Hey folks, Brian here. For the last few months, I have promised faithfully that first thing on Monday morning, I will update you all with everything happening around Scottish Games Week 23, then without fail every Monday morning, there’s a growing list of things to do and I let it slide. That’s really not good enough, so please consider this as an apology – along with a long overdue commitment to keep you informed about the incredible week coming up in October and November.
First of all, we have been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that every one of the five events across the whole week is going to bring together the games ecosystem and the community around it. There are a lot of great news stories to bring you in the next few days, but here’s a quick breakdown of the big asks (and opportunities) to get involved across #SGW23…
Scottish Games Awards
This is a big one. The Scottish Games Awards are OPEN for ENTRIES. We have 15 categories open this year, covering everything from games to individuals, organisations and studios. We are accepting entries from everyone working in Scotland, from student teams and part-time creators to professional studios and creators working in the weirder end of games. The goal here is to recognise and celebrate all of the incredible talent working in Scotland today.
We have added two new games categories for 2023 – Spirit Of Scotland (which recognises games that feature Scottish culture, heritage or language) and Pure Quality, which is our chance to celebrate games that have had a major creative impact, outside the purely commercial world.
Those are alongside the small and large budget games, as well as the craft awards and individual trophies. So your team, your colleagues, your peers and your friends will be eligible for one or more categories.
You can find the whole list of categories and enter the awards here.
This year’s awards take place at the incredible Platform in Glasgow. It’s a legendary venue (it used to be The Arches), which has played host to some of the most iconic bands and artists in the world. This year’s SGW Awards will be high-energy and celebrate the very best of Scotland’s games community.
Tickets are going fast – get yours here – while they last.
Exhibition Space
One of the most common pieces of feedback from 2022 was that we need more exhibition space. We want games, we want demos, we want to see the work coming out of Scotland’s development community in 2023. We’ve heard you. We have made sure that our SGW Conference (Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, October 30th & 31st) and More Than Games (Corinthian, Glasgow, November 3rd) are packed with studios, developers and games to play, interesting companies to speak to and new partners to find.
If you’d like to get in front of hundreds of people from across the games industry – and beyond – we’re here to help. To secure your space, get in touch with our partnerships team and say hello.
Speakers Programme
We opened our call for speakers in July 2023 and were overwhelmed by the number of incredible, high-quality applications we received (over 80 from Scotland alone), covering everything from inclusion, diversity and accessibility, to intensely technical workshops and esoteric explorations of applied games. Our programme team has been sorting them since the applications closed and we already know that we will be offering a world-class programme across the major SGW23 events.
If you applied to speak and have not yet heard back from the SGW team – let me know.
More To Come…
We have so much good news to share with you – including our platinum sponsor for Scottish Games Week 23 – in the next few days and weeks. I promise we’ll be letting you know everything we’re doing more regularly – and run some online ‘Ask me Anything’ sessions.
In the meantime, if you want to know more, ask me anything.
