2023 Gam3 Awards Announced – Play to Earn

Gam3s.gg, another site based around covering web3 gaming, has announced the winners for their 2023 Gam3 Awards. With dozens of games up for awards across nineteen categories, the competition was fierce this year!

As the year grows closer to a close, the time comes for yearly awards. One of the first to announce their winners this year, the Gam3 awards offered users 19 gaming categories each with a number of gaming projects to choose from. Voting on these awards wrapped up, the counts were tallied, and winners have now been announced!

Award Winners

Parallel was the big winner for 2023. They pulled in awards for best strategy game, best card game, and game of the year! A TCG with some interesting game mechanics and a functioning play and earn system, I was initially a bit surprised to see this chosen as the game of the year. But then, once I saw that the other nominations included two unreleased games and a simple, card-based sports-themed game, then the choice makes more sense. The only real rival for game of the year was Big Time, who managed to score three awards of their own — best multiplayer, best adventure, and best RPG!

Shooter games are currently hot in the web3 space. As more come online, the competition to stand out with quality gameplay and graphics becomes more fierce. Both Shrapnel and Deadrop, two in-development shooter-based games, walked away with two prizes from the Gam3 Awards. Shrapnel won for best graphics and most anticipated game. And with a supposed public release coming in Q1 2024, Shrapnel has some big expectations to live up to!

Deadrop is still in the early stages of development. But they do allow a small group of player investors to play the game with regular releases of dev builds. This limited exposure was apparently enough for Deadrop to win the best shooter and best esports game awards!

My Pet Hooligan, a game that sees players as trouble-making rabbits battling each other across a city map, won for best action game. And the users chose Pixels, who just recently began a notable partnership with the Mocaverse, as the best casual game.

Voters called out Mighty Action Heroes for best mobile game. Pirate Nation for best on-chain game. And NFL rivals took home the prize for for best sports game. Meanwhile Champions Ascension won for best fighting game.

And finally, Wildcard was the “Gam3s’ choice” (editor’s pick) and Star Atlas the “People’s Choice”. You can view the official awards page at https://gam3s.gg/gam3awards/

Final Thoughts

Now, of course, all of these awards shouldn’t be taken as the definitive answers for the best games. After all, publicly voted awards like this are often highly influenced by how much they can motivate their communities to get out and vote. And some awards even went to games that aren’t widely playable yet! But, overall, this awards list includes a selection of quality web3 games that any interested players should check out.

And the web3 gaming space is still improving and growing. Next year, I hope to see all categories in these awards filled with games that have already been released. Aside from most anticipated of course.

But it is still interesting to see which games can stir up the most support, and to be reminded that the options in web3 gaming are expanding rapidly. And that there are still many reasons to be excited for the future of gaming on the blockchain!