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2016 Unity Awards open submissions have begun

August 10, 2016 in News | 5 min. read
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It’s pretty easy to be gluttonous with games given the absolute Smörgåsbord of amazing projects from the Unity community this year. We’re lucky enough to get to gorge ourselves on this delightful spread every day and it’s about time we said thank you by highlighting exceptional creations made with Unity over the past year!

Since 2008, Unity Technologies has been celebrating the amazing creativity, talent, and hard work of the Unity developer community with the annual Unity Awards. We’re very happy to announce that we’ve opened up submissions for the 2016 Unity Awards, scheduled to take place November 1 during Unite Los Angeles at the Hollywood Loews Hotel.

It's easy, submit today!

We know a lot of what was released during the year but we want to make sure we don’t to miss anything. So while filling out the form is not absolutely required for your game to be considered for an award, it’s very helpful for us and is the best way to ensure your project is in our view for consideration!

Once all nominations have been received, Unity will narrow the entries down to six finalists in each category and then open up voting to the community for all categories. Community votes will account for 50% of the total vote with Unity employees accounting for the other 50%.

Those projects chosen as finalists will receive two complimentary passes to Unite Los Angeles at the Hollywood Lowes Hotel from November 1-3. The Awards ceremony will take place on the first evening of the show, Nov 1.

The categories this year include:

  • Best 3D Visuals – Modern technology has given artists the freedom to mold new 3D worlds whether they’re striving for realism or creating something wildly stylized. Submissions for this category will be judged based on artistic merit including thematic and stylistic cohesion, creativity, and/or technical skill. To qualify for the award, the majority of assets must be 3D.
  • Best 2D Visuals – Beauty comes in all shapes and dimensions and there’s a different kind of artistry in creating beautiful 2D worlds and characters. Submissions for this category will be judged based on artistic merit including thematic and stylistic cohesion, creativity, and/or technical skill. To qualify for this award, the majority of in-game/project assets must be 2D.
  • Best Student Project – This award is for projects (games or otherwise) worked on by students currently being completed as part of the curriculum of an educational institution. Projects will be judged based on creativity, technical merit, and overall artistic cohesion among graphics, sound, and presentation.
  • Asset Store Award – The Asset Store award is for excellent and helpful packages that have released in the last year. These can be anything from particle packs to full editor extensions.
  • Best VizSim Project – Unity projects come in all shapes and sizes; for this category, we’re looking for projects that have some real world grounded applications for visualization, simulation, and training.
  • Best Non-game Project – For this category, we’re looking for products that fall outside of games or VizSim such as art, advertising, interactive books and comics, digital toys, interactive physical installations, and informational programs.
  • Best Desktop/Console Game - Whether simple, complex, or somewhere in between, a great gaming experience blends concept, intuitive control, innovation, creativity, visual design, and fun together into one blissfully wonderful package. We’re looking for games that excel in one or all of these areas.
  • Best Mobile Game - Similar to Best Desktop/Console Game, we’re looking for excellent games with special attention paid to those designed with the unique challenges of smaller devices and screens in mind.
  • Best VR Game - Similar to the other Best Game categories, we’re looking for excellent games while paying special attention to those games that are designed with the unique challenges of VR in mind and create a great sense of presence.
  • Best VR Experience - Some of the most intriguing uses for VR aren’t games. We’re looking for projects that are taking the greatest advantage of the unique aspects of virtual reality for non-gaming purposes like film/entertainment, training, visualization, medical, educational, and everything else in between.
  • Golden Cube (best overall) – This award is for the best overall project made with Unity in the last year. Everything from technical achievement and visual styling to sound production and level of fun must be taken into account to choose the grandaddy of all of our awards.

Following are some important rules for submission that you’ll need to know:

  • Only Unity-authored projects are eligible for nomination.
  • Projects must have been released from August 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016 to be eligible, with the exception of Student Project submissions, which must have been part of the coursework in the 2015-2016 school year.
  • Any projects nominated for previous years of the Unity Awards are ineligible for the 2016 Unity Awards. Exceptions are made for projects that were previously up for Best Student Project and have since turned into finished commercial projects and projects that were nominated for the Best VR Experience in 2015, which welcomed currently unreleased projects to submit.
  • Games currently in early access programs that are not considered “final” products by September 30, 2016 will not be accepted to the 2016 Unity Awards.
  • Individuals or teams are welcome to enter multiple projects so long as they adhere to all other rules.

So submit those projects! Tell your friends that released games this last year to submit their projects! And keep your eyes out at the beginning of October for another announcement that finalists have been selected and community voting has begun. We’re really looking forward to seeing all of your submissions!

Submit a project today!

August 10, 2016 in News | 5 min. read

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