The second day of the GIC was not only marked by interesting presentations, but also by politics. Polish Minister of Culture Marta Cienkowska visited the conference for a round table discussion with the industry. Later, she also presented the main prize at the Central & East European Game Awards.
This time, the Central & East European Game Awards (CEEGA) awards ceremony took place in the afternoon during the Games Industry Conference and almost ended in disaster for the nominees from Warhorse Studios. Although Kingdom Come: Deliverance II was nominated in almost every category, one of the other nominees always won. Only the main category, “Best Game,” went to KCD2 and Warhorse Studios.
The award was presented by Marta Cienkowska, Minister of Culture and National Heritage in Donald Tusk's government. Cienkowska promised the industry support on stage, without going into specifics. In fact, behind the scenes in Poland, politicians and industry representatives are currently discussing how to further improve the framework conditions for the Polish games industry.
Cienkowska was also in favor of a non-public round-table discussion with the industry in Poznan. In fact, Poland has developed into one of the most important production markets for games in Europe in recent years. In addition to studios such as CD Projekt Red, Techland, and 11bit, which are well known far beyond Poland's borders, there are numerous other first-class teams and projects.
This also became clear at the CEEGAs. Bloober Team from Krakow, Poland, won both the Visual Art and Audio categories for their work on the current-gen remake of Silent Hill 2. 11bit studios won the CEEGA in the categories Design and Narrative with two different games. Frostpunk 2 excelled in the Design category, while The Alters excelled in the Narrative category.
The Technology category went to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl by GSC Game World Games, Hidden Gem went to Ved by Karaclan, and Playing Prague by Charles Games was named Best Mobile Game.
In addition to the series, two Code the Rights Awards were also presented by Amnesty International. The Code the Rights Best Game 2025 is Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector by Jump over the Age. The Code the Rights Special Award 2025 goes to Detroit: Become Human by Quantic Dream. The only slight downside to these two awards was that the winners were not present in Poznan.
