Culture
Image: Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken “coda” Snyder
The Independent Games Festival Awards (IGF) 2025, and the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) 2025, have both taken place at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, United States, with a host of well-deserving games and developers being celebrated.
During the IGF Awards, upcoming slice-of-life game Consume Me took out a range of accolades for its unique exploration of food, and the pressure facing young women growing up. At the GDC Awards, Balatro earned a range of awards, including Game of the Year, while game development pioneers Lucas Pope and Sam Lake were honoured with achievement awards.
Across both shows, it was fantastic to see games celebrated, with a vast of array of winners crowned, from mainstream AAA hits to compelling, unique indie games which should certainly be on your radar, if they aren’t already.
Read: The GDC Awards will honour Sam Lake and Lucas Pope
Here’s the full list of winners from both annual award shows.
Best Student Game
Audience Award
alt.ctrl.GDC Award
Excellence in Audio
Excellence in Design
Excellence in Narrative
Excellence in Visual Arts
Nuovo Award
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Best Audio
Best Debut
Best Design
Innovation Award
Best Narrative
Best Technology
Best Visual Art
Social Impact
Game of the Year
Audience Award
Pioneer Award
Lifetime Achievement Award
Leah J. Williams is a gaming and entertainment journalist who’s spent years writing about the games industry, her love for The Sims 2 on Nintendo DS and every piece of weird history she knows. You can find her tweeting @legenette most days.
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