The SGS&C Awards

Below are the award categories for the 2023 Competition. The winners will be announced at the Challenge Award Ceremony at I/ITSEC, as well as here on our website.

All games will qualify for one of the two categories below:

Best General Audience Game Award – Games built specifically for a general audience, such as corporate training, general education, general health/healthcare and wellness, public interest, etc. Funders and developers of the game can be private or government entities.
Best Government Audience Game Award – Games built specifically for national or local government or defense purposes, such as military tactics, equipment, or procedures, law enforcement, cybersecurity, tactical combat care and triage, veterans’ health and affairs, public works, and space.

All games also qualify for:

Innovation Award – The Innovation Award aims to recognize innovation in serious games; that is, those games that exhibits a unique characteristic or technique. For purposes of the Challenge, innovation is defined as a characteristic or technique that enhances the serious game in a new or different way. The technique can be in terms of hardware integration, instructional design, game design, content topic or a combination thereof. The Innovation Award will be judged by and is awarded at the sole discretion of the Innovation Committee.
People’s Choice Award – I/ITSEC attendees vote using ballots that are given out at registration. Each attendee votes and drops off their ballot at the Serious Games Showcase & Challenge booth on the tradeshow floor. Ballots are collected until the tradeshow floor closes on Wednesday night (the eve of awards day), after which they are tallied by the SGS&C IPT.

In addition, games may also qualify for:

Best Student-Developed Game– You don’t have to be an athlete to compete intercollegiately. Go up against other top colleges and universities, and network with top-paying employers at I/ITSEC. This award is judged by our esteemed panel of international evaluators and comes with a high-value Grand Prize.
Best XR (VR/AR/MR) Category – “XR” is the new hip term that all of the cool kids are using to summarize the category of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). This award is judged by our esteemed panel of international evaluators and comes with a high-value Grand Prize.
Students’ Choice Award – Games that are geared toward middle and high school students and their curricula and standards have the opportunity to be evaluated by selected school systems from around the United States. See if your game could be best new game as rated by these students.

Visit The Showcase section to see a listing of past finalists and winners.

Ready to Enter The Challenge?

Go to the How To Enter page to access the Intent to Submit and Submission Forms.

Also check out the FAQs for more information.