Due to the overwhelming support GDN has been receiving from developers and publishers, the Media Group decided it was time to slap a badge on gaming successes. Gamers Daily News has implemented a new award system which it hopes will act as a badge of approval to its loyal readers when making their game buying decisions.

Editor and founder of the GDN Media Group, Wade Hinkle, explains the thinking behind the new system. "We’ve always striven to provide a comprehensive breakdown of what makes a game good, but there’s also a lot of value in being able to quantify a game’s success in a single glance."

The new system aims to retain some of Gamers Daily News’ in-depth examination and breakdown of a game’s success by breaking away from the usual "Editor’s Choice" system, which only allows for one level of approval, and employing a set of tiered awards in Bronze, Silver and Gold categories.

"We wanted to make a recognizable standard for the games we respect and recommend." Hinkle explains. "But we didn’t want to move too far from our established practice of quantifying all the vital aspects of a game, which is why we decided a three tier system would better suit our review style."

The new system will award an appropriate badge depending on the overall score a game receives by the GDN reviewers. The award process will work as follows:

7.0 - 7.9 = Bronze Award

8.0 - 8.9 = Silver Award

9.0 + = Gold Award

"It’s our aim to make these awards valuable to both the gamers and the industry." concludes Hinkle. "We hope that when our readers catch a glimpse of a GDN Award badge - whether it’s on our website, a TV commercial or printed on the game’s box - they’ll instantly know what quality of play they can expect from that particular title.

"On top of that, we feel the developers and publishers should be given some kind of immediately recognizable, independent recognition for their hard work and success - kind of like the “star rating” system hotels receive. Getting a GDN Gold Award will be damn hard, but we hope to be handing out more of them throughout 2008 - after all, that means we’ll be spending more time playing excellent games!"