DStars is a new initiative to recognize and celebrate the work of the people behind the scenes of the Italian games industry.
Italy’s 1.5 billion dollar game industry is still growing but the Italian development scene is still in the shadow even if the current year is looking very promising with a few hit games on their way to market!
DStars is a new initiative that was created to celebrate the work of Italian developers working in the local industry (and not only!), with the idea of having their amazing contributions recognized.
From veteran devs or inspiring managers to young indies: developers are voting each other, Italian studios as well as games released in 2018 in order to as assign 16 different awards through an open survey that closed on February 10th with the contribution of 100 professionals!
Alberto Belli, Gamera Interactive’s CEO and creator of DStars:
Everything started by chatting with a few other developers here. We thought it would be great to create something to celebrate our work, as it they do in other countries. It all started by inviting a few people with the idea to complete a survey and to contribute by putting in their favorite Italian developers, studios and games in December. Then it ended up with over 100 professionals working in huge companies from all around the world, giving amazing feedback about the initiative. It was supposed to be an excuse to meet some friends and turned out to be something unique.
Andrea Rizzi, Partner of the Milan based law firm Insight Studio Legale has been actively involved in making DStars happen, and in that regarded he added as follows:
What Alberto and other Italian video game professionals are trying to do (and actually doing it!) in Italy with DStars, as well as with other initiatives that are finally being organized all over the country – such as local game developers conferences – is a fantastic opportunity for all those who are passionate about videogames and the videogame industries, like myself.
With that being said, I’m convinced that these initiatives benefit first and foremost indie-developers «in the making», that is, the young local talent without which the Italian industry is unlikely to catch up (in terms of size and artistic relevance on the international arena) with other countries, such as the UK, where I worked for a decade as one of the in-house lawyers of two large AAA publishers. It’s fantastic to be back in Italy now and see that things are evolving, as far as I can see; indeed, things appear to be going in the right direction in Italy, in the same way as they have been evolving not only in countries such as the UK or Germany, but also in countries – until recently considered of lower standing compared to Italy – like Romania, Croatia and Poland, which, although this may sound strange to some, have travelled way faster than Italy in the last few years.
The Awards
A total of 16 awards were presented with the survey, these are the finalists:
Best Special Initiative
- Women In Games Italia
- Gender Play
- Yogscast Jingle Jam 2018
Best Development Evente
- Codemotion
- Level Up
- Gamerome
Best Development School
- Digital Bros Academy
- IULM University
- Accademia Italiana Videogiochi
Best New Studio
- Stormind Games
- Picaresque Studio
- Lunar Great Wall Studios
- Cyber Coconut
- 3DClouds
Studio of The Year
- 34Bightings
- Gamera Interactive
- Kunos Simulazioni
- Ubisoft Milan
- Lunar Great Wall Studios
Art & Animation Star
- Alessandro Bragaglini
- Carlo Bianchi
- Michele De Negri
- Graziano Pimpolari
- Michele Bedendo
Game of the Year
- Remothered
- Ride 3
- Milanoir
- Nantucket
- Okunoka
Programming Star
- Domenico Barba
- Jacopo Musso
- Valerio Di Donato
- Stefano Casillo
- Fabio Suriano
Design Star
- Tommaso Bonanni
- Andrea Basilio
- Matteo Sciutteri
- Giuseppe Enrico Franchi
- Daniele Azara
Production Star
- Filippo Franco
- Elia Randon
- Cristina Nava
- Giulia Zamboni
- Sergio Rocco
Marketing, PR & Biz Dev Star
- Andrea Loiudice
- Valerio Di Donato
- Jacopo Musso
- Francesco Bruschi
- Alberto Belli
Management Star
- Daniele Azara
- Marco Ponte
- Valerio Di Donato
- Alberto Belli
- Marco Massarutto
Journalism Star
- Dario Marchetti
- Luca Tremolada
- Fabrizia Malgieri
- Gianluca Rocco
- Paolo Cupola
Far Star
- Gabriele Farina
- Angelo Pesce
- Tommaso Checchi
- Francesco Carucci
- Rachele Doimo
Industry Star
- Massimo Guarini
- Davide Soliani
- Marco Massarutto
Guiding Star [assigned by the organization]
This is a SPECIAL AWARD. The winner will be unveiled on march 29.
GAMETIME community award
A special award will be assigned by GameTime, the largest Facebook gaming community in Italy with 500k+ users voting for the Most Anticipated Italian Game of 2019:
- Close to the sun
- Daymare 1998
- Alaloth – Champions of the four kingdoms
- Redout – Special Assault
- Assetto Corsa Competizione – The Official Blancpain GT Series Games
100 Italian professionals, which are listed on www.dstars.it have participated in the survey, each of them casting one vote in each category covered by the survey, expressing their personal and individual preferences to acknowledge, show appreciation and respect for the outstanding talent, and increasingly significant contribution, some of their colleagues have given to games and the industry that is now flourishing around, and also thank to, them.
We thought it’d be a good think to share with the community and all those potentially interested the results of the survey we have done, which reflects the preferences expressed by the participants to the survey.
Winners will be announced on March 29th. The results will be available for download after the DStars event, on the official website at www.dstars.it
PARTNERS & SPONSORS
SugarCon, Multiplayer.it, GameTime, Infogamer, Amaranto Holding SPA, SMH Technologies, Ludicious, Insight Studio Legale, Reboot Develop Blue, Reboot Develop Red, LA CASE Books, Gamera Gameslab.
