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GDCA 2015 finalists led by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
The finalists for the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards were revealed today, led by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which received five nominations. Monolith's third-person action game was nominated for Game of the Year, Innovation, Best Design, Best Narrative and Best Technology awards at the ceremony (on top of also being Joystiq's favorite game of 2014). The other nominees for the 15th annual GDCA's Game of the Year award are Bayonetta 2, Alien: Isolation, Destiny and Hearthstone. Blizzard's collectible card game received three nominations in total, the other two for Best Design and Best Handheld/Mobile Game. Destiny also received two other nominations for Best Audio and Best Technology. The ceremony for this year's Game Developer's Choice Awards will be held during the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday, March 4 at 9:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. PT) at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. Head past the break to see the full list of nominees.
Game Developers Choice Awards honor Anita Sarkeesian, Riot founders
Organizers of the 14th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have named this year's Special Award winners, honoring Riot Games founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill alongside Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian at an upcoming ceremony event. The event's Pioneer Award will go to Beck and Merrill for their work on the genre-defining League of Legends, an online multiplayer game that reports 27 million players daily. League of Legends has spurred exponential growth within the eSports arena, and attracts a dedicated viewership on streaming services like Twitch. Sarkeesian will receive the GDCA's Ambassador Award, a prize honoring individuals who help the video games industry "advance to a better place" through advocacy or action. Sarkeesian promoted widespread discussion regarding video game gender roles in her Kickstarter-funded Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video series, and regularly addresses related social issues within gaming communities. The Game Developers Choice Awards will be held on March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Center, as part of the upcoming Game Developers Conference. [Image: Riot Games]
Gone Home, The Last of Us, Tearaway top GDC Award nominations
The finalists have been chosen for the 14th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. This year's group runs the gamut from unassuming indies to AAA blockbusters, and encompasses all the best wonderful and weird experiences of the past year. The Last of Us, Tearaway and Gone Home lead the pack with five award nominations each. Other standouts include Device 6, The Stanley Parable, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Super Mario 3D World – all of which were among our favorites from 2013 – along with Lucas Pope's Papers, Please. You can check out the full list of nominees, along with honorable mentions for each of the ten categories, after the break. The winners will be chosen at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 19, 2014.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim awarded 'Game of the Year' at 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards
With the Game Developers Choice Awards just now coming to an end, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced as the overall 'Game of the Year' winner for 2011.We're not surprised, folks. It's pretty good.For a complete recap of the nominees and winners, check out our previous coverage.
Our predictions for tonight's 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards
The industry celebrates the best games of 2011 with the 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards later tonight.Who will win? Who will be so devastated by an omission that they return to their homes, plot revenge, and finally unleash it upon the industry during next year's show? We'll find out soon and update this post as winners are announced. In the meantime, jump in for the complete nomination list and our predictions for the award show.
Cliff Bleszinski to host GDC Awards, Schatz returns for IGF Awards
Planning to attend GDC? If you are, you'll get to see everyone's favorite design director of Epic Games, Cliff Bleszinski, host the 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, replacing Double Fine's Tim Schafer as host. The Independent Games Festival Awards is kicking it old-school with 2007-2009's host, Andy Schatz of Monaco, winner of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Design awards in 2010's IGF. Peruse the list of finalists for both award shows right here, and look for winners to be announced March 7 from GDC.
The GDCA 2011 nominations look strangely familiar
Lads, get your polite-clapping gloves ready, and shine your pearls, ladies -- finalists have been named for the Game Developers Choice Awards, and this year boasts quite the lineup. Valve, Bethesda and Supergiant Games have five nominations each for Portal 2, Skyrim and Bastion, respectively (and respectfully). Supergiant is nominated for Best Debut, alongside Team Bondi for L.A. Noire and BioWare Austin for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim, Portal 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dark Souls are nominated for Game of the Year. The awards ceremony will be held on March 7. We're not going to say that the GDCA stole their entire list of nominees from a super-cool and highly regarded gaming website, but it does look familiar:
Red Dead and Limbo lead nominees for 2011 GDC Awards
It's almost time once again for the industry's premier awards show that doesn't feature regular appearances by Jersey Shore cast members: the 11th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. The event's organizers have released the mercifully Mountain Dew-based-category-free list of nominees, which includes a number of potential merits for Limbo, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Check out the full list of nominees after the jump and discuss your favorites in the comments! (Oh, that's your pick for Best Visual Arts? Well, we can't say we agree with you, there.)
MMOs nominated for Game Developer's Choice Awards
The nominees for the Game Developers Choice Online awards have been announced, and MMOs made more than a respectable showing. The nominees are separated into new and ongoing categories, and awards are given in eight different categories including best community relations, best audio, best visual arts, and several more. Seven of the eight categories carried at least one familiar MMO title, such as Champions Online, LOVE, Free Realms, Guild Wars, EVE Online, Dungeon Fighter Online, and of course World of Warcraft. The awards ceremony will take place during GDC Online in October. The full event runs from October 5th - 8th, with awards being presented on the 7th.
Game Developers Choice Online Awards to knight Richard Bartle as a "Game Legend"
If it's cool to be officially dubbed an "Online Game Legend," then it's doubly cool to be the first person to ever receive such an award. Richard Bartle will be rocking cool two ways from Sunday this fall, as the Game Developers Choice Online Awards plans to honor the good doctor this October. The Online Game Legend Award stemmed from a pool of open nominations and was chosen by the GDC Online Awards advisory committee. They specify Bartle's co-creation of MUDs and his 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds as the key reasons why he deserves to be named a capital-L Legend. Bartle isn't the only one due for a special award, however. Ultima Online will be inducted into their Hall of Fame as "a specific online game that has resulted in the long-term advancement of the medium, pioneering major shifts in online game development and games as a whole." The full awards ceremony will take place on October 7th, and will include a number of other categories including Best Online Game Design and Best New Online Game. You can eyeball the full details over at GDC Online Awards' website.
Valve's viral plot thickens with Portal blue screen of death
Even though Portal 2 has been officially announced, it seems the clever Alternate Reality Game which gave it impetus hasn't yet come to a complete stop. Shortly after accepting a Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco on Thursday evening, Valve boss Gabe Newell launched into a slideshow detailing the company's expectations of future trends, only to have it "crash" to a blue error screen. The final slide was meant to answer several infamous Valve mysteries -- Who is the G-Man? Why doesn't Valve support the PlayStation 3? -- and perhaps it did in some obfuscated way. According to seasoned ARG sleuths (posting on the Penny Arcade forums), the error code above can be read as: "S U S : P E N D ... U N T ( I ) L ... E E E." Suspend until E3? It wouldn't be surprising to see Portal 2 at this year's E3 expo, which will run in Los Angeles from June 15 to 17, but if the above decryption is accurate Valve may have additional plans to unfurl (possibly including the long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3). [Thanks, Wince]
Joystiq live at the IGF/GDC Awards 2010
Update: Uncharted 2 wins big (again) at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and Pocketwatch Games' Monaco takes home the IGF Awards' Seumas McNally Prize. A complete list of winners is posted after the break, followed by our liveblog coverage.
Game Developers Choice Awards shooting John Carmack a Lifetime Achievement Award, Warren Spector hosting
This year's Game Developers Choice Awards will honor id Software's John Carmack with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Although certainly well deserved for his (continuing) contributions to the technical side of the industry, it's got to be weird to receive such an honor at the cusp of turning 40. We certainly hope Carmack still has plenty of years in the industry ahead of him. Former winners of the award include Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright ... which got us wondering: could Carmack (or any of the above!) grab another Lifetime Achievement Award in the actual twilight of their career or does a single award preclude you from future awards, regardless of the achievement? Hosting the GDCA's this year is Warren Spector, who'd better be on his game following Tim Schafer's stellar performance as emcee last year. Spector is currently working on the (currently) Wii-exclusive Disney Epic Mickey, but is best known for his work on Deus Ex. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, March 11, during GDC 2010 in San Francisco.
Free Realms reaches 8 million registered accounts, nominated in Game Developer's Choice Awards
No matter which way you spin it, 8 million accounts is a ton of accounts. Free Realms has recently hit that magical milestone, celebrating a huge amount of fan interest in the game and a recent nomination for Best New Social/Online game in the Game Developer's Choice Awards. In fact, it's the only traditional MMO to be nominated for an award this year (outside of Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online.) As usual with our "account milestone" announcements, 8 million players is not the number of active players in the game. It's just the number of accounts that have been signed up on the Free Realms website. However, even if only 1% of those accounts were active, that's still 80,000 accounts playing the game -- a number you still should not scoff at. So congratulations to SOE on your recent account milestone, and good luck in the Game Developer's Choice awards! Beat out Farmville for us!
Penny Arcade to be honored by Game Developers Choice Awards
To the far, far outside observer, a comic strip which frequently features a tiny robot who commits sex crimes against citrus fruits wouldn't seem like the most altruistic venture. We know the truth, however -- that Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik and Robert Khoo have been putting a generous, entertaining face on the gaming industry for over a decade. For this, the three men will soon receive a special honor during the Game Developers Choice Awards -- the "Ambassador Award." Man, that sounds prestigious as hell. According to a press release announcing Penny Arcade's decoration, the award is given to folks who have "helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further our art." Yes, Penny Arcade has done both of those things, while still finding time to make hilarious comics about sentient juicers.
GDC Awards nominees announced, Drake leads the pack
We've just received a press release revealing which titles will be vying for top honors at the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, held in conjunction with GDC 2010 on March 11. If you're not familiar with the show, picture the Kids Choice Awards, only ... with video game developers choosing the winners instead of teenagers. Or, alternatively, imagine the VGAs, only without all the half-naked women, pot references and awards named after highly caffeinated soft drinks. You'll see some familiar names on the full list of nominees posted after the jump. Uncharted 2 netted seven nominations, Flower managed to grab five, and Assassin's Creed II ended up with four. Will Ezio be snubbed by Nathan once more in the Game of the Year runnings? We'll find out at GDC!
Reminder: G4 airing the GDCAs tonight
Sure, it can't compare with the excitement of our liveblog of the event, but we figured you might like to know that G4 will be broadcasting highlights from the Game Developers Choice Awards tonight at 6:30 Pacific / Eastern time with a rebroadcast at 8:00. The highlights will be shown as a special episode of X-Play, meaning you'll also get your daily dose of vitamin Sessler.Sure, it's over two weeks after the fact, but how many times do you get to see Tim Schafer cracking wise in a tuxedo? Not enough, that's how many.
G4 belatedly broadcasting 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards
Are you bummed that you'll be stuck at home over the next week, far away from the action and excitement of the 2009 Game Developers Conference? Fret not -- we've got your back as far as GDC-related news is concerned, but if you want to see footage of the glitzy, glamorous Game Developers Choice Awards (which will take place this Wednesday), you can fulfill your peculiar desire by flipping your teevee-box to G4, where X-Play will be airing the ceremony in its entirety.Bizarrely, they'll be broadcasting the event on April 10, more than two weeks after the awards will be handed out. The program might be a bit too tardy to be worth watching, but since we'll have told you all the winners by that point, you could easily score a few bucks from some unaware acquaintances in a GDCA prediction pool.
At age 45, Hideo Kojima to receive another lifetime achievement award
Although he's most famously known for his work on Konami's Metal Gear titles, Hideo Kojima is unquestionably a master game designer, right up there with the greatest in the medium. His work is so highly praised that, at the relatively young age of 45, he's set to receive yet another "lifetime achievement" award -- this time as part of the Game Developer's Choice Awards taking place on March 25. Okay, here's where we voice how much the whole "let's give out lifetime achievement awards just for the sake of it" thing irks us, through sarcasm. *Ahem*It seems only fitting to bestow such awards on Kojima now, given his advanced age. It's not like he's going to make anything besides Metal Gear that would warrant, oh, a few more "lifetime achievement awards" when he's actually, y'know, a little closer to the end of his lifetime. But that ... that would make sense. This is like saying Brett Favre reached his peak as a high school quarterback.
Game Developers Choice Awards finalists announced
The finalists for this year's Game Developers Choice Awards have been announced, with Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet adoring judges with nine nominations, including one for Game of the Year. Other titles up for the prestigious award include Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Grand Theft Auto IV and, of course, Fable 2. The Joystiq darling is also a shoe-in for snub of the year with Lionhead's opus going overlooked entirely in the Best Writing category. Seriously, what's the deal?Braid, Far Cry 2, Spore, World of Goo, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gears of War 2 are all up for multiple awards, with winners set to take the stage during next month's gala event as part of the 2009 Game Developers Conference. The show will be hosted by Grim Fandango and Brütal Legend's Tim Schafer, promising a tongue-in-cheek good time even if our personal faves leave empty handed.
