SGDA Swiss Game Awards

SGDA Swiss Game Awards

The SGDA Swiss Game Awards (SWIGA) is the game developers award of Switzerland. It honours outstanding projects that have put the Swiss game industry on the radar. The SGDA has been awarding the Swiss industry prize since 2013 to honour Swiss excellence in games.

Swiss Game Awards Ceremony 2023, Gamesweek Zurich | The Conference (c) SGDA

Swiss Game Awards 2024

Call for Participation

Are you a creator, producer or publisher and want to participate at the SGDA Swiss Game Awards 2024?

Submit your game at latest by 20 September 2024.

Submit your Game

Categories 2024

Swiss Game Awards – Best Entertainment Game 2024
The SWIGA game of the year main prize and the best game of all games submitted, is honoured by the jury with “The Swiss Game Award”.

Swiss Game Awards – Best Serious Game 2024
Serious games and gamification solutions become more and more important. The SGDA honours with this category a serious game or a gamification solution that makes an impact and fosters sustainable development.

Swiss Game Awards – Excellence Award 2024
With this category the jury honours the creative or technicals skills of a project. Each game submitted will also be evaluated in regards to the Excellence Award. The jury may consider the execution of the entire game or just a specific element which is of outstanding quality. During the submission process, you will be able to emphasize one or more aspects, you want the jury to consider like gameplay, game mechanics, story, visuals, sound, technology or else.

Swiss Game Awards – Most Anticipated Game 2024
An award to celebrate the most promising upcoming project in the Swiss video game industry.

Swiss Game Awards – Best Student Game 2024
Given by a special jury composed of local industry game developers, this award seeks to aim the spotlight at the future generation of creators and celebrates their imagination and artistic vision.

Juries 2024

The nominees and winners are chosen by an independent jury, selected by the SGDA Board of Directors and volunteer members of the SGDA.

Jury for Best Entertainment Game/Best Serious Game/Most Anticipated Game/Excellence Awards

  • Sarah El Abbadi, Production Manager & Teacher
    Sarah El Abbadi works as a freelance producer since 2022 and teaches “production & management” classes at the ICAN school in Paris. After a Bachelor in Game Design obtained in 2018, Sarah El Abbadi held the position of Associate Producer in Motion Capture & Filming at Quantic Dream (Star Wars Eclipse). Sarah juggled between creativity and technique, between research and development, the Mocap operation and the operational organization of the set as well as organizational support for production. Sarah’s work led her to structure teams and their communication and interaction processes. She also had to take care of the productions of Quantic Dream’s Third Party studios as well as external clients who come to operate the Motion Capture studio. In 2018-2019, Sarah El Abbadi also did her final internship at Koalabs (Syberia trilogy).
  • Eugen Pfister, Swiss Games Historian & Lecturer
    Eugen Pfister is project lead of the research project “Confederatio Ludens: Swiss History of Games, Play and Game Design 1968-2000” (SNF-Sinergia), a massive endeavor to document the history of Swiss video games. From 2018 to 2021 at the Hochschule der Künste Bern – HKB, Eugen Pfister was also project lead on “Horror – Game – Politics“, another research project connected to video game studies. Since 2010 he lectured at the University of Vienna (the city where he was born), at the Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf and at the Université de Fribourg. Eugen Pfister is also a Founding Member of the research group “Geschichtswissenschaft und Digitale Spiele” (gespielt.hypotheses.org) and since 2015 he operates a research blog on cultural studies and video games called “Spiel-Kultur-Wissenschaft. Mythen im Digitalen Spiel” (spielkult.hypotheses.org).
  • Mathieu Lanz, Media Influencer & Video Game Industry Critic
    Mathieu Lanz is better known on the internet as “Monsieur Plouf”. After three years of video game journalism, Mathieu launched his Youtube channel in 2012, and is still making original content. With 186k followers, he produced 276 videos up until today.  His video game reviews can be filled with a good dose of sarcasm, especially considering his other videos are analysis of different topics related to the video game industry, like mass layoffs or the grey market problem. Mathieu Lanz also co-host a monthly podcast with PsEuDoLeSs, another video game industry critic active on Youtube, in which they discuss older games.
  • Claudia Sng, Investment and Business Analyst
    Claudia Sng is an experienced professional who currently holds positions as a Senior Business Associate and Business Analyst at Kepler Interactive (Pacific Drive, Sifu, Cat Quest III, Tchia, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, etc.), as well as as an Investment Analyst at the gaming fund Kowloon Nights (Another Crab’s Treasure, Sea of Stars, Rollerdrome, We are OFK, Spiritfarer, etc.). Claudia also has previous experience as a Global Markets Intern at Maybank and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours) degree in Economics and Finance from the National University of Singapore, with a student exchange programme at Uppsala University.

Jury for Best Student Game Award

  • Marion Bareil, Creative Director & Co-founder at Tourmaline Studio (Geneva)
  • Yasemin Günay, Game/Graphic/Sound Designer & Co-founder at Kobold Games (Aarau)
  • Gabriel Sonderegger, Creative Director & Co-founder at Sunnyside Games (Lausanne)
  • Jeremy Spillmann, Creative Director & Co-founder at Blindflug Studios (Zurich)

The SGDA Swiss Game Award is the game developers award of Switzerland and celebrates projects that have put the Swiss game industry on the radar. The award honours innovation in form of novel and disruptive ideas in the digital media sector: playable games (all styles, genres and target platforms), services, middleware, innovative collaborations, cutting-edge marketing ideas, groundbreaking commissioned or advertising productions as well as new collectives.

  • Annual industry award
  • Swiss, nation-wide, all regions, all national languages
  • Hashtags #swiga24 #SwissGameAwards #SGDAch

Media contact: media@sgda.ch, +41 32 511 14 77

Swiss Game Awards 2023

Award Ceremony

The prizes for the best Swiss games were presented at the Swiss Game Awards ceremony during Gamesweek Zurich.

The awards ceremony took place in Zurich on 17 November 2023.

Watch Award Ceremony 2023

Award Categories 2023

Swiss Game Awards – Best Entertainment Game 2023

The SWIGA game of the year main prize and the best game of all games submitted, is honoured by the jury with “The Swiss Game Award”.

Winner

Nominees

Swiss Game Awards – Best Serious Game 2023

Serious games and gamification solutions become more and more important. The SGDA honours with this category a serious game or a gamification solution that makes an impact and fosters sustainable development. 

Winner

Nominees

Swiss Game Awards – Most Anticipated Game 2023

An award to celebrate the most promising upcoming project in the Swiss video game industry.

Winner

Nominees

Swiss Game Awards – Excellence Award 2023

Each game submitted will also be evaluated in regards to the Excellence Award. With this category the jury honours the creative or technicals skills of a project. The jury may consider the execution of the entire game or just a specific element which is of outstanding quality. During the submission process, you will be able to emphasize one or more aspects, you want the jury to consider like gameplay, game mechanics, story, visuals, sound, technology or else.

Winner

Jury 2023

The nominees and winners are chosen by an independent jury, selected by the SGDA Board of Directors.

SGDA Student Swiss Game Awards 2023

Winner

  • Fix it!, Amina Matt (University of Lausanne UNIL – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL)

Nominees

  • Dissecting Love, Noe Mael Arnold (Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK)
  • Fix it!, Amina Matt (University of Lausanne UNIL – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL)
  • To the Moon, Alan Hyjazi (Ceruleum)
  • Troubles Ahead, Sébastien Rieder (Maitres du Monde)

Previous Winners & Nominees

2022 Winners

2022 Nominees Category Entertainment Games

2022 Nominees Category Serious Games

2021 Winners

  • Best Entertainment Game Award 2021: Mundaun, Hidden Fields, Lucerne
  • Best Serious Game Award 2021: Democratia, Blindflug Studios, Zurich
  • Audience Choice Award 2021: Castello Visconteo, Stelex Software, Ticino
  • Excellence in Visuals 2021: Towaga, Sunnyside Games, Lausanne

2021 Nominees Category Entertainment Games

2021 Nominees Category Serious Games

2021 Jury

  • Adam Moravanszky (Jury president), Senior Director Simulation Technology (Nvidia)
  • Chino Noris, Software Engineer (Oculus VR/Meta)
  • Cornelia Zogg, Communication specialist and games journalist
  • Sarah Abbou, author and art director for games

2020 Winners

  • Winner Swiss Game Award 2020: Nimbatus, Stray Fawn Studio, Zurich
  • Audience Choice Award 2020: Unrailed!, Indoor Astronaut, Zurich
  • Excellence in Execution 2020: Transport Fever 2, Urban Games, Schaffhausen

2020 Nominees

2019 Winners

  • Winner Swiss Game Award 2019: FAR: Lone Sails, Okomotive, Zurich
  • Audience Choice Award 2019: FAR: Lone Sails, Okomotive, Zurich
  • Excellence in Gameplay 2019: Persephone, Momo-π, Bulle
  • Junior Swiss Game Award 2019: Twin Blades, Jad Zahar, Ricardo Crespo, Hugo Scholl

2019 Nominees

2018 Winners

2018 Nominees

2017 Winners

  • Swiss Game Award 2017: DERU (formerly known as Schlicht), INK KIT, Zurich
  • Audience Choice Award 2017: DERU (formerly known as Schlicht), INK KIT, Zurich
  • Junior Swiss Game Award 2017: Bane of Asphodel, Robin Schmidiger, Konrad Leichtle

2017 Nominees

2016 Winners

  • Swiss Game Award 2016: Feist, Bits & Beasts, Zurich
  • Audience Choice Award 2016: Cloud Chasers, Blindflug Studios, Zurich
  • Junior Swiss Game Award 2016: Bämeräng, Tim Bürge, Aaron Abt

2016 Nominees

2015 Winners

From 2014 to 2016 the cycle changed from autumn to early spring. Therefore, no award was given away in 2015.

  • Junior Swiss Game Award 2015 winners: The Glove (Nick Baumann, Christian Knieling, Dominik Wittwer) & Continent Conquest (Michael Plüss)

2014 Winners

2014 Nominees

2013 Winners

  • Swiss Game Award 2013: Drei, Etter Studio, Zurich

2013 Nominees