We’ve written before about how video games can take you on an emotional journey, help you explore your emotions, and even increase emotional literacy. Now a group in France is instituting a special award just for emotional video games: the Emotional Games Awards.
On February 12, 2016 in Laval, France, the best emotional games will be chosen by a jury of “prestigious professionals.” Prizes will go to the games that “cause the strongest emotions.”
So far, judges include:
- Marc Albinet of Ubisoft and Game Director of Assassin’s Creed: Unity
- Florent Aziosmanoff, co-founder of the Cube
- Thierry Frey of ACM Siggraph
- Vincent Martel, an executive producer at Frima
- Claire Noël, an art director
- Sylvain Pellan, an environment artist at Rockstar Games
- Nikolaus Roche-Kresse, a Cinema In-Game Developer for Ubisoft
The founder of the Emotional Games Awards, Erik Geslin, will be the president of the jury. He is a video game and virtual reality expert who does “emotional design” for game studios and also teaches and does research.
According to the press release, the purpose of these awards is “to promote and reward video games which bring on the most emotions in the players. Video games causing rich and complex emotions (empathy, compassion, sadness, love) will be rewarded.”
Publishers and developers will be contacted to encourage entry to the awards. The entry and payment deadline is January 6. On January 12 the nominations will be announced and voting will continue until February 5.
