Online games – estimated to cost British industry one month’s lost wages every year as office drones spend their days exploding balloons, holing birdies and flinging penguins into deep space.
Obviously, FHM wants to reward such endeavours officially, so welcome to the first ever dedicated Web Games Awards voted for by you – the FHM.com users.
If you’ve played a game that had paralysed your office, then tell us about it. Or if you’ve spend countless hours huffing Cheetos and building a top time-waster, then we want you to enter it.
If you’re a game developer or a gamer that has spotted a great game, then we urge you to enter our FHM Web Game Awards for 2009.
Just do the following:
1. Make sure you’ve read all the details about the Web Games Awards (how it works, terms and conditions etc).
2. The deadline for entries is Sunday 30 November 2008, so make sure you’ve left yourself enough time.
3. Complete the entry form by clicking the button above.
The Web Games Awards 2009 will work in two stages. Take a deep breath, and read on, challengers.
Stage 1 – (September 1 – November 30 2008)
Every game entered to the Web Game Awards (either by developers or users) will be reviewed by FHM.com’s expert team of work dodgers including our esteemed editor.
If we think your game makes the grade, it’ll go into the FHM Web Games Arcade – www.fhm.com/webarcade. Other users can then vote and rate the submitted games.
We’ll also send you a set of widgets to help promote your game on your own sites, as well as an FHM Web Games Awards '09 badge to put on your game.
Stage 2 – (January 5 – January 31 '09)
On January 5 2009 we’ll tally up all the ratings for submitted games and draw up a shortlist for each of these six categories:
Shoot 'em Up
Platform
Racing
Sports
Skill
Puzzle
Users will then have the chance to cast a final vote for an overall winner of the Web Game Awards 09, with the winner being announced on Monday 9 February 2009.
If you’re the developer you could walk away with the ultimate title of FHM Web Game of the Year and a shiny, shiny new FHM gong plus £3,000.
The nominator bags £200 and on top of all this the winning game will enter the hallowed FHM.com Games Hall of Fame.
We've wittered away literally months of our lives on this stuff - here are our weary conclusions:
1. Make it easy to understand: you're generally appealing to work-shy fop with 15 mins to burn.
2. Aim for smooth, friendly graphics: most normal people still have terrible computers.
3. Make it as quick to load as possible (see previous point about time-wasters and skivers).
4. Give it a good name. Everybody likes a good name.
1) The Web Games Awards 2009 is open to developers and game players. The prize for the winning developer is £3,000 and the prize for a user who submits a winning game is £200.
2) All submissions must be made 6pm on 30th November 2008, by visiting www.fhm.com/gamesawards
3) Entries must meet the specified criteria and all relevant details must be given.
4) All submissions will be checked by the FHM team. We will endeavour to respond to all submissions within 48 hours of entry. If your game is successful we will send you by email and an exclusive games promotion widget to launch on any sites you see fit. FHM.com will also provide you with a flash graphic to run on your game.
5) Approved games will be published in the FHM.com Web Arcade www.fhm.com/webarcade
6) The shortlist for the final 30 games will appear in one of six categories. The final winner and the shortlist will be determined by user plays and ratings.
7) Shortlisted games will be contacted by email. It is your responsibility to respond to this within the given time period.
8) The Web Games Awards is open to individuals or teams of developers. However, there will only be a single prize of £3,000 per entry. And £200 per submission for users.
9) If you are entering as a developer you must own the copyright in all assets of the game. If your game includes assets (music, graphics, video and code) that you do not own you must have permission by the copyright owner to use it. FHM reserves the right to disqualify entries if copyright infringement is found to have taken place.
10) FHM has the right to dismiss any game that is deemed racist, obscene, over violent or offensive.
11) By submitting the game to Web Games Awards 09 you are granting FHM.com a non-exclusive right to publish your game on www.fhm.com
12) Entrants must be over 16 yrs.
13) Your submission is governed by FHM.com Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. Please read them carefully before you submit your entry.
