Microsoft Sweden has been signed as Award Partner during the competition of Swedish Game Awards 2007 (SGA).

As a partner, Microsoft will hold a prize for games developed in the XNA Framework. They will also host a Game Developers’ Evening and be a part of the upcoming Game Developers’ Workshop. Also, a representative from Microsoft will join the jury.

“With the XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express technologies we are giving the game development community what they have asked for, a easy to use, yet extremely powerful framework for building games for the PC and the Xbox 360. With the SGA partnership I hope to motivate the Swedish developers to examine and start developing on the new platform and see the endless possibilities.”
- Johan Lindfors, Senior Developer Evangelist, Microsoft

“Microsoft was one of our founding partners when we started as KTH Game Awards in 2002 and together we held the big Xbox event Game Xtravaganza. We're thrilled to work with them once more and are happy to expand the competition with an award aimed at smaller teams. We hope that more teams will follow the steps of our former participants Atomic Elbow and Hive Swarm and use Xbox Live Arcade as yet another source to spread their games.”
- John-Philip Johansson, Project Manager, Swedish Game Awards

For further information, please contact:
Dominic Holmboe, Information Officer, Swedish Game Awards
Phone: +46 (0) 37 78 38 46
Email: dominic@excitera.nu

Or contact:
Johan Lindfors, Senior Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Sweden
Phone: +46 (0) 8 752 27 80
Email: johan.lindfors@microsoft.com

ABOUT THE BEST XNA GAME AWARD

The Best XNA Game Award is created to promote the use of the XNA Framework in game development. By using XNA the PC games created in the competition can easily be ported to the Xbox 360. Microsoft Xbox Live Arcade is a potential market place for the level of independent games that participate in SGA.

ABOUT SWEDISH GAME AWARDS AND EXCITERA

Swedish Game Awards (SGA) is Sweden's largest video game development competition aimed directly at students from different universities and game educations in Sweden. It has been held annually since 2002 and is organized by university students throughout the country and holds several events during the competition which follows the Swedish academic year.

SGA is a competition organized by Excitera: the entrepreneurship association at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Excitera also organizes the Excitera Innovation Challenge, Excitera Charon, Excitera Enterprise Forum among other activities.

Swedish Game Awards (SGA) has signed Grin as Gold Partner for the Best PC Game Award during 2007’s competition.

As Gold Partner, Grin will host their own Game Developers’ Evening as well as contribute with a representative in the jury during the final stage of the competition. Grin will also present the final grand prize for the Best PC Game 2007.

"This is the first time Grin joins a partnership with Swedish Game Awards and we are excited to have them with us. Their journey from arcade games to next-generation titles surely holds interesting tales to be told at one of ours upcoming Game Developers' Evening."
- John-Philip Johansson, Project Manager

For further information, please contact:
Dominic Holmboe, Information Officer
Phone: +46 (0)73 77 83 846
Email: dominic@excitera.nu

ABOUT GRIN

Founded by the two brothers Ulf and Bo Andersson in 1997, Grin’s mission was to create state of the art games using breakthrough technology, focusing on both realistic simulators and fantasy/sci-fi games. As a result the past include titles such as the award-winning Ballistics and Bandits – Phoenix Rising. At the present time the company is located in Stockholm, Sweden where a team consisting of 30 developers focuses on PC and console gaming.

ABOUT SWEDISH GAME AWARDS AND EXCITERA

Swedish Game Awards (SGA) is Sweden's largest video game development competition aimed directly at students from different universities and game educations in Sweden. It has been held annually since 2002 and is organized by university students throughout the country and holds several events during the competition which follows the Swedish academic year.

SGA is a competition organized by Excitera: the entrepreneurship association at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Excitera also organizes the Excitera Innovation Challenge, Excitera Charon, Excitera Enterprise Forum among other activities.

Location: Street, Stockholm
Date: 21-22 of October, 2006

Last weekend the doors to Sweden’s largest computer game festival Spelfest flung wide open at Street in Stockholm. The event was arranged by The Swedish Computer Game Institute and Swedish Game Awards (SGA) took the opportunity to inform about the competition and host a miniature competition named Mini-SGA; where the main task was to come up with a brilliant, funny or crazy game concept while using paper, pen, scissor and/or glue to convey the ideas.

Visitors could also meet two of SGA’s former winners and participants; Yokaj Studio (makers of Sumo, Best Game Idea 2006), Silent Grove (makers of Dawnspire, Best PC Game 2006) and other interesting Swedish independent game developers and schools.

The two-day festival was visited by over 1200 people of all ages and many came up to SGA’s booth to ask about the competition, our goals and intentions and to participate in Mini-SGA. The activity received great response from both visitors and participants and it’s with great pleasure that we announce the winner of a Just Cause t-shirt from Avalanche and the PC Gamer and SuperPLAY subscriptions;

• Best Game Concept: Lonely Beast by Gustav Carlberg

Following contributions won Just Cause t-shirts from Avalanche:

• Social Innovation: Röda-vita rosen, Next Generation by Sofie Waldén
• Craziest Game Concept: Utan title by Anna Tascha Larsson
• Highest Game Potential: Att skapa en festival! by Åsa Frank

Friday night ended with a party, Spelfest Club, where the music artists Boy VS Bacteria and The Puff lured people out on the dance floor. On Saturday we entered the stage and informed about Swedish Game Awards. Among other speakers during the festival were our partners Peligroso and Microsoft.

SGA would like to thank all the participants in Mini-SGA, our partners and all the interesting people at the event for sharing their ideas and experiences!