The GWB Game Awards is open to all indie game development teams worldwide with no restriction on the personal or organizational background. Participation is 100% free and GWB will never request payment in exchange for registration, a trophy or prize distribution.
Games must not have been commercially released prior to January 2025. Any game released after that point, or still in development at the time of awards entry, is eligible to take part. The awards includes both released and unreleased games.
In order to participate, “core” development teams shall be no larger than 25 members. For eligibility in the Small Teams category, the “core” development team must not exceed 3 people. For the purpose of these awards, “core” members must be responsible for 70% or more of the game development and asset creation. Games where significant amounts of assets are provided by external team members are not eligible for inclusion in the Small Teams categories.
Eligible entries may include console, VR, PC, and mobile games (including H5).
To participate in the competition, participants or companies shall ensure that they have the right of use or copyright of the submitted projects and relevant authorization, and shall not involve the Organizing Committee in any copyright disputes or other intellectual property disputes.
Participants agree that their projects will be submitted to the judging panel for review. In order to complete certain prize categories, this judging panel may include event partners.
For the materials provided by the entrant, the organizer has the right to use it for publicity (including social media content and offline activations), website display, etc. during and after the course of the event. Game builds will not be shared outside of the judging process or with partners unless explicitly required for judging purposes.
In order to prevent delays at later judging stages, entrants will be required to submit access (e.g. a build link, keys etc.) for a minimum of 5-10 people. If considered for the finals and/or partner prizes, entrants may be asked to submit further keys.
Due to the volume of titles that participate in the awards, we can not accept entrants where we are required to reach out and request access, or provide emails of judges / playtesters. Please ensure that a playable build is submitted.
PLEASE NOTE:
There are several stages of judging that take place between July and September - if keys are given for a time-limited build and permissions are removed during this time, we cannot guarantee a title will be included in later stages of judging. If you do need to revoke access to a build or demo, please provide a new set of keys to the event organisers.
The organizer reserves the right to disqualify entries that are in clear violation of the competition rules, and reserves the right to refuse or withdraw event participation for any reason.
Games submitted after the submission period closes will be regarded as invalid.
Projects with incomplete materials (no pictures, no video, no introduction, no demo) or inconsistent contents will not be reviewed. For the purpose of evaluation, the game should be in a playable state so that it can be provided to the jury for review.
Projects need to be free of commercialization or have these features deactivated (e.g. in-app purchases, built-in advertising or other functions that can generate commercial benefits, including gambling and blockchain).
Projects must declare any use of AI in the development of the game, including but not limited to AI generated art assets, music, gameplay features or code.
Regarding prizes, relevant taxes may be deducted from cash prizes given for participation in GWB Awards activities.
All entrants in the GWB Game Awards are eligible for inclusion in offline and online promotional events. However, participation in the GWB is not a guarantee of inclusion in these events.
Completed games and game currently in development are all eligible to take part, provided they were not released prior to January 1st 2025. Unreleased games are expected to be at a 30% stage of completion or above. Demos and Early Access games are also permitted to take part. If you wish to update the build, please contact GWB staff and provide updated links/keys. Please note, it is not possible to repeat a stage of judging that has already been started or completed with a previous build.
Internal judging will be scored according to a broad criteria which will include visuals, gameplay, music, theme etc. Additional weight may be given to games that demonstrate strong innovation, unique execution, or cultural, emotional, or personal resonance.
The final winners of the gold, silver and bronze awards will be decided by guest judges. Special category winners are decided by the judging panel after prize eligibility has been confirmed. In the event of a tie, scores from internal judging will be applied. Any Partner Prizes will be decided by partners according to their own criteria.
Awards participants maintain all intellectual property rights. The GWB Awards Organisers may use clips, videos and other media related to the entries for the production of publicity materials for events and related activities including, but not limited to, press releases, social media content, awards ceremonies, live events, online and offline activations, and game expos. The GWB Awards Organisers will not distribute builds in any form without express permission for any purpose other than awards judging.