The 2022 edition of the GAconf awards was a continuation of the industry-wide movement to recognise the stellar efforts of people across and around game development to raise the bar for accessibility.
There were 18 categories, shortlisted by an expert panel, with winners decided on by a combination of public and jury vote.
The winners of the GAconf Awards were revealed by the inimitable Steve Saylor together with a host of special guests on Wednesday Jan 25th. You can watch the full ceremony on the IGDA-GASIG YouTube Channel, with audio description, BSL, ASL, and captioning in 5 languages.
This year’s winners and finalists (with links to info about why they’re finalists) were:
AAA excellence
Accessibility in a game made on a big budget / by a big team
Winner: God of War Ragnarök
Indie excellence
Accessibility in a game made on a small budget / by a small team
Winner: Return to Monkey Island
Best Deaf/HoH accessibility
Accessibility for gamers who are Deaf or hard of hearing
Winner: God of War Ragnarök
Best physical/mobility accessibility
Accessibility for gamers with motor impairment
Winner: Rocksmith+
Best blind / low vision accessibility
Accessibility for gamers with low/no vision
Winner: The Last Of Us Part 1
Best cognitive accessibility
Accessibility for neurodiversity, mental health and intellectual/learning disability
Winner: The Quarry
Best representation
Representation of disabled characters
Winner: Just Dance 2023
Best journalism
Article about game accessibility
Winner: Grant Stoner – How Disabled ‘Elden Ring’ Players Conquered The Lands Between
Best academic research
Published academic paper on game accessibility
Winner: Understanding the perceptions and experiences of the deafblind community
Best resource
Resource for players or resource for developers
Winner: Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals training
Most accessible gaming event
Gaming event inclusive of the widest audience
Winner: Ubisoft Forward
Hardware innovation
New or improved accessibility tech
Winner: Microsoft Adaptive Accessories
Most improved
Greatest progress within a single game through remakes/remasters, patches, or mods
Winner: The Last Of Us Part 1
Biggest accessibility surprise
Something impactful that you didn’t see coming
Winner: Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals training
Most dedicated publisher
The publisher making the most significant or most consistent efforts
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Xbox Games Studios
- Ubisoft
Winner: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Most dedicated studio
The studio making the most significant or most consistent efforts
- Naughty Dog
- Rare
- Ubisoft Kyiv
Winner: Naughty Dog
MVP award for most dedicated developer
The individual developer making the most significant or most consistent efforts internally (this can include people working in accessibility roles)
Winner: Mila Pavlin, Santa Monica Studio
The advocacy award
This award can be someone either in a development role or not – anyone who is an advocate using their voice to make a difference across the wider industry.
Winner: Grant Stoner
ELIGIBILITY
The eligibility period covers November 23rd 2021 to November 23rd 2022
NOMINATIONS
Our jury panel for 2022 is:
- Steve Saylor
- Tara Voelker
- Ian Hamilton
- Chris “DeafGamersTV” Robinson
- SightlessKombat
- Stacey Jenkins
- Ameliane Chiasson
- LittleNavi
- James Berg
- Paul Amadeus Lane
- Morgan Baker
Each panellist puts forward as many names as they they want for consideration. From that large pool, judges vote for their top three for each category. The three which receive the most nominations in each category become the finalists.
WINNERS
The winners are decided by a separate vote on the finalists, voted on by both the jury and the public vote. Google account is required to vote, to mitigate multiple-voting.
The votes are weighted 2/3 jury and 1/3 public. For example if 30% of the jury and 50% of the public vote for a finalist, that’s 30 points from the jury and 25 points from the public for a total of 55 points.
This balance gives some protection against vote-rigging (e.g. a AAA asking everyone in the company to vote, guaranteeing success even if nobody else votes for them), while giving enough weight to the public vote that it can still decide the result (and in previous years, has done so).
Jury members can put forward whatever they want, but are not permitted to vote for anything that they have professional association with – worked directly on, consulted on, voting for colleagues, etc.
Academic papers are generally locked behind journal paywalls, accessible only to people within academia or for a fee. For this reason the best academic paper works slightly differently. It has its own jury, consisting of Jerome Dupire, Thomas Westin and Ian Hamilton, who research papers over the past year, and vote between them on finalists and winner.
The list of winners is not known outside of the event team, the winners themselves find out via the stream at the same time as the other viewers.
WHO FUNDS THE AWARDS?
There are a number of costs involved, from trophies to accessibility of the video stream. For this year we are absorbing the costs into the funds used to put on the GAconf conference, but we will be exploring dedicated sponsorship opportunities in future.
