Beyond Winning: Video Games About Real Life Take Centre Stage in Klaipėda

For the fourth year running, this side of gaming will be showcased through the international Aware Game Awards. Rather than competing on technology, graphics or performance, participating games are recognised for their artistic expression and their ability to explore personal, social and societal issues through play.

This year, the competition received almost twice as many submissions as last year. The selected games come from nine countries around the world, ranging from Lithuania, Italy and Switzerland to Argentina and South Africa.

The programme reflects the breadth of contemporary game-making, showing how developers use games to explore personal experiences, family relationships, identity, power structures, workplace culture, ecology, and historical and cultural heritage.

Games have long been more than entertainment

Video games have become one of the world’s most widely used contemporary media. According to data published by Video Games Europe, 199 million people play video games across 16 surveyed European markets – more than half of the population aged 6–75. Adults account for 77% of players, while the average player is 34 years old.

As gaming audiences grow and become more diverse, games themselves are changing too. Alongside major entertainment titles, a growing number of creators are choosing games as a medium for telling personal stories, examining social issues and experimenting with new forms of storytelling. Games can offer more than entertainment: they can provide a way to approach complex experiences while giving audiences an active role in the story.

“We’re used to thinking that a game has to involve defeating something, collecting something or achieving a goal. But games can be entirely different – they can be about longing for the sea, our relationship with ourselves, ecology, or the absurdity of corporate life. Sometimes there isn’t even a conventional way to win. What matters most is what you experience and what stays with you after you stop playing,” says Artūras Rumiancevas, curator of BLON’s video games programme.

That diversity is at the heart of this year’s Aware Game Awards selection. Twelve games from around the world have been chosen, exploring subjects ranging from self-perception and parodies of corporate life to museums, cultural discovery and even a longing for the sea. The organisers emphasise that the exhibition is not just for gaming enthusiasts: people who rarely or never play video games are equally welcome to explore it.

Where does a video game end?

If a game has no enemies, no points and no obvious objective to win, is it still a game? At BLON, the answer is clear: a documentary or a deeply personal experience can become a game – and a game world can even become a film set.

Last year’s Aware Game Awards winner, Atuel, is a striking example. The game takes players to Argentina’s Atuel River, but instead of asking them to conquer or complete it, it invites them to get to know it. As players move through the landscape and inhabit different beings within it, they hear real people sharing stories about the river, its past and its changing ecosystem. Here, documentary is not simply something to watch – it becomes a space to move through, listen to and explore.

This year, one of the creators of Atuel will come to BLON to share how real places, people and their stories can be translated into interactive worlds. The festival will also explore machinima – filmmaking that uses video games and game technologies to create films and series. In this form, virtual worlds become film sets and game characters become actors.

Alongside its international programme, BLON will also provide a platform for Lithuanian developers and students. Emerging creators will be able to present games currently in development to festival visitors, see how new audiences interact with their work, and speak with players directly. Over the weekend, digital play will be joined by tabletop gaming, with students from ISM University of Management and Economics presenting a game about the Klaipėda region developed as part of their studies. 

The programme is partially funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, with Kilobaitas as technology partner.

The Aware Game Awards exhibition will run from 10–13 September at the Herkus Kantas cultural and meeting space in Klaipėda. Visitors will be able to play all of the competition titles throughout the festival, with this year’s winner announced at the BLON awards ceremony.

The BLON Animation and Video Games Festival takes place in Klaipėda from 10–13 September. Its programme brings together animation, video games, virtual reality experiences, meetings with Lithuanian and international creators, talks, discussions and creative workshops.