Announcing our judges for GamesBeat Visionary Awards

Connect with top gaming leaders in Los Angeles at GamesBeat Summit 2023 this May 22-23. Register here.

It’s an honor to announce our sixth annual GamesBeat Visionary Awards and the team of judges we’ve selected to help pick the winners of this year’s awards.

Judging for the Visionary Awards for GamesBeat Summit 2023 (May 22-23 in Marina del Rey, California, and May 24 online) is now underway. You can submit your own suggestions to me via email or my Twitter DMs. And if you’d like to check out our outstanding event and networking opportunity, please use this discount code for 25% off: GBSDEANWEB25. Our early bird deadline expires on April 5.

The GamesBeat Visionary Awards started in 2018 as a way to honor game industry leaders who showed real vision for the future. I think of it as a well to reward unrecognized people and a way to give back to our GamesBeat community. The awards are meaningful and emotional, as we get friends of the winners to present the awards to them.

And we’ve chosen a panel of 11 judges for this year’s contest. Check out some of our speakers here.

Event

GamesBeat Summit 2023

Join the GamesBeat community in Los Angeles this May 22-23. You’ll hear from the brightest minds within the gaming industry to share their updates on the latest developments.

Judges for 2023

Shuhei Yoshida is in charge of working with studios external to PlayStation. — Shuhei Yoshida is Shu Yoshida, Head of PlayStation Indies, Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Christina Heller, former CEO of Metastage
Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games
John Smedley, former studio head at Amazon Games
Ivan Lobo, founder of Gamelab
Tammy McDonald, adviser for Griffin Gaming Partners
Don Daglow, Sr. Director for Strategic Partnerships, The Strong Museum

Dinga Bakaba is studio director at Arkane Lyon and creative director on Deathloop.

Shu Yoshida, Head of PlayStation Indies, Sony Interactive Entertainment
Samantha Ryan, senior vice president group general manager at BioWare, Full Circle, Maxis and Motive at Electronic Arts.
Sarah Bond, corporate vice president for Xbox at Microsoft
Dinga Bakaba, studio head and co-creative director at Arkane Lyon
Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat

Past winners

Geoff Keighley, Vince Zampella and Brett Sperry present the Visionary Award to Laura Miele of Electronic Arts.

Our past winners for this award include Rand Miller, cofounder of Cyan and co-creator of Myst; Ted Price, founder of Insomniac Games; John Smedley, studio head at Amazon Game Studios San Diego; Laura Mi-el-e, the top gaming executive at Electronic Arts; and Sarah Bond, vice president for game creator experience and ecosystem at Microsoft.

Sarah Bond is corporate vice president at Microsoft for thegame creator experience and ecosystem at Xbox.

Up and Comer Award

We also give out the annual Up and Comer Award as part of this program. Our past winners for this award were Eve Crevoshay (Kre-vo-shay), executive director of Take This; creator Natasha “ZombaeKills” Zinda; and Dinga Bakaba, studio head and co-director at Arkane Lyon, a Bethesda studio. This award honors someone who is an up-and-comer when it comes to achievements in the game industry. It isn’t based on age or experience in the game industry. Rather, it recognizes that the biggest potential of the honoree lies ahead of them.

Spencer Tucker of Scopely gives the GamesBeat Visionary Award to Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games.

Each year we assemble a panel of judges in the peer group. The past judges included winners such as Eve Crevoshay, Ted Price, and Natasha Zinda. Other judges included Dean Takahashi, Shelley Andagan, Don Daglow, Cathy Simpson, and Ivan Fernandes Lobo.

GamesBeat’s creed when covering the game industry is “where passion meets business.” What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you — not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it. Discover our Briefings.