GAM3 Awards Returns to Celebrate Web3 Gaming: Shortlisted Final Nominees Revealed

Web3 gaming awards return bigger & better presented by GAM3S.GG & Magic Eden with $2M in Prizes & $100k Community Rewards; voting starts today.

The final shortlist of games for the GAM3 Awards 2023 are finally in! The biggest web3 gaming event returns on 14 December 2023 for the second year with games going head to head for bragging rights and a prize pool of over $2M, to set the scene for 2024.

GAM3S.GG are bringing back the “oscars of web3 gaming” presented in partnership with Magic Eden this year, as 70+ traditional and web3 gaming experts come together to decide the leading games in this space; with the event sponsored by AD Gaming.

Initially, 214 nominated games were put in front of 70+ jury members to help produce the preliminary list of nominees. Based on gameplay, mechanics, replayability potential, "fun" factor, accessibility and overall quality - 40 shortlisted games have made it onto the next round which opens up for community voting today, November the 22nd.

In comparison, the 2022 awards saw 106 nominees in its inaugural edition, with the number of qualified games with playable versions more than doubled - reflecting the tremendous growth of web3 gaming throughout the past year.

The 40 shortlisted games spanned 9 blockchain networks, with Arbitrum making an awards debut this year with 4 shortlisted finalists.The top five networks represented in the final shortlists are Polygon, Ethereum, Immutable X, Arbitrum and Avalanche.

Bringing together industry leaders from both traditional and blockchain gaming allows the awards to maintain a balanced sense of expectation, caution and excitement. This year the jury consists of executives and leaders from Amazon, Google, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Samsung, in addition to web3 gaming ecosystems, VCs, media outlets and content creators.

This year’s prize pool for the winning games exceeds $2M+ and ranges from cash grants, tech service credits, marketing support, sponsored tournaments, infrastructure support, cloud gaming functionality, and much more from a wide range of partners including Amazon, Magic Eden, AD Gaming, Ultra, Blockchain Gaming Alliance, Naavik, Aethir, and Horizon among others.

The 40 finalists are advancing to the second phase of the GAM3 Awards, where the decision-making process involves both jury members and public voting. In this phase, the jury's votes has a 90% influence, while community votes will account for the remaining 10%, effectively giving the public a role akin to having 7 seats on the jury in terms of impact, which could very well act as a tiebreaker or shift the balance in favor of some finalists over others.

However, for specific categories such as the ‘People’s Choice Award’ and ‘Best Content Creator’, the outcome relies solely on community votes. Both categories have already amassed over 50K nominations, giving the spotlight to 500+ games and 300+ creators from all over the world as fan favorites. Additionally, the ‘Games’ Choice Award’ is determined by shortlisted game studios voting for what is essentially, their own version of game of the year.

This year, several games stood out to the jury as Big Time, Wildcard, Parallel and Deadrop shared the highest number of nominations with 5 each; followed by Illuvium and MetalCore with 4 nominations each.

The final GAM3 Awards livestreamed ceremony is scheduled for December 14th, 2023 to be hosted on Twitch, YouTube and X among other streaming platforms; with gameplay premiers and exclusive premieres trailers already confirmed from Star Atlas, The Unioverse, among other titles. Last year’s event saw the first public premieres and exclusive footage from several games including Mythic Protocol Riftstorm, Mighty Action Heroes, and NFL Rivals - which has since amassed over 3M+ downloads on their mobile game.

Lastly, the event is also set to reward community members, voters and viewers for their participation. Magic Eden is set to host an exclusive free mint for voters which provides early access to future mints, gaming raffles and exclusive quests.

In addition, community voters and viewers have an opportunity to win rewards from a prize pool worth over $100k USD in prizes ranging from in-game items, early access passes, gaming PCs, gaming consoles and accessories.

The Game of the Year final nominees are:

• Parallel
• Big Time
• Deadrop
• Wildcard
• NFL Rivals

For the full list of nominees, visit gam3awards.com. Final voting starts November 22nd and runs until December 1st, directly on GAM3S.GG’s platform on the GAM3 Awards page.

Stay tuned for exclusive content, jury interviews, finalist announcements, and more ahead of the December 14 ceremony. For more information, please visit: gam3awards.com.