The second Scottish Games Awards will be opened by Scotland’s First Minister

The second Scottish Games Awards will be opened by Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf.

The ceremony, which will take place at Platform in Glasgow on November 2, 2023, is designed to “celebrate the very best of Scotland’s dynamic and thriving games ecosystem”.

The awards are part of Scottish Games Week, which will run from October 30 to November 3 and aims to provide a “platform for the whole Scottish gaming community to come together and celebrate its successes, learn from its challenges and showcase its talent”.

The awards wil consist of 15 categories, which will acknowledge the accomplishments of games, organisations and individuals in the Scottish games industry over the past 12 months.

The categories are as follows:

• Small Budget Game (£0 – £10,000)
• Large Budget Game (£10,000 upwards)
• Spirit of Scotland
• Pure Quality (Creative Impact)
• Art & Animation
• Technical Achievement
• Audio
• Creativity
• Best Tools/Tech
• Best Educational Programme
• Best Educator
• Diversity Champion
• Community Spirit (Stewart Gilray Award)
• Rising Star
• Lifetime Achievement Award

The Spirit of Scotland Award is for games that feature Scottish culture, heritage, language, characters or landscape, and is open to games created outside of Scotland.

The Pure Quality Award for Creative Impact, meanwhile, is for games that have made a significant impact beyond commercial return, and have broken new ground in terms of content, audience, downloads or “general awesomeness”.

The judging panel will be chaired by VGC’s Chris Scullion and will consist of the following judges:

• Brian Baird – Technical Director, Bethesda
• Lauren Bergin – News Editor, PCGamesN
• Natalie Don – MSP, Renfrewshire North & West
• Joe Donnelly – Features Editor, Games Radar
• Keza Macdonald – Games Editor, The Guardian
• Neil Mackay – Journalist/Columnist, The Herald
• Jordan Middler – Staff Writer, VGC
• Brian McNicoll – Head of Entrepreneurship, University of Dundee

Further reading

The winners of the first ever Scottish Games Awards have been revealed

GTA co-creator Dave Jones and Cloudpunk are the big winners on the night

Scottish Games Week director Brian Baglow said: “We could not be happier to welcome Scotland’s First Minister to open this year’s ceremony. Scotland has a global reputation when it comes to games, but too often the conversation gets stuck on past success.

“The Scottish Games Awards are about recognising and rewarding the incredible talent, creativity, generosity and general awesome work taking place all across the country today.

“I’m very grateful to Chris and all of the judges for taking part in this year’s competition. I know they’ll have a tough job picking out winners from the amazing entries we’re receiving, but there are some incredible games in there, so it should be a lot of fun too.”

Entries for Scottish Games Awards nominations are still open until 6pm BST on Friday, September 22, and are open to everyone creating games, from professional studios to part-time indie developers.