Gam3 reveals the best blockchain games of 2023

Gam3 and Magic Eden revealed the winners of its GAM3 Award 2023 contest for the best Web3 games of the year.

The 19 winners were revealed at a live event last week where it noted how far Web3 gaming has come as an industry. The prize pool for the winning games exceeds $2 million in cash an in-kind support, including cash grants, tech service credits, marketing support, sponsored tournaments, infrastructure support, cloud gaming functionality and more.

Community voting played a role in deciding the final decisions with over 450,000 votes from over 50,000 unique voters. Each game, and content creator, managed to top their category to stand out among their peers. I was one of the judges of the contest. And I noted how the quality had improved in contrast to previous contests that I have judged.

Full list of winners

Game of the Year: Parallel
Most Anticipated Game: Shrapnel
Best Graphics: Shrapnel
Best Action Game: My Pet Hooligan
Best Mobile Game: Mighty Action Heroes
Best Adventure Game: Big Time
Best Casual Game: Pixels
Best RPG: Big Time
Best Shooter Game: Deadrop
Best Strategy Game: Parallel
Best Card Game: Parallel
Best Multiplayer Game: Big Time
Best Esports Game: Deadrop
Best Content Creator: Sam Steffanina
Best On-Chain Game: Pirate Nation
Best Fighting Game: Champions Ascension
Best Racing / Sports Game: NFL Rivals
People’s Choice Award: Star Atlas
Games’ Choice Award: Wildcard

The prizes come from a wide range of partners including Amazon, Magic Eden, AD Gaming, BNB Chain, Immutable, Ultra, Blockchain Gaming Alliance, Naavik, Aethir and Sequence among others.

The winners were decided by a combination of jury and public voting. The jury’s votes had a 90% influence, while community votes accounted for the remaining 10%. People’s Choice and Best Content Creator are exceptions to the rule as they were 100% community voted.

Initially, 214 nominated games were put in front of more than 70 jury members to help produce the preliminary list of nominees. Based on gameplay, mechanics, replayability potential, “fun” factor, accessibility and overall quality — 40 shortlisted games made it onto the next round which opened up for community voting from November 22 to December 7.

To stoke the voting, thousands of social posts were spread across partners, games, media outlets, content creators, and community members generating over 35 million impressions.

Parallel and Big Time both swept three awards each (tied for most awards) with Parallel winning the title of Game of the Year. In addition, both Deadrop and Shrapnel shared two awards each with the later crowned “Most Anticipated Game” for the second year in a row.

The final list of 12 winning games included four games built on Polygon, followed by two Ethereum L1 titles and an equal share of one title across Immutable, Ronin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Solana and EOS each.

The GAM3 Awards 2023 ceremony on December 14 saw a peak viewership of 36,000 concurrent viewers and an average of 12,200 viewers throughout the entire show across Twitch alone. Overall, over 50,000 viewers tuned in live across all livestreaming platforms with the event reaching over 250,000 views in the first 24 hours alone.

Viewers got to see gameplay premiers and exclusive premier trailers from Star Atlas, Blocklords, Infinite Victory, Wilder World, Thetan Rivals, Apeiron, Xociety, Forgotten Playland’s official reveal, Aether Games’ Saga CGI series teaser, as well as the first ever look at Ultra’s exclusive title, Project Citadel. All of which are a testament to the bright future of Web3 gaming as we head into 2024 with the event expected to return next December for its third consecutive edition, Gam3 said.