South Africa will be getting its own set of gaming awards next year in the form of the South Africa Gaming Awards, which will be hosted at Comic Con 2019.
The end of September is way too early to have an awards event for gaming in 2019. The bulk of games are released in the latter half of the year, and there’s no way they’ll be added to the list. I am all for such an initiative, but the timing is off, which will have a negative impact on the value of these awards.
What if the entry criteria allow for games that were released from a year before?
Assuming that they have to close entries at the end of July 2019 to give enough time for judging, they will have to allow games that were released from July/August this year.
Do you think that would mitigate the issue?
Perhaps, but who is going to care about games released last year. People already struggle to care about games that released at the beginning of the current year. To have a game that released on 2018 win a Best Game of 2019 prize seems off. All other awards are held at the end of the year to mitigate this issue. So I am just concerned that it’s a good idea done poorly.
I remembered the word I wanted to use. It’s all about relevancy. The lack of relevancy is what I am most concerned about the timing. I have no problem with the idea of a South African awards show, my problem is will it be relevant if it doesn’t take into account all of the current year’s games.