Out of the blue, Rick Salter discovered himself rearranging his furnishings in his front room.
It was the very last thing the trade veteran and co-founder of Sydney’s Hojo Studios anticipated to be doing as a first-time decide for the Australian Recreation Developer Awards (AGDAs).
With no sport within the operating in 2025, Salter determined he would put himself ahead to evaluate as a solution to give again to the group. In a bid to be useful, he indicated when making use of that he had entry to a broad spectrum of gaming gadgets, together with one that would play digital actuality video games.
“One of many video games I judged used the precise furnishings in your room or in your workplace… I type of needed to change my front room right into a little bit of a labyrinth to offer it its truthful shake. In any other case, I wouldn’t actually be testing the sport.”
“Hopefully there isn’t a sport the place it’s like you’ll be able to solely check this sport by base leaping right into a canyon or one thing like that.”
Salter’s dedication right here is only one instance of the mammoth effort that goes into deciding Australia’s subsequent sport of the yr. From when nominations end in early June, to the announcement of the awards in October, dozens of trade judges anonymously play, assess and rating video games based mostly on a strict, however clear standards.
Because the variety of video games launched continues to climb each year, awards have turn into more and more necessary in serving to titles stand out. It’s extra than simply an accolade. An award win can result in a renewed marketing campaign, funding for a future sport or new alternatives down the road.
With competitors intensifying, and the stakes escalating too, there’s a broader push from award organisers all over the world to enhance the transparency of the judging of their prize. This varies globally. From the opaque Recreation Awards in December, the place much like Eurovision, a mixture of in style vote and trade judging from an undisclosed pool of handpicked world judges determine the winner.
All the way in which to the BAFTA Game Awards which has publicly mentioned its inside course of, and has a 13-page public rule guide (PDF) dictating the way it runs.
Australia’s, run by the Interactive Gaming and Leisure Affiliation, is arguably up there as probably the most clear.
How the award works
It’s a two-round course of. Video games are initially reviewed by a pool of common judges, and are performed and scored by a minimal of six of them utilizing a strict, and public (PDF), rubric. Every sport receives a rating between 1 and 5 for every related standards. The awards additionally present judges with clear steerage as to what every rating means.
“The wonderful thing about the rubric is that it doesn’t go away a tonne of room for interpretation,” Cassandra Grey, Studio and Manufacturing Supervisor at VR know-how firm PHORIA and a repeat decide for the awards, stated.
“Which means theoretically the video games ought to be assessed by the identical metrics for every decide.”
High scoring video games qualify for every class and proceed to the second spherical the place they’re assessed by two specialist judges, chosen for every class based mostly on their previous expertise. The Recreation of The 12 months class is a bit completely different. It’s determined based mostly on the entire rating it receives from all judging.
The scores are locked in, the winner and finalists are determined and are introduced two weeks previous to the awards.
But, even essentially the most air-tight processes are open to non-public interpretation, and several other of the judges conceded this.
Grey provides: “The place it will get private for me is utilizing my very own expertise making and enjoying video games to fill in any areas the rubric may not cowl, or to have a look at a sport and recognise that whereas it might not hit the precise standards that’s laid out it makes up for it… compensates in an progressive and fascinating method.”
Fellow veteran decide Nik Pantis, a senior sport producer at Riot Video games, agrees. Although evaluating video games complicates issues additional.
“I’ve been requested earlier than: ‘Do you evaluate video games in opposition to one another when doing all your scores?’ and the reply isn’t any.”
“I’m all the time focussed on the sport I’m judging on the time, so if that sport is scored a selected method it’s as a result of that sport ought to be scored that method, slightly than ‘Oh, this different sport I’m judging does this factor higher so I’ll alter my rating down a bit’.
“It may well undoubtedly be robust to metal your thoughts to your present sport, however I imagine it’s necessary to isolate the video games one after the other. The tip scores will do the comparisons for us.”
Balancing for bias
The primary counterbalance for any bias is the quantity of judging every sport receives. However that results in one other problem: the quantity of video games every decide receives to evaluate. Judges for the awards are usually allotted quite a lot of video games based mostly on the small print they supply once they apply.Pantis, as an illustration, indicated that he was shifting abroad through the course of, so was given a lighter load than prior years. Hojo Studio’s Rick Salter nonetheless, stated he was each out there and had each platform potential at his disposal, and he says was allotted round 10 video games to play final yr.
It’s plenty of gameplay, because the judges Infinite Lives spoke to indicated that almost all video games they assessed spanned between the 5 to 7 hour mark. Although, it’s not a problem for everybody who participates.
Leah Williams, a 2025 decide and Content material Producer at ScreenHub, arguably, by quantity of tales, one of many busiest writers within the trade, stated: “The organisation staff is especially good at accounting for time constraints and different tasks, so it doesn’t really feel like an excessive amount of.
“That’s talking from the attitude of somebody who critiques a lot of video games each month. I’m used to spending time on video games, enjoying them to completion wherever potential.”
Although, there’s one class that’s troublesome to evaluate on this regard: Excellence in Ongoing, an award for stay service or long-running video games. These video games don’t essentially finish in a proper sense.
“I proceed to play the sport till I’ve ‘tasted a bit of the whole lot’, so to talk,” Nik Pantis stated.
“Sufficient to kind a stable understanding of the sport and sufficient to have seen how the sport meets every of the rubric’s core concerns. Most video games on this class are very troublesome to ‘end’.”
Judging what’s there, not what may very well be
The judges Infinite Lives spoke to additionally agreed that one of many hardest components of judging video games for the awards is separating out its potential from its actuality.
Salter says that one sport he scored final yr was shipped to him with a bug that needed to be addressed by the developer. The awards has a course of for this baked in to handle such an occasion, but it surely nonetheless colored Salter’s opinion on the sport.
“You may’t decide a sport based mostly on the place it may be six months from now. It’s important to decide what you’re truly given to run. So there’s a little bit of stability there,” Salter stated.
PHORIA’s Grey agrees.
“You’ll play a sport the place you’ll be able to see that the builders have actually tried to do their greatest however haven’t fairly hit the mark in some areas,” Grey says.
“It may be troublesome to mark them down, particularly in the event you can see what they had been going for or you’ll be able to inform it simply wanted a bit further work or time.”
Very like some video games it judges, the AGDAs standards and its processes are removed from ultimate. The AGDA course of is reevaluated every year, and tweaked based mostly on suggestions from its judges. The standards is then adjusted for all to see.
Grey says: “I all the time assume it’s necessary to be clear with these sorts of issues. That’s one of many many causes I maintain coming again to evaluate the AGDAs. In addition they imagine in transparency.”
Pantis provides: “My hope is that different award ceremonies all over the world observe go well with.”
What do you consider videogame awards? Are they broadly clear? Might they enhance? And had been you shocked by the lengths the AGDAs goes to in administering them? Let me know within the feedback beneath.
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