GameCity Prize

Last updated
GameCity Prize
Awarded forA game's accomplishments and contribution to popular culture
Location United Kingdom
Presented by GameCity
First awarded2011
Website http://gamecity.org/prize/

The GameCity Prize is an annual games prize celebrating games as a form of cultural expression. Established in 2011 as part of the annual GameCity festival, the prize seeks "to drive understanding and appreciation of videogames within a wider cultural context". [1]

Contents

Nominations are made by a secret Academy of experts, who are asked to select the six games they deem to be the most "interesting and exciting released in the previous twelve months". [2] A jury of non-gamers is then convened to consider the shortlist, first by playing the games and then meeting to select the one game they consider to be "the most interesting, exciting and excellent". [2]

The prize has been described as "gaming's answer to the Bookers", [3] although it has been pointed out that the comparison is flawed in the sense of scope since the GameCity Prize is not specifically designed to reward British games. [4]

Winners and shortlisted nominees

YearWinnerShortlisted nomineesJuryRef(s)
2014

Papers, Please - Lucas Pope

2013

Spaceteam - Sleeping Beast Games

2012

Journey - thatgamecompany

[5]
2011

Minecraft Mojang

[1] [6]

Related Research Articles

The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost. When the prize was first created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014 it was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial. A seven-person panel constituted by authors, librarians, literary agents, publishers, and booksellers is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation.

The International Dublin Literary Award, established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely sponsored by Dublin City Council, Ireland. At €100,000, the award is one of the richest literary prizes in the world. If the winning book is a translation, the prize is divided between the writer and the translator, with the writer receiving €75,000 and the translator €25,000. The first award was made in 1996 to David Malouf for his English language novel Remembering Babylon.

National Book Award Literary award

The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.

Pub quiz Quiz held in a pub or bar

A pub quiz is a quiz held in a pub or bar. These events are also called quiz nights, trivia nights, or bar trivia and may be held in other settings. Pub quizzes may attract customers to a pub who are not found there on other days. The pub quiz is a modern example of a pub game. Although different pub quizzes can cover a range of formats and topics, they have many features in common. The pub quiz was established in the UK in the 1970s by Burns and Porter and became part of British culture. The Great British Pub Quiz challenge is an annual event. Pub quizzes are a staple event at Irish pubs, where they are usually held in English.

Stirling Prize British prize for excellence in architecture

The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The RIBA Stirling Prize is presented to "the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year". The architects must be RIBA members. Until 2014, the building could be anywhere in the European Union, but since 2015 has had to be in the UK. In the past, the award has come with a £20,000 prize, but currently it carries no prize money.

<i>Qix</i> 1981 arcade game

Qix is a 1981 puzzle video game developed by husband and wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer and published in arcades by Taito America. Qix is one of a handful of games made by Taito's American division. At the start of each level, the playing field is a large, empty rectangle, containing the Qix, a stick-like entity that performs graceful but unpredictable motions within the confines of the rectangle. The objective is to draw lines that close off parts of the rectangle to fill in a set amount of the playfield.

<i>Edge</i> (magazine) UK video game magazine

Edge is a multi-format video game magazine published by Future plc. It is a UK-based magazine and publishes 13 issues annually. The magazine was launched by Steve Jarratt. It has also released foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

<i>L.A. Noire</i> 2011 video game

L.A. Noire is a 2011 detective action-adventure video game developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. Set in Los Angeles in the year 1947, the game follows detective Cole Phelps's rise among the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department as he solves a range of cases across various bureaus. When he is tasked with investigating a morphine distribution ring that involves several of his former squadmates from World War II, Phelps finds both his personal and professional life falling into turmoil, and reluctantly joins forces with his estranged former comrade, Jack Kelso. As the pair delve deeper into the case, they uncover a major conspiracy centered around the Suburban Redevelopment Fund program and several prominent figures in Los Angeles involved with it.

The concept of video games as a form of art is a commonly debated topic within the entertainment industry. Though video games have been afforded legal protection as creative works by the Supreme Court of the United States, the philosophical proposition that video games are works of art remains in question, even when considering the contribution of expressive elements such as acting, visuals, stories, interaction and music. Even art games, games purposely designed to be a work of creative expression, have been challenged as works of art by some critics.

Bids for the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics

The 2012 Winter Youth Olympics (YOG) were an international youth multi-sport event featuring winter events that was planned to complement the Olympic Games. It featured athletes between the ages of 14 and 18.

International Prize for Arabic Fiction Award

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is the most prestigious and important literary prize in the Arab world.

Within the video game industry there are several awards that are given to individual video games, development studios, and other individuals to recognize their merit. Most video game awards are given out on an annual basis, celebrating the best games of the previous year. Most of these awards come from organizations directly within the industry, but there also exist several that come from broader media groups. In addition, many video game publications supply their own end of the year awards.

Iam8bit, Inc. is a media production company, creative policy institute and art exhibition based in Los Angeles, California.

GameCity is an independent organisation based in Nottingham, UK, which has worked since 2006 with the support of Nottingham Trent University to bring videogames to the widest possible audiences. This has been done through an annual GameCity Festival, described as the "Sundance of the video games world", the GameCity Prize since 2011, and the National Videogame Arcade since 2015. Each year, GameCity hosts talks and presentations from individuals and companies working in the games industry.

Kellee Santiago Venezuelan American video game designer and producer

Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.

<i>Fire Truck</i> (video game) 1978 video game

Fire Truck is a black-and-white 1978 arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. According to GamesRadar, it was the earliest video game with cooperative gameplay where two players have to work together. Fire Truck is built on the multi-directional scrolling technology created for Atari's Super Bug released the previous year.

<i>Batman: Arkham City</i> 2011 action-adventure game

Batman: Arkham City is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it is the sequel to the 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum and the second installment in the Batman: Arkham series. Written by veteran Batman writer Paul Dini with Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill, Arkham City was inspired by the long-running comic book mythos. In the game's main storyline, Batman is incarcerated in Arkham City, a super-prison enclosing the decaying urban slums of fictional Gotham City. He must uncover the secret behind a sinister scheme orchestrated by the facility's warden, Hugo Strange. The game's leading characters are predominantly voiced by actors from the DC Animated Universe, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Batman and the Joker, respectively.

The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures.". Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art. Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play. Games involve moral decision, rely on invented religions, and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces. As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion, for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.

References

  1. 1 2 "Announcing the GameCity Prize, 2011. | GameCity Prize". Archived from the original on 2012-03-19. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
  2. 1 2 "About | GameCity Prize". Archived from the original on 2011-11-02. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
  3. "The GameCity prize: gaming's answer to the Bookers?". the Guardian. September 19, 2011.
  4. "Bad GameCity, No Biscuit". dwlt.net.
  5. "GameCity Prize 2012 Shortlist Announcement | GameCity Prize". Archived from the original on 2012-10-07. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  6. "Minecraft awarded GameCity videogame arts prize". October 29, 2011 via www.bbc.co.uk.