023 ceremony date. *
3. Applicants must make a working version of the game digitally available to the judge by submission close date, later builds and updates will not be accepted.
4. Games that were nominated in previous years are not eligible for re-nomination.
5. The majority of the game must have been developed in Australia.
6. Applicants must provide valid contact information for each game submitted.
7. The game must be in a complete and working state and be clear what software and hardware is required to use the product.
8. Games with any required non-commercial bespoke equipment or any location specific requirements required to play are ineligible.
9. Judges reserve the right to consider a game ineligible for judging.

* Accurate release dates are provided in good faith by the applicant, the Judging Committee reserves the right to validate the legitimacy of these release dates as per their discretion.

BESPOKE AWARD CRITERIA:

The following categories have additional criteria.

Excellence in Ongoing Games:

1. A) Submissions for this category are treated as a standalone submission only; they are NOT in the running for any other awards in any other categories.
2. B) Ongoing Games must have had a major update between 1 June 2022 – 31 May 2023 and are exempt from Rules 2 & 4 of the Eligibility Criteria above.
3. C) Ongoing Games must include access to any relevant updates, DLCs or general content that game is to be judged upon.

Excellence in Emerging Games:

1. A) Emerging Games must be developed by a Student Team or an Early Career Developer (defined as a developer who has been developing for less than 5 years or producing their first major game).

ENTRY FEE

Terms:

• A Submission Fee of $30 AUD (excl.GST) applies to each game submitted. Multiple submissions will incur multiple fees.
• Applicants must provide their invoice details upon submission.
• Invoices will be issued upon application.
• Invoices are expected to be paid by June 30th (If you are experiencing financial hardship, please reach out to agdas@igea.net for assistance)
• Submissions that do not pay the Submission Fee will be considered ineligible for judging.
• There is no charge for submissions for the Career & Culture awards.

Please note that all game categories must receive a minimum of 3 entries in order to proceed with an award.

For more details on the judging process, please see our overview of the Judging Process and Judging Assessment Criteria.