This War of Mine Awarded at the SXSW Festival
This War of Mine, an independent Polish game created by 11 Bit Studios, was awarded at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas. The Polish production won in the Cultural Innovation category. Another Polish game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, entered the finals.
The highly successful This War of Mine wins again – this time in the SXSW Gaming vote co-organised with the yearly South by Southwest festival. The list of winners in all of the 21 categories was announced during a formal awards ceremony. It was only the second time that the world’s best games have been honoured in Austin.
The Polish-produced anti-war independent video game This War of Mine was awarded in the Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award category, presented to innovative video games that don't conform to the standards of the gaming industry. Voters decided that the best game of 2014 was Dragon Age: Inquisition, however the game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor obtained as many as three distinctions altogether.
Another Polish game was nominated for the SXSW Gaming vote besides This War of Mine. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter produced by The Astronauts got through to the finals in the Excellence of Visual Achievement category, however the voters decided to award Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry 4.
Both This War of Mine and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter recently took part in the finals of another prestigious competition: the 17th edition of the Independent Games Fesival. The 11 Bit Studios production was presented with the IGF 2015 Audience Award.
The producer of This War of Mine, 11 Bit Studios, is a Polish company lead by Grzegorz Miechowski. The game is considered as the most important Polish game premiere of 2014. It turned out to be ground-breaking – value of the company shares has increased from about 9 to 70 złoty. On 13th February the company experienced the most recent peak by exceeding 82 złoty per share.
The Astronauts is a small independent game producer established in 2012, so far not present at the stock market. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is the first production of The Astronauts, but similarly to This War of Mine it turned out a great success, both commercial and critical. A few days before SXSW Interactive, The Astronauts obtained a BAFTA award in the Game Innovation category.
The South by Southwest festival in Austin has taken place annually since 1987. SXSW Gaming vote is a part of the SXSW Interactive Festival first organised in 1993. It was the first time in the two-year long history of the game competition that Polish productions were nominated.
Source: PAP, edit. TS, transl. Agata Dudek