Global Online Game Awards

The Korea Game Industry Agency (president: Choi Kyu-nam) will hold the “Global Online Game Awards” at Exhibition Hall No. 3 of the Seoul Trade & Exhibition Center (SETEC) to recognize the best online games in the world.

Held for the first time, the “Global Online Game Awards” is expected to serve as a steppingstone for the continuous development and growth of online games and enhance the pride of people in the online game industry by discovering and awarding the best games among all online games in the world.

For the pre-event screening, cooperation from medias specializing in games of every nation were sought, Simon Carless, publisher of the US’s “Game Developer Magazine,” Michael Trier, editor in chief of German PC game magazine “Game Star,” Wang Wei Wen, chief reporter of Chinese Game portal “17173.com,” and Mo In, chief editor of Korea’s “The Games” serve as judges.

Criteria for eligible candidates of the “Global Online Game Awards” were online games that already commercialized or were in their open beta test from January to October of this year. A total of 70 excellent online games in 6 genres were recommended by the judges: Role-playing, Racing/Casual, First Person Shooting, Adventure/Action, Sports, and Strategic Simulation.

The judging will proceed by selecting 5 candidates for each genre among the games recommended by each judge considering the game scenario/planning, game graphics/character, game music/sound, game technology, and game creativity and screening the award winning game for each genre. For the candidates, a total of 32 games in 6 genres will be chosen; the award-winning works by genre shall be opened to the public on the 15th, the day before the awarding ceremony.

Korea Game Industry Agency President Choi Kyu-nam revealed the purpose of the event. “We have provided a festival that encompasses all online games worldwide in celebration of the growth of online games across the globe; we thank the people who are working hard for the growth of the online game industry. We shall work hard to provide various opportunities to promote the online game industry and make it known to the world,” he said.

The “Global Online Game Awards” ceremony will be broadcast on GOM TV and Arirang TV.

Judges Profiles

Simon Carless

Simon Carless is the Publisher of Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com and the Chairman of the Independent Games Festival. He also helps to program the Worlds In Motion Summit, a regular conference dealing with online games that appears at Game Developers Conference, and has previously worked as a writer/editor for leading tech site Slashdot, and as a game designer for companies such as Eidos Interactive and Atari.

Game Developer magazine:

Founded in 1994, and is a magazine written by game developers, for game developers. It is distributed to 35,000 of the top worldwide game professionals, and includes leading postmortems, analysis articles, columns, and more from some of the industry's most notable creators. Gamasutra.com was founded in 1996 and deals in the art and science of games in a website format - it includes the latest news, industry jobs, top interviews, and other notable things for game creators to consult every day.

17173.com:

As a famous portal of MMORPG, 17173.com is game players" favorite access to information and communication. According to the latest statistics in ALEXA, 17173.com ranks 1st among Chinese online game groups and exceeds far from its opponents.

As an authorized internet game medium, 17173.com has held 6 “China MMORPG Marketing Investigations” and 3 “China MMORPG Company Investigations” together with CGPA¡¢Iresearch.com and other famous internet media. The statistics from these investigations were widely referred by official media.

Because of its vast effect on MMORPG, over 100 large websites in China would transship the news and game data from 17173.com.

In July, 2006, PV of 17173.com had reached 60 million per day and now it has reached over 70 million stably. Now 17173.com has over 300 game zones and 30 million VIP users. That makes 17173.com renowned as the top Chinese on-line game website.

Michael Trier

Editor in Chief of GameStar, GameStar.de, Making Games Magazin. Born in 1963. Professionell Game Journalist for more than 12 Years. Academic studies at Willhelms University City of Muenster, Germany

GameStar:

GameStar is the leading opinion making media on topics concerning PC- and videogames in Germany, with currently 179.272 (IVW II/2008) sold issues in Europe. GameStar is also publishing the GamePro and the Making Games Magazin, an independent, business-focused IDG-magazine for game developers and decision makers in the entertainment and games industry. GameStar is a also strong international brand with online- and print-publications in the US and Europe.

GameStar is a publication of IDG Communications Media AG, a german subcompany of the International Data Group (IDG), Boston. With 300 newspapers and magazines as well as over 400 websites IDG is the world leading media company for information- and communication technology.

Mo In

President of weekly magazine The Games

Director of culture, The Electronic Times Co.,Ltd.

Director of Industrial Technology, The Electronic Times Co.,Ltd.

Member of the review committee, Korea Media Rating Board

Member of judge committee, monthly game awards

The Games:

Established in 2004, The Games publishes a weekly 64page tabloid newspaper. The Games online news portal is synonymous for the best games media in Korea. The Games have associations with 'Best Game of the Month Awards', 'Game Review Awards' and 'Korea Game Awards'.