Game Submission Info & FAQ

Yes, but submission processing and travel to the event is subject to any applicable international regulations and/or sanctions. Please note the the organizer has restricted business with the fllowing countries and territories: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Russia, Russian occupied territories of Ukraine (Crimea, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia), Syria, and Venezuela. Please contact Event Producer Shannon McMullan if you have questions.

Yes.

As a publisher, you can submit up to 3 independent games on behalf of your developers. However, there is no restriction on developers of a single publisher submitting games (i.e., multiple different developers who use the same publisher can submit any number of their games). The cap on publishers is set to maintain the independent spirit of this competition and encourage developers to submit their games directly to the competition.

One excellent way to do this is via video. We allow you to attach a video link (public on YouTube) to your submission. But you are also welcome to link private tutorial videos in your submission or even upload them alongside your submission. Also feel free to link to other background information and documentation.

The IGF does accept games that have already been released to the public, either by directly uploading a build of the game, or by providing us with download codes for various services (Steam, GOG, App Store, web pages, etc). You may also submit an early/demo version of the game, but please note that the rules stipulate that it must be "substantially feature-complete", and that your game will be in competition with games nearly or already available. If you're unsure whether your game is "substantially feature-complete enough" by the deadline, you may wish to wait until the following year's festival!

You can upload new builds of your game at any time. Please note that after the submission deadline, judges may look at your game at any time. You can continue giving us new versions, but we only absolutely guarantee that judges and jury members will see the version of your game first uploaded by the deadline.

The IGF Competition officially supports any platform - PC, console, web, mobile, etc. Many of our judges also have access to console and VR development kits - please specify what is needed in your submission. We cannot guarantee that all judge or jury members will have access to any special hardware required to play your game.

If you don't make the cutoff date, we can't accept your game. Sorry -- it's in the interest of fairness to all the other entries who had to cut their development cycle short to get their games in on time. You can always enter the competition next year!

We've removed written judge feedback to concentrate on further optimizing the judging process, getting people playing as many games as possible and formalizing the feedback system.

Developer feedback has always been an optional part of the judging process and in general, having the game played in detail by multiple judges takes precedence over providing written feedback. While the feedback is well intentioned, without having a clear structure it is often inconsistent or on par with what a normal user playtest would provide.

IGF organizers would like to encourage and engage with submissions from game developers making interesting or experimental works who, because of the fee, might not enter the contest. Those creators interested in applying for a waiver of the full $75 general entry fee or $25 student entry fee can submit their application here. Entries should be submitted by October 10, 2025. If selected, entrants will be given a code to submit their game to IGF 2026. Please reach out to IGF Chairperson Shawn Pierre with any questions or concerns.

Our payment system is currently under development. Once it's ready, you'll receive a notification from the IGF Chairperson. In the meantime, your submission is safely stored as "incomplete." After completing your payment, your submission will be finalized and fully processed.

Each year, we invite hundreds of game developers both big and small, educators, critics, and press to be the initial IGF 'large' judging pool. (Think of the judges as an Oscars-style cross-section of the game community.) If any individual was directly involved in the creation of any game entered in the festival that year, they will recuse themselves from judging the festival (Note: any interested party that works in the games industry can request an invitation to be a judge. If you are selected, you'll receive an email from us when our judging process has begun.).

All submitted games are assigned to a random set of judges from our 'large' judging pool. This body of judges typically consists of 250-300 participants, and assignments are made based on the game platforms the judge owns. Judges are given roughly 3-5 weeks to play and recommend any game they believe should be a finalist in any category.

Over time, games are randomly assigned to even more judges, to ensure a breadth of opinion. Judges are able to communicate with one another to recommend games, schedule multiplayer sessions, and raise any technical issues directly with a game's developer. They also use this opportunity to debate the positives and negatives of specific titles. After judges are finished recommending the games they have been assigned, they are free to explore the rest of the entered games and vote for any additional game they believe deserves a recommendation.

At the end of this 'large' judging period, we then enter a jurying phase. There is a different jury for each award, made up of subject matter experts - except for the Audience Award, which is chosen by public vote, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, which is chosen and voted on by members across every jury pool. The juries are given access to the total number of recommendations each game received for their particular category by our first-round judges. They also receive another metric that they look at: a percentage that represents how many recommendations each game got from its assigned judges. This helps to bring less well-known titles to light and guards against judges simply 'swarming' games they might have already heard of.

Each jury, made up of 7-10 members, takes another month or so to play and discuss the games in private. At the end of this discussion, each individual juror puts forward their list of nominations for the specific award they are judging - as many or as few as they like (often called 'approval voting').

These nominations may include the games that received many recommendations from the judges, but often includes games entered into the festival with fewer recommendations as well. (Think of the juries as film festival panels, such as the one that gives out the Cannes Palme D'Or). The jury nominations are then tallied, and the games which received the most nominations are then decided as the finalists and honorable mentions.

Once these finalists have been announced, each individual IGF jury casts a second vote for the games they believe should be the winner in each category. Those votes are again tallied by hand, and the game that received the most votes is declared the winner at the IGF Awards during GDC Festival of Gaming.

Finally, each jury comes together to deliberate the Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner. Each jury member will review games across all categories and cast their vote for the finalists and winners of biggest award of the IGF.