In 2020 the Producers Guild of America (PGA) held its inaugural PGA Innovation Award to celebrate virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), experiential and other emerging media. Today, the nonprofit trade group has opened applications for this year’s awards.
The PGA is looking for exceptional distinctiveness and inventiveness from entrants, saying the winner will: “drive forward the industry’s perception and application of new media in an entertainment context.” For example, the 2020 PGA Innovation Award was handed to Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series – Episode 1.
“This award honours disruptive entertainment created with a clear purpose and vision, that meaningfully pushes the boundaries through the merging of technological innovation and effective storytelling,” said Jenni Ogden, VP of the PGA New Media Council, and Chris Thomes, New Media Council Delegate in a statement. “The Producers Guild is proud to present this award in its second year, and we’re highly anticipating submissions from the inventive producers, artists, and engineers that make immersive entertainment an amazing reality.”
Creators have until 28th February 2021 to submit their content. Programs released between 1st January 2020 and 28th February 2021 are eligible to enter. All entries will then be reviewed and voted on by a jury of blue-ribbon new media experts. The winner will be announced during an awards ceremony on 24th March.
VRFocus also held its own inaugural awards in 2020 to celebrate all the awesome work XR individuals and companies had created over the previous year. Hopefully, you voted as it was open to all our readers, seeing Half-Life: Alyx win the Best VR Game of 2020, Oculus Quest named as Favourite VR Hardware and FitXR awarded Most Promising XR Startup.
2020 proved to be a bumper year for VR developers with lots of exciting content expected over the next 12 months. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.