Gayming Awards 2026 Celebrates Queer Games, Community, and Gayming Icon Darion Lowenstein

Gayming Magazine offered the sixth Annual Gayming Awards in Los Angeles this week, an occasion that celebrates LGBTQ media, characters, organizations, and creators. The occasion was streamed on WOW Presents Plus with Erika Ishii, a prolific voice actor, and Dawn, a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, as its hosts. Fans, nominees, and GLAAD have been invited to attend an in-person viewing get together extravaganza at The Vermont Hollywood. 

The online game nominees for this 12 months’s Gayming Awards included a number of video games additionally nominated on the thirty seventh GLAAD Media Award, reminiscent of Hades II and Lost Records: Bloom and Rage, with each Melinoë and Kat Mikaelsen nominated for the Best LGBTQ+ Character Award. One of the large winners on the Gayming Awards was Date Everything!, a sandbox courting recreation that gained widespread approval for its amusing premise that allowed gamers thus far anthropomorphized objects and furnishings of their house. This title was awarded each Best LGBTQ+ Indie Game and the Gayming Fan Favorite Award. 

The Gayming Awards additionally acknowledged particular person LGBTQ creators and business professionals who’re making a distinction by doing what they love whereas being their genuine selves. Twitch streamer ghcoffee obtained the LGBTQ+ Content Creator of the Year award whereas WillJinkies, one of many members of final 12 months’s LGBTQ+ Streaming Rising Star Class of 2025, was awarded the LGBTQ+ Breakout Content Creator. The ultra-talented Jennifer English, the voice of Maelle in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3 (recipient of the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Video Game), was additionally acknowledged as LGBTQ+ Voice Actor of the Year.

Amongst the folks honored was Darion Lowenstein, who obtained the Rebecca Heineman Gayming Icon Award. Lowenstein is a veteran within the AAA online game business who based his personal consulting firm Secret Code, and was an integral a part of GLAAD Gaming’s creation and stays a useful supporter of GLAAD to this present day. Lowenstein is a lifelong fan of video video games who bought his begin reviewing video games as a young person, which then led to him getting into the online game business through Dynamix at age 16. Lowenstein has labored at main studios reminiscent of Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, and Scopely, supporting the creation of hit video games that many gamers know and love. As a homosexual man who has usually been a voice for underrepresented folks, Lowenstein has not solely witnessed, however been a vital a part of the progress made to make sure that LGBTQ individuals are each seen, heard, and revered within the online game business.

Lowenstein is the sixth particular person to obtain the newly renamed Rebecca Heineman Gayming Icon Award, named after the late Rebecca Heineman who herself was a online game business legend, recipient of the Gayming Icon Award in 2025, and served on GLAAD’s Board of Directors. Heineman and Lowenstein, together with previous award recipients Robert Yang, Tanya DePass, Ashly Burch, Jeremy Crawford, are trailblazers that symbolize LGBTQ excellence and present that LGBTQ folks have at all times been concerned in making the online game business really particular.

“What I know now is that representation is not a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between someone feeling like they exist in this world or they don’t,” Lowenstein mentioned in his awards acceptance speech. “My dream is that no one ever has to hide who they truly are to build the career that they really want. To anyone out there who’s still wondering if they belong, you belong here. You always did.”

Gayming Awards 2026 Winners: 

• Game of the Year – South of Midnight (Compulsion Games/Xbox Game Studios)
• Best LGBTQ+ Indie Game – Date Everything! (Sassy Chap Games/Team17)
• Industry Diversity Award – Riot Games
• Community Impact Award – Qweerty Games
• Gayming Fan Favorite Award – Date Everything!
• Best LGBTQ+ Character – Orela Rose, Dead by Daylight (Behaviour Interactive)
• Best LGBTQ+ Voice Actor of the Year – Jennifer English
• Rebecca Heineman Gayming Icon Award – Darion Lowenstein
• LGBTQ+ Content Creator of the Year – ghcoffee
• LGBTQ+ Contribution to Esports Award – Team Liquid
• LGBTQ+ Geek Entertainment of the Year – Dimension 20: Dungeons & Drag Queens Season 2
• LGBTQ+ Content Creator Superstar Award – Trixie Mattel
• LGBTQ+ Breakout Content Creator Award – WillJinkies
• LGBTQ+ Streaming Rising Star Class of 2026 – AceoftheDeadx, Artirie, CYREELism, and YouWorshipAngel