First-ever Emotional Game Awards announced

A new awards ceremony has plans to recognise the most stirring virtual experiences in the medium of games.

The inaugural Emotional Games Awards will feature a number of prizes for ‘the most emotional video games’.

The EGAs are being organised by researcher Erik Geslin and Laval 3D Interactive, which is the games and interactive media department at the University UCO Laval in France. Geslin has previously written a thesis entitled ‘Methods of the induction of Emotions in Virtual Environments and Video Games’.

“Despite a wide variety of themes and categories, video games rarely induce an emotional state strong enough to move the player to tears, unlike various media such as cinema, TV shows or literature," stated an EGA press release.

“Video games causing rich and complex emotions – empathy, compassion, sadness, love – will be rewarded.”

Laval will play host to the awards event on February 12th, 2016, with prizes judged by companies including Ubisoft Canada, Rockstar Games, Ubisoft Montpellier and Frima Studio.

A 40-hour ‘Emotional Game Jam’ will be held alongside the awards, encouraging developers to create titles based around – you guessed it – emotions.

Both the awards ceremony and game jam will be live streamed online, and will be followed by a retro-themed after-party on Friday evening.