The call for the fifth edition of the 1400 Serious Games Award (SeGaP2021) has been released to bring gamers and game researchers interested in producing and studying in the field of serious entertainments back into an attractive and serious competition in one of the most important events in the game industry of Iran.

According to public relations of the Iran Computer Games Foundation, the serious games award held by the foundation every year, but this year, with a broader prospect of targeted entertainments and by gathering a wide network of sponsors and partners. In addition to digital games, other serious hobbies such as escape rooms, board games or simulators will be sponsored.

This year's event will be held in three main sections: the Serious Games Festival 2021, Serious Games Hackathon 2021, and the International Serious Games Symposium 2021, so that all game developers and game researchers can experience a new opportunity to sharing their knowledge, produce articles and create new games by participating in this competitive event.

This time, the National Computer Games Foundation, with the participation of sponsors who partake in holding the fifth event of the Serious Games Award, has a special focus at the interesting part of the story from the point of view of the participants in this event; That is, the prizes section! Which incentives to participate in this event by considering millions of Rials in cash prizes.

The Serious Games Award, which has become more professional over years, is now well-known as a prestigious event in the game industry of Iran. A large network of academic, scientific and research institutions gave notice of readiness for their presence and supports for serious games development in the country. It is good to take a look at list of sponsors of this event in 2021:

Iran Computer Games Foundation and Digital Games Research Center (Direct), Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Cognitive Science and Technologies Development Headquarters, Iran’s National Elites Foundation, Institute for Cognitive Sciences Studies, Iran National Innovation Fund, Faculty of Multimedia, Islamic Arts University of Tabriz, University of Isfahan, Hamgara Support Structure, Iran Game Development Institute, Automation and Digital Technologies Development Headquarters of the Science and Technology Vice Presidency, National Institute for Medical Research Development (NIMAD) on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Iran Public Libraries Institution , Soft & Identity-making Technologies Development Headquarters of the Science and Technology Vice Presidency, Avagames Professional Center of Investing and Publishing Iranian Games,  and Aparat Games.

The Serious Games Award will also feature three separate events including a International symposium, a festival and a hackathon.

1. Symposium

The symposium focus on scientific resources and researches to develop these games. This section accepts scientific articles only in English and the submitted works will be severely judged by three judges. In this section, while introducing the best article and awarding a prize of 50 million Rials, other presented articles will also be honored in the form of a cash prize. Researchers in this course could to submit papers to the symposium until Friday, October 14^th.  As last year, papers will only be accepted in English. Papers should be in the field of serious games. The tracks of ISGS2021 are inspired by international related events. Also, among the submitted papers, the selected ones, in addition to receiving a cash prize, will be presented on the day of the symposium. This year, the Event Secretariat has prepared a total prize of 50 million Rials for articles with the subject of research and commercialization of serious games. In addition, for this course, the necessary steps have been taken to obtain a license to index symposium papers in the IEEE Xplore database, and after receiving the license, the approved symposium papers will be indexed in this digital library.

2. Festival

Like the previous events, the festival section of SeGaP continues to host the developed games on various topics of serious games. Interested participants who have related works to any of the topics and categories can register individually or as a team and submit their entries to the Prize Secretariat.

In addition to cash prizes of sponsors in this section, the Event Secretariat will award cash prizes to selected works in the following four categories:

• The serious game of the year will win the Foundation's Grand Prize of 200 million Rials.
• The finalists of the festival will receive a total prize of up to 200 million Rials.
• The games that have participated in previous courses of the event, could participate in the best update section to try again their chance of winning a prize of 30 million Rials.

 In particular, DIREC as the event secretariat has prepared prizes of a total of up to 100 million Rials for serious games in the field of Political Literacy. Accordingly, the games developed based on teaching appropriate political choice, understanding political structures or electoral culture are to be judged exclusively. It should be noted; the last date for submission of works will be Friday, October 14, 2021.

3. HACKATHON

Serious Games Hackathon is a three-day gaming event that aims to come up with ideas and experience to make serious games.

The fourth Serious Games Hackathon in 2021 will be accompanied by a special event. This year, Hackathon, as a problem-oriented competitive event, was subset of Shahid Babaei plan of the National Elite Foundation, and with the support of this foundation and the granting of “elite point” it has provided an exclusive opportunity for participants. Also, the Cognitive Science and Technology Development Headquarters is the sponsor and designer of the topic of this event: “identifying talents and empowerment with a cognitive approach” will hold the event in Tehran, Tabriz and Isfahan simultaneously and will appreciate the best board or digital games in this section. Therefore, interested individuals and teams can register individually or as a team until Friday, October 14, 1400 to take advantage of this opportunity and participate in the event.

It is noteworthy that in order to empower and educate the participants before the hackathon, specialized training workshops will be held, which is a prerequisite for receiving the “elite point” of the National Elite Foundation and mandatory. The time of the workshops will be announced later.

Click here to download the full SeGaP2021 recall in English.