Develop:Star Awards 2024 Entries Now Open

Winners will be announced on Wednesday 10 July during Develop:Brighton 2024

Wednesday 31 January: Entries for this year’s Develop:Star Awards are now open. Hosted during Develop:Brighton 2024, the awards will take place on Wednesday 10 July.

Entries can be submitted across 22 categories until 12pm on Wednesday 3 April. Further details on the submissions process are available on the Develop:Brighton website.

“The Develop:Star Awards 2024 will see the game developer community come together to celebrate the success of outstanding games from the past 12 months and will recognise the talented companies and individuals that made them possible,” says Andy Lane, Managing Director at Tandem Events.

This year’s Develop:Star Awards will see the introduction of two new awards: Supporting Star and Best Creative Lead.

The Best Creative Lead focuses on recognising the achievements of an outstanding individual in a creative leadership position, within a game development team. Whilst Supporting Star award will recognise the work done by companies in law, accountancy, communications, banking or production that have helped developers thrive and achieve commercial success.

The qualifying period for all submissions is from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Further details are below for each of the 22 award categories now open for nominations:

• Best Visual Art

Recognising a game which demonstrates exceptional achievement in visual art and/or animation – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Narrative

Rewarding a team who have far exceeded expectation in their storytelling to create an outstanding player experience, through innovative or ground-breaking writing – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Game Design

This award recognises a team responsible for exceptional and creative game design via the use of controls, level design, pacing and mechanics – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Audio

Rewarding a game that demonstrates distinction in the use of sound or music to improve player experience – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Original IP

This award will recognise the creation of the best new intellectual property – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Technical Innovation

The award which recognises technological innovation in the video game space. This could be a pioneering gameplay experience, a breakthrough new development technique, inventive hardware or anything showing true innovation across all genres and platforms.

• Diversity Star

This award celebrates an individual who has shown a commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity within the games industry.

• Marketing Star

Recognising a UK-based individual, in-house team or external agency that has shown outstanding achievement in promoting a game – including marketing, PR, influencer relations and community development.

• Best QA and Localisation Provider

Recognising the organisation that has provided the highest quality of service and contributed the most to usability, testing and localisation within the game developer community.

• Best Creative Provider

This award recognises the organisation that has provided exceptional audio assets (voice acting, music or sound effects) or visual assets (porting or creating sections of the game) for the game developer community.

• Best Technology Provider

For this award we’ll be rewarding the organisation that has provided outstanding hardware and/or technological support for UK game developers. This could include third party engines, motion capture tools, dev kits or microprocessors.

• Supporting Star

This award champions those companies that work with developers to share their understanding of the sector and have provided exceptional support to enable them to thrive and prosper.

• Talent Development Star

Recognising an in-house team that has shown outstanding policies and initiatives, and produced impressive results in successfully recruiting, retaining and developing talent within their team.

• Recruitment Star

Recognising an external organisation that has shown outstanding policies and initiatives, and produced impressive results in successfully recruiting new team members for development studios.

• Best Mobile Game

This award will be given to the game that offers the best overall player experience on a mobile phone or tablet.

• Sustainability Star

Recognising an individual, team or company that has put in place significant changes to the way their studio or company works to reduce impact and be more sustainable.

• Tomorrow’s Star

The Tomorrow's Star award will recognise the achievements of new talent in the games industry. Nominees should be below senior management or director level.

• Best Creative Lead

Recognising the achievements of an outstanding individual working as a Creative Director or equivalent creative leadership position within a game development team.

• Publishing Star

Recognising an organisation that has shown outstanding support helping developers get their game published. This can include via funding, discoverability, research or anything else that helped secure a successful route to market for new games.

• Best Game

Rewarding the game that stands out above all others in terms of gameplay, storytelling, art style, character development, creativity and overall player experience – across all genres and platforms.

• Best Small Studio

This award will go to a studio with ten or fewer employees who’ve achieved exceptional critical and commercial success during the qualifying period.

• Best Studio

This award celebrates any studio with five or more employees who’ve achieved exceptional critical and commercial success during the qualifying period.

The Develop:Star Awards 2023 saw PlayStation exclusive God of War Ragnarök pick up Best Game, Best Narrative and Best Audio. Roll7 was crowned Best Studio, while Dredge developer Black Salt Games won Best Small Studio. Sumo Digital were awarded the inaugural Talent Development Star, and a Special Recognition Award was given to Dr Jo Twist OBE.

In addition to the 22 categories the awards will be headlined by The Develop Star Award, which will once again honour outstanding achievements and contributions to the industry from and individual or studio.

Previous winners included last year’s recipient Guerilla Games, Team17’s founder and CEO Debbie Bestwick MBE, and Arkane Lyon Studio & Co-Creative Director Dinga Bakaba.

This year’s Develop:Star Award recipient will be announced in due course.

Submitted entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts, who will whittle them down into the final shortlists. These will be announced in the Spring ahead of an industry vote to determine the winners in each category.

For more information on The Develop:Star Awards and how to submit nominations, please visit: https://www.developconference.com/awards