For me the three winners didn't seem to bring anything unique to games and, whatever their motivations, brought nothing new to the gameplay. In fact, all 3 winners seemed to devolve immediately into the standard combat/stealth archetypes we're used to seeing and playing. Velvet Assassin is a recent example which is guilty of this... the idea of playing as a Violette Szabo inspired character was interesting until it turned into a way to have the standard cat-suited female protagonist slink around.

The honourable mention on page 6 was more interesting than any of the 3 winners. The idea of playing as a concept, or meme, attempting to replicate oneself throughout a population by manipulating those 'infected' could be re-used in many different settings. The closest I can recall (in terms of gameplay mechanics) is Nomad Soul though some of the possibilities of this type of 'character' might lend itself to a Republic style game. Your final score based on how closely the end result matches the message you tried to spread. In a linear story, or sandbox, setting the score could be based upon how closely mimicked the message you were supposedly spreading.

I didn't find them as a whole, all that compelling of characters. They seem too game-oriented.. still made for a certain type of gameplay instead of new or old gameplay created around the character. Who is in charge of judging these contests anyway?

oh boy, these aren't ideas they're thoughts... I shit these
out every second. Give me some hero arch like Joseph Campbell's template....

dam jr designers are ruining the industry.

Wait, what was all that about again?? I can't see what are you guys complaining about... because this challenge was about designing a new Game Hero, and damn right they did exactly that! Cookie-cutter, simplistic, uninspired Game Heroes.
Is that the best the competitors could come up with, or are really the judges to blame?

Man, the future looks bleak...