I have mentioned some time ago that TRAUMA has been nominated for this year’s European Innovative Games Award. As expected, it didn’t win. The prize in my category was taken by Gabarello – a game made for helping traumatized children to heal and learn to walk. Talking about impossible competition.
And that’s the thing. Generally, I don’t mind losing too much. I didn’t win at IGF or IndieCade either. Sure, the 10.000€ would have helped A LOT but on the other hand, I made it that far without external funding anyway. But in this case I’m a bit confused. TRAUMA was put into a category called “Innovative Application Methods and Environments”. Malte Behrmann presented the category at the show and explained that it was about Applied Games or Serious Games. TRAUMA doesn’t seem like a fit for this category.
Speaking of which, the entire show was a bit confusing. They put up a huge spectacle with opulent catering, a TV moderator as host and a live band as break filler. Although enjoyable, it didn’t really evoke an innovative spirit. Somehow they nominated products like Xbox Kinnect and Demon’s Souls. How are those European products? Also, there seemed to be two winners in one category. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the winners were also sponsors. But hey, I’m not a big business person anyway. Who am I to judge?
On a positive note, Tale of Tales got an award for The Path. If fact I had an very enjoyable and pleasant evening with them, Yacine Salmi from Piece of Pie Stuidos, Yu-Chung Chen (of course) and a few others. In the mids of this rather cold, industry-focused show, they were an island of heartwarming Indie mentality for me. I was surprised hearing that this was only the second award for The Path. I’m glad they were finally able to profit from this. They certainly deserved the recognition in my book. And I’m sure that Piece of Pie will also get their chance in the future.
Tale of Tales at EIGA
It may seem like I’m poo pooing yet another award show. Maybe I am. Maybe I wouldn’t write such things if I had won. To be fair, this is just nit-picking. They made a lot of things right. They booked for each finalist a hotel room, the prize money is a descent amount and the organization was really solid. All in all it’s simply a cool opportunity that should be used by more European Indies. I don’t regret participating at all. Yet again, I found the fact that I was able to meet up with some fellow indie game designers the most important part. Maybe we should start thinking about a European Indie Meetup?
If you want groupies for the european indie meetup, sign me up!
Nice! That’s half of the checklist done.
Yeah, they got free booze right!
It was indeed very fun, too bad you didn’t stay over night. It was very interesting to listen to Michaël even though I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. Also thanks for introducing Yacine, I had a good time talking to him and Filippo (www.fbpsound.com).