Webby Awards

The Webby Awards, or The Webbys, are annual online awards presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The Webby People's Voice Awards are related honours awarded according to votes cast by the general public.

Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition was nominated for the award of ‘Best Art Direction’ in the ‘Games’ category in the 26th Annual Webby Awards. Oddworld Inhabitants engaged in a social media campaign to encourage fans to vote for Soulstorm to win the Webby People's Voice Award.

Social media campaign

The nominees for the 26th Annual Webby Awards were announced at 12:00 noon UTC on 5 April 2022. The nominees for the ‘Best Art Direction’ award in the ‘Games’ category were as follows.

• Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition by Oddworld Inhabitants
• Hoa by PM Studios, inc.
• Lost in Random by Electronic Arts
• No Longer Home by Humble Grove
• Wayfinder by the National Film Board of Canada

The public vote for the Webby People's Voice Awards lasted until the end of 21 April. International business student Alanna Lausch worked with Oddworld Inhabitants for the month in order to encourage Oddworld fans to vote for Soulstorm in the Webby Awards. Soulstorm's nomination was announced on the Oddworld Discord on the same day, followed up on Twitter two days later.

On 14 April, Oddworld Inhabitants sent the following message from Lorne Lanning to subscribers of the Oddworld mailing list, referencing and linking to a 6-minute video compilation of gameplay and cutscenes from Oddworld: Soulstorm.

Vote for Oddworld: Soulstorm

Award nominations are great. They don't rate as high as your support, but it is nice when we receive kudos for our hard work.

The fine folks at the Webby Awards nominated Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition for Best Art Direction, which is an award that personally means a lot to me. Before getting into the games industry, I was trained as a classical artist in physical media. So I've always tried to show that inherent love for art in everything we do. It is my sincere hope that the influence I can have on the amazing artists we work with is apparent in Soulstorm, and that our vision shines through, from early concept to final production.

The entire team got behind my vision for Soulstorm's look and feel and I am so very proud of all our work. And so, I ask, if you have two minutes, can you jump over to the Webby Awards, register to vote, and if you think Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition deserves it, please vote for us.

Vote Now!

Also, if you want to learn more about Soulstorm's art, check out our nomination video which we created specifically for the Webby Awards!

Thank you,
Lorne Lanning

Giveaway

On 15 April, Oddworld Inhabitants began a giveaway of Oddworld games and merchandise to encourage fans to vote for Soulstorm in the Webby People's Voice Awards. Using the marketing platform Gleam, fans could collect tickets in exchange for performing tasks such as voting for Soulstorm daily, referring friends to the campaign, and submitting a codeword publishing via social media. Fans whose tickets were drawn from a raffle at the end of the campaign would be given the following prizes.

• 3 winners will each receive 1 x Oddworld Rupture Farms Official T-Shirt (Sizes: S - XXL)
• 10 winners will each receive 1 x Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition Digital Code on PlayStation, Xbox or PC (Epic)
• 10 winners will each receive 1 x Oddworld: Soulstorm Digital Soundtrack
• 10 winners will each receive 1 x Oddworld: Soulstorm Digital Artbook

According to the campaign, for every percentage point that Soulstorm gained in the vote, ten Mudokons would be freed, and when it reached the point that 100 Mudokons were being freed daily, more ways to collect tickets would be added to the giveaway. By 19 April, 40 Mudokons had been freed, and no additional ways to collect tickets were ever added. Voting ended at midnight Pacific Time of 21 April.

Giveaway winners

Winners of the giveaway were revealed on 28 April. The following individuals had their tickets drawn and therefore won prizes, although it's not known who won which prize.

Order drawn	Ticket number	Winner's name
1	10099	Larr R
2	17912	Paul D
3	9819	Michael V
4	19352	Gregory W
5	6285	2 C
6	13907	Dmitry M
7	21370	Bossun21
8	27363	Alex W
9	1571	Miguel H
10	27851	Antonio
11	18993	Kodes
12	21251	God-Particle G
13	20819	Aaron H
14	12470	Jana M
15	6449	Alejandro J
16	19669	Charles B
17	12752	Fikrialirahmat
18	20766	Lukyn P
19	5840	Greg C
20	27433	Giuseppe M
21	14630	Taylor H
22	27327	Andrej H
23	23960	Yoshicorn
24	11517	Jean W
25	24320	Ashley D
26	3467	Ida T
27	4884	Leonardo S
28	23104	Colten M
29	25555	Sea J
30	7661	Tibor K
31	2850	Suzy |
32	5813	The K
33	7534	Mark H

Webby Awards winners

Hoa by PM Studios, inc. won both the Webby Award and the Webby People's Voice Award for ‘Best Art Direction’ in the ‘Games’ category. Two games—Kena: Bridge of Spirits by Ember Lab, and Mundaun by Hidden Fields—were named as Honorees. However, during the time that Alanna Lausch worked on the social media campaign for Oddworld Inhabitants, the public vote share for Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition increased from 21% to 35%, putting it in second place behind Hoa in the public vote.