1 Objective
The profile of the German Computer Game Award is derived from the preamble to the agreement on the awarding of the German Computer Game Award, in particular by recognizing the award-worthy quality of German and international games. This includes:
- artistic or cultural value or
- pedagogical-didactic value or
- Technology and innovation or
- fun and entertainment or
- impact and perception.
Depending on the award category, the respective quality criteria must be weighted by the expert jury. In principle, business models have no relevance to the prize-worthiness of a game. The following descriptions provide an example of the basic orientation.
2 Quality Criteria
2.1 Artistic or Cultural Value
The nominated title…
- deals with themes of social or cultural significance.
- promotes an engagement with the culture and/or identity of the recipients.
- fascinates through its aesthetic, dramaturgical and/or game-mechanical design and attention to detail.
- captivates through its audiovisual representation of the game environment, special storytelling or successful stylization.
- stands up to comparison with other works of its genre, other media genres and/or the gaming tradition.
2.2 Educational Value of a Computer or Video Game
The nominated title…
- offers links to the target group’s world, encourages critical reflection and arouses empathy.
- conveys specialist knowledge, expertise, values or manners without being instructive.
- has a level of difficulty appropriate to the target group and offers a frustration-free gaming experience.
- offers potential learning effects in terms of sensorimotor, cognitive, social, personal and/or media skills and gives players valuable feedback on their progress.
- avoids depicting socially problematic behavior (e.g. violence and discrimination) or at best presents it in a way that is appropriate for the target group and encourages critical reflection.
- offers potential for encouragement, such as self-efficacy, empathy, curiosity and inspiration.
2.3 Technology and Innovation
The nominated title…
- runs technically flawlessly, is smooth to play, does not crash and contains no obvious bugs.
- maintains the balance of difficulty.
- is ergonomically controllable.
- is customizable in terms of controls and presentation.
- makes sensible use of hardware strengths and compensates for weaknesses as far as possible.
- leaves well-trodden genre paths, is characterized by the successful implementation of original ideas and/or surprises with special qualities in technology, game mechanics, visualization, controls, acoustics, etc.
- demonstrates new, previously unimplemented game mechanics, new monetization models, game content that differs significantly from the familiar, is innovative in a different way or has the potential to have a relevant influence on future games.
- uses games or game elements in new, previously unused contexts or transfers contexts from other areas to the field of digital games for the first time.
- supports the development, maintenance or marketing of games in new, previously unused ways.
2.4 Fun and Entertainment
The nominated title…
- is dramaturgically motivating, offers players particularly entertaining or touching moments, for example, and impresses with an interesting story and a plot full of twists and turns.
- is easy to use, motivating, captivating and maintains a balance between pleasure, frustration and challenge.
- is characterized by originality, charm and appeal and promotes shared play and experience.
- offers scope for self-determined play (experience of self-efficacy) in an authentic/relevant game world.
2.5 Impact and Perception
The nominated title…
- appeals to a broad audience and/or sets genre standards.
- is popular with players or reaches a specific target group, a specific market segment target group, a specific market segment or a (global) region.
- perfects or improves established features or sets new genre conventions.
- achieves high ratings in the trade press, receives many (very) good user reviews and/or a lot of coverage in streams and Let’s Plays.
- is suitable in international comparison as a figurehead for the creative power and/or artistic maturity and/or economic performance of the German games industry.