Overview
The competition started in 2002 as a sub-project to Excitera, the student-driven entrepreneurship association at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and was then called KTH Game Awards. Excitera Mobile Awards, a mobile application development competition, was started a year later and is now a part of Swedish Game Awards.
KTH Game Awards 03 (2002-2003)
With support from game companies such as Microsoft and Digital Illusions (DICE) as well as a large interest from students and media, such as the daily newspaper Aftonbladet, a lot of high quality entries were submitted. Among the jury were representatives from successful companies in the industry. The winners in the contest, Xazzon, went on to participate in the worlds biggest computer games festival; Independent Game Festival in San José, California.
KTH Game Awards 04 (2003-2004)
In the unavoidable sequel to the first competition, the entries once again held a very high quality. Partners this time were DICE, QPAD and the gaming magazine Player1. The finale was covered by among others SVT’s Rapport, the national TV channel. The winner was Saga of Ina, a platform game that according to the jury had “convincing mood and graphics”. Runners up was Velocitors, a racing game with impressing graphics and physics model. The price for Best Game Idea was War, Siege & Conquest, a massively multiplayer game with a different and innovative design.
Excitera Mobile Awards 04 (2003-2004)
The first run of EMA was held in 2004 and became a success with over 40 registered entries in 3 categories. Development was purely for the J2ME-platform.
Swedish Game Awards 05 (2004-2005)
In the fall of 2004 KTH Game Awards and Excitera Mobile Awards were merged to form Swedish Game Awards, Sweden’s largest game development competition for both PC and mobile. The competition gained a more national focus and participating teams came from the whole country to compete for the 45 000 Swedish kronor prize money. Swedish Game Awards arranged the SGA Tour for the first time in the spring of 2005, visiting game education programs to present the competition and its partners.
In total there were 64 registered teams (40 PC, 24 mobile), of which 57 (37 PC, 20 mobile) submitted the design documents and 35 (24 PC, 11 mobile) working game demos, an unusually high number for these types of competitions. The winner was CrazyBall (now renamed Switchball), with Noledo as runner-up. Promqueen took home the Best Game Idea prize.
In cooperation with our partners we arranged three Game Developers’ Evenings and a Developers’ Debate at KTH. Together these events attracted over 500 visitors. The finale was held in May at KTH and drew 400 visitors that watched the prize ceremony, mingled with partners in their booths and played the competition entries.
Swedish Game Awards 06 (2005-2006)
2006 continued the success story from previous years. The total prize money was a record breaking 80 000 Swedish kronor. In total there were 52 registered teams for the PC class, that ended up turning in a total of 23 finished demos. In the mobile category there were 19 teams, of which 13 handed in working demos.
In cooperation with the partners there were three Game Developers’ Evenings at KTH. Together these events had over 300 visitors. The finale, held in May at KTH, drew over 400 visitors that watched the awards, mingled with partners in their booths and tried the entries out. After the award ceremony there was a highly appreciated dinner for the nominated teams and our partners where they could discuss the future of the games industry and their careers.
Swedish Game Awards 07 (2006-2007)
In 2007, the competition grew immensely in all directions. SGA-Tour expanded internationally, with the competition being represented both at the Game Developers Conference and MIT 100k Global Startup Workshop, where it attracted large crowds and appeared in several newspapers. The classical Game Developers’ Evenings moved into the former Grand Finale area and became a large events where more than 120 visitors could hear presentations as usual, but also mingle with jury and company representatives with free food and drinks. Two new events were introduced, Gamers’ Challenge and Game Developers’ Workshop. Gamers’ Challenge was the kick-off event which allowed visitors to play the games that won the previous Swedish Game Awards. Game Developers’ Workshop was designed to help participants find focus in their game concepts by allowing a short pitch to the jury and receive feedback. While the teams waited, they could learn more about designing their entries for updating them with further content, with help from industry professionals.
The Grand Finale moved out of KTH for the first time and into Kulturhuset in central Stockholm. Activities included a large Game and Career Expo, Mingle session, and Award Ceremony. The nominated games received attention the whole day, with a central position at the expo and reserved tables near the scene at the ceremony. Swedish television personality Orvar Säfström hosted the awards and at the end the Jury took the stage and congratulated all the teams, and handed out three extra honour nominations. Finally, all the nominated teams were invited to a Gala Dinner together with all the company representatives at the roof of Kulturhuset, where they enjoyed a spectacular evening with a three-course dinner, song, dance and fire show by iSpexet, and a small concert by artist Boy vs Bacteria.
