DevGAMM Awards 2026 Sets a New Record: 1,001 Games from 80 Countries
The DevGAMM Awards 2026 received 1,088 submissions, against 652 games submitted to the 2025 Awards. Of those submissions, 1,001 games entered the Grand Prize.
The submissions are from 987 teams in 80 countries and 542 cities. In 2025, developers from 69 countries took part. The USA, Germany, the UK, Spain and China had the most submissions.
01.Key takeaways
- The number of submissions is 1,088, from 987 teams in 80 countries, against 652 games submitted to the 2025 Awards.
- Small teams are the majority: 923 of the 1,001 Grand Prize games came from teams of ten or fewer.
- Unity is the most used engine, with 543 games, ahead of Unreal Engine with 205 and Godot with 121.
- The jury includes 191 industry professionals. Nominees are announced on October 22, 2026, and the ceremony is on November 18, 2026.
02.What Games Are Competing in DevGAMM Awards 2026?
The 1,001 Grand Prize games are spread across five development stages, and Demo / Vertical Slice is the largest group with 523 games.
| Development stage | Games |
|---|---|
| Demo / Vertical Slice | 523 |
| Released | 233 |
| Release Candidate | 131 |
| Early Access / Soft Launch | 67 |
| Prototype | 47 |
The 1,001 games are mostly from small teams: 923 came from teams of ten or fewer. That is 338 games by solo developers, 426 by teams of 2-5 and 159 by teams of 6-10.
| Team size | Games |
|---|---|
| Solo developer | 338 |
| 2-5 developers | 426 |
| 6-10 developers | 159 |
| 11-20 developers | 53 |
| 21-50 developers | 25 |
Unity is the most used engine, with 543 of the 1,001 games.
| Engine | Games |
|---|---|
| Unity | 543 |
| Unreal Engine | 205 |
| Godot | 121 |
| Other technologies | 132 |
The most represented genres are Adventure, Action and Roguelike.
03.New categories in 2026
Four categories are new in the DevGAMM Awards 2026: Best Small Team Game, Best Game in Early Development, Meaningful Game and DevGAMM Choice. Our August post on the new categories describes each one.
The Meaningful Game category is for games that create emotional, cultural, educational, social, political or personal engagement through play, and PlayPraxis supports it. These were the most popular themes among submitted games:
| Theme | Games |
|---|---|
| Empathy | 114 |
| Culture | 110 |
| Relationships | 109 |
| Philosophy | 104 |
| Identity | 89 |
| Mental Health | 88 |
| Social Impact | 87 |
| Community | 73 |
| Trauma | 73 |
| Diversity | 69 |
04.Submissions by category
Scorewarrior provides the prizes for the main categories. Epic Games Store, Unreal Engine, Godot, tinyBuild and Unity sponsor categories of their own.
Every game is entered in the Grand Prize and DevGAMM Choice automatically, and teams choose the other main categories in the submission form. Here are the submissions per category:
| Category | Submissions |
|---|---|
| Grand Prize | 1,001 |
| Excellence in Game Design | 772 |
| Excellence in Visual Art | 700 |
| Best Small Team Game | 674 |
| Excellence in Narrative | 439 |
| Best Game in Early Development | 434 |
| Excellence in Audio | 432 |
| Meaningful Game | 366 |
| Most Anticipated Game | 349 |
| Best Mobile Game | 55 |
| Best Game from Portugal | 37 |
05.DevGAMM Awards 2026 Jury
The 2026 jury includes 191 industry professionals from 40 countries and 113 cities, with 41% newcomers. Among them are artists, game designers, developers, producers, publishers and CEOs of game companies. The evaluation also draws on 50 publishing experts.
06.Questions about the nominees and the ceremony
The nominees are announced on October 22, 2026. Nominated teams are invited to the awards ceremony.
The ceremony is on November 18, 2026 at DevGAMM Lisbon, starts at 18:00 and is streamed live by IGN, the official streaming partner.
Submissions closed on September 7, 2026, and the jury is reviewing them in three rounds, from September 11 to November 9, 2026. The jury is also preparing feedback for the participating teams.
