Games for Change honors Snowbright’s Grace Collins with Vanguard Award

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Games for Change today announced the winners of its Special Awards, including the latest recipient of its Vanguard Award. This year, it’s honoring Grace Collins of Snowbright Studio for their work to bring the games industry to new spaces, including the Smithsonian and Department of Education, as well as their advocacy for LGBTQ+ voices, diversity and inclusion.

The Vanguard Award honors a person who, according to G4C founder Susanna Pollack, best exemplifies the organization’s values and is a leader in their field. Past winners include Take This’s Eve Crevoshay, AbleGamers’ Mark Bartlet and Gay Gaming Professionals’ Gordon Bellamy.

Collins led games-based education policy at the U.S. Department of Education, as well as the Federal Games Working Group across the executive branch under both the Obama and Trump administrations. They also created game projects at the Smithsonian. They are the founder of both Liminal Esports and Snowbright Studio, and serve as the CEO of the latter. Snowbright creates cozy and heartwarming games and is LGBTBE certified.

Pollack told GamesBeat in an interview, “There’s this sense of breaking new ground that I think Grace has been able to do consistently wherever they’ve worked — and now as a game designer.”

GamesBeat got the chance to speak with Grace Collins about the award and their history with the industry. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Congratulations! How do you feel about receiving the Vanguard Award?

Grace Collins: It’s incredibly humbling. The first time that I applied to go to Games for Change was in 2015. I grabbed a couple of other feds and