2013's IGF finalists get a free pass to Steam

The organizers of the Independent Games Festival, the leading showcase for independent video games worldwide, have announced a new agreement with Valve for IGF 2013. All IGF Main Competition finalists for this year's event will receive the opportunity to accept a distribution agreement for Steam, a leading platform for distribution in today's burgeoning independent gaming market. This means every single Main Competition finalist in each of the jury-voted categories - the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence In Design, Excellence In Art, Excellence In Narrative, Technical Excellence, Excellence in Audio, and even the Nuovo Award - can work directly with Steam to bring their titles to PC, Mac and Linux. This agreement comes as the 2013 Independent Games Festival rolls out its new, cutting-edge judging website back-end - including a dedicated mobile judge app, social-style discussion tools for games, and the ability for judges and contestants to easily connect to resolve technical problems. With over 200 distinguished judges discussing and recommending titles for named, discipline-specific juries in each of the seven main categories, IGF 2013 - part of UBM Tech, as is this website - will announce its finalists in January 2013, and award winners at Game Developers Conference 2013 in San Francisco this March. Finalists and winners of the Independent Games Festival since its 1999 debut have included landmark indie games such as Braid, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, Portal predecessor Narbacular Drop, Minecraft, and a host of other seminal titles. Valve joins other supporters of the 2013 IGF including media sponsors Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, as well as Platinum Sponsor Microsoft Studios and Platinum Student Showcase Sponsor DigiPen.