Suddenly, Rick Salter found himself rearranging his furniture in his living room.
It was the last thing the industry veteran and co-founder of Sydney’s Hojo Studios expected to be doing as a first-time judge for the Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs).
With no game in the running in 2025, Salter decided he would put himself forward to judge as a way to give back to the community. In a bid to be helpful, he indicated when applying that he had access to a broad spectrum of gaming devices, including one that could play virtual reality games.
“One of the games I judged used the actual furniture in your room or in your office… I kind of had to change my living room into a bit of a labyrinth to give it its fair shake. Otherwise, I wouldn’t really be testing the game.”
“Hopefully there isn’t a game where it’s like you can only test this game by base jumping into a canyon or something like that.”
Salter’s dedication here is just one example of the mammoth effort that goes into deciding Australia’s next game of the year. From when nominations end in early June, to the announcement of the awards in October, dozens of industry judges anonymously play, assess and score games based on a strict, but transparent criteria.
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As the number of games released continues to climb each year, awards have become increasingly important in helping titles stand out. It’s more than just an accolade. An award win can lead to a renewed marketing campaign, funding for a future game or new opportunities down the line.
With competition intensifying, and the stakes escalating too, there’s a broader push from award organisers around the world to improve the transparency of the judging of their prize. This varies globally. From the opaque Game Awards in December, where similar to Eurovision, a mix of popular vote and industry judging from an undisclosed pool of handpicked global judges decide the winner.
All the way to the BAFTA Game Awards which has publicly discussed its internal process, and has a 13-page public rule book (PDF) dictating how it runs.
Australia’s, run by the Interactive Gaming and Entertainment Association, is arguably up there as one of the most transparent.
How the award works
Stray Gods: The Roleplay Musical, 2023’s ADGA Game of The Year.
It’s a two-round process. Games are initially reviewed by a pool of general judges, and are played and scored by a minimum of six of them using a strict, and public (PDF), rubric. Each game receives a score between 1 and 5 for each relevant criteria. The awards also provide judges with clear guidance as to what each score means.
“The great thing about the rubric is that it doesn’t leave a tonne of room for interpretation,” Cassandra Gray, Studio and Production Manager at VR technology company PHORIA and a repeat judge for the awards, said.
“This means that theoretically the games should be assessed by the same metrics for each judge.”
Top scoring games qualify for each category and proceed to the second round where they are assessed by two specialist judges, selected for each category based on their past experience. The Game of The Year category is a bit different. It is decided based on the total score it receives from all judging.
The scores are locked in, the winner and finalists are decided and are announced two weeks prior to the awards.
Yet, even the most air-tight processes are open to personal interpretation, and several of the judges conceded this.
Gray adds: “Where it gets personal for me is using my own experience making and playing games to fill in any areas the rubric might not cover, or to look at a game and recognise that while it may not hit the exact criteria that’s laid out it makes up for it… compensates in an innovative and interesting way.”
Fellow veteran judge Nik Pantis, a senior game producer at Riot Games, agrees. Though comparing games complicates matters further.
“I’ve been asked before: ‘Do you compare games against each other when doing your scores?’ and the answer is no.”
“I’m always focussed on the game I’m judging at the time, so if that game is scored a particular way it’s because that game should be scored that way, rather than ‘Oh, this other game I’m judging does this thing better so I’ll alter my score down a bit’.
“It can definitely be tough to steel your mind to your current game, but I believe it’s important to isolate the games one at a time. The end scores will do the comparisons for us.”
Balancing for bias
Unpacking, 2021’s ADGA Game of The Year
The main counterbalance for any bias is the volume of judging each game receives. But that leads to another challenge: the volume of games each judge receives to assess. Judges for the awards are generally allocated a number of games based on the details they provide when they apply.Pantis, for instance, indicated that he was moving overseas during the process, so was given a lighter load than prior years. Hojo Studio’s Rick Salter however, said he was both available and had every platform possible at his disposal, and he says was allocated around 10 games to play last year.
It’s a lot of gameplay, as the judges Infinite Lives spoke to indicated that most games they assessed spanned between the 5 to 7 hour mark. Though, it’s not an issue for everyone who participates.
Leah Williams, a 2025 judge and Content Producer at ScreenHub, arguably, by volume of stories, one of the busiest writers in the industry, said: “The organisation team is particularly good at accounting for time constraints and other responsibilities, so it doesn’t feel like too much.
“That’s speaking from the perspective of someone who reviews lots of games every month. I’m used to spending time on games, playing them to completion wherever possible.”
Though, there’s one category that’s difficult to judge in this regard: Excellence in Ongoing, an award for live service or long-running games. These games don’t necessarily end in a formal sense.
“I continue to play the game until I have ‘tasted a little of everything’, so to speak,” Nik Pantis said.
“Enough to form a solid understanding of the game and enough to have seen how the game meets each of the rubric’s core considerations. Most games in this category are very difficult to ‘finish’.”
Judging what’s there, not what could be
Cult of The Lamb, 2022’s ADGA Game of The Year
The judges Infinite Lives spoke to also agreed that one of the hardest parts of judging games for the awards is separating out its potential from its reality.
Salter says that one game he scored last year was shipped to him with a bug that had to be addressed by the developer. The awards has a process for this baked in to manage such an instance, but it still coloured Salter’s opinion on the game.
“You can’t judge a game based on where it might be six months from now. You have to judge what you’re actually given to run. So there’s a bit of balance there,” Salter said.
PHORIA’s Gray agrees.
“You’ll play a game where you can see that the developers have really tried to do their best but haven’t quite hit the mark in some areas,” Gray says.
“It can be difficult to mark them down, especially if you can see what they were going for or you can tell it just needed a little extra work or time.”
Much like some games it judges, the AGDAs criteria and its processes are far from final. The AGDA process is reevaluated each year, and tweaked based on feedback from its judges. The criteria is then adjusted for all to see.
Gray says: “I always think it’s important to be transparent with these kinds of things. That’s one of the many reasons I keep coming back to judge the AGDAs. They also believe in transparency.”
Pantis adds: “My hope is that other award ceremonies around the world follow suit.”
What do you think about videogame awards? Are they broadly transparent? Could they improve? And were you surprised by the lengths the AGDAs goes to in administering them? Let me know in the comments below.
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