The Game Developers Choice Awards for 2008 took place on Wednesday the 20th and because I am too tired to post anything that requires significant work or thought right now, here are the results of the show. Below are the awards and the criteria by which the winners were judged in the order that they were presented. The few pictures I managed to take are at the bottom of the post, sorry most of them are so blurry... it was the best I could do with my camera phone. :(
Best Game Design The Best Game Design Award recognizes the overall excellence of design in a game - including, but not limited to, gameplay mechanics, playability, play balancing, and level design.
Portal
Best Debut Game The Best Debut Game Award recognizes the best game from any development studio which released its first publicly available title in the year 2007.
Crackdown (Cracktime)
Best Audio The Best Audio Award recognizes the overall excellence of audio in a game - including, but not limited to, sound effects, musical composition, sound design, orchestration, etc.
BioShock
Best Downloadable Game Best Downloadable Game Award recognizes the overall best game released on console or PC platforms specifically and solely for digital download - with an emphasis on smaller, more 'casual'-friendly titles.
Flow
Best Technology The Best Technology Award recognizes the overall excellence of technology in a game - including, but not limited to, graphics programming, artificial intelligence, networking, and physics.
Crysis
Ambassador Award The Ambassador Award honors an individual or individuals 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.
Jason Della Rocca
Innovation Award The Innovation Award recognizes the single game that demostrates true innovation, advances the state of the art, and pushes the boundaries of games as an expressive medium.
Portal
Best Visual Arts The Best Visual Arts Award recognizes the overall excellence of visual art in a game - including, but not limited to, art direction, animation, modeling, character design, texture creation, and so on.
BioShock
Pioneer Award The Pioneer Award (formely known as the First Penguin Award) celebrates those individuals who developed a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history - paving the way for the myriads who followed them.
Ralph Baer
Best Handheld Game Best Handheld Game Award recognizes the overall best game commercially released on any handheld platform during 2007.
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Best Writing The Best Writing Award recognizes the overall excellence of storytelling in a game - including, but not limited to, scenario, plot construction, story, dialogue, and other major factors.
BioShock
Lifetime Achievement Award The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the career and achievements of a developer who has made an indelible impact on the craft of game development and games as a whole.
Sid Meier
Game of the Year The Game of the Year Award recognizes the choice of game developers for the overall best game release during 2007.
Portal
As you can see, Portal and BioShock dominated with 6 out of the 10 total awards combined including Game of the Year. I'm sure this much was expected by gamers who played either of the two amazing titles last year.
All award descriptions were taken from the GDCA website.
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(# 0) on 02/25/2008 21:43
FUND IT!
Also, promotions.
(# 1) on 02/26/2008 01:10