VR’s first awards ceremony, the Proto Awards, has already been running for two years. 2016’s edition might be the most important yet, though.
Submissions for this year’s awards will open on July 10th and run through to July 24th. In that time, any developers that have created a VR experience that was either released of publically exhibited between September 23rd, 2015 and July 10th, 2016 can submit their projects for consideration. The awards cover a total of 16 categories, each of which can be seen below, and is highlighted by ‘Best Overall’ VR experience. A date for the actual gala itself is yet to be announced, though expect them towards the end of the year.
There’s a $50 entry fee for each submission developers want to make for and the complete VR experience will also need to be entered. Following this, Board of Governors Voting on each experience will take place from August 15th – 29th and General Membership Voting will be held from September 5th – 15th. The ceremony will be presented by AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group for the second consecutive year.
So why are this year’s awards more important than the others? Simply because consumer HMDs are now available, meaning full VR games and experiences are actually being sold to consumers for the first time (outside of Gear VR and Cardboard apps). Last year’s winners, for example, consisted of games that weren’t even fully developed, such as Schell Games’ I Expect You to Die. Hopefully this year’s awards will consist mainly of experiences we can already pick up from the Oculus Store and Steam among other digital stores.
That said, you can expect the 2017 edition of the show to be even bigger once PlayStation VR and Google Daydream are here.
The categories are as follows:
Best Original Score
Best Live Action Experience
Best Narrative Experience
Best Sound Design
Best Social Experience
Best Gameplay
Best Educational Experience
Best Music Experience
Best Mobile Experience
Most Innovative
Best Interaction Design
Best Graphical User Interface
Best Student Experience
Best Art Direction
Best Independent Experience
