Gears of War from Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios was the big winner at Wednesday night’s Game Developers Choice Awards, an annual kudo fest held in conjunction with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. The third-person tactical action/horror title was named Game of the Year, but the night clearly belonged to Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Shigeru Miyamoto, the Nintendo game designer often referred to as the Walt Disney of electronic gaming.
The ceremony began with the Independent Games Festival (IGF), a celebration of developers working outside of the major studios. And it wouldn’t be a GDC awards night without a marriage proposal. In accepting the Best Student Game award for Toblo, one of the members of Grinding Elephants from DigiPen Institute of Technology popped the question and was met on stage by his sobbing girlfriend, who apparently accepted. His share of $2,500 prize should help cover the cost of the ring.
Another big IGF winner was Queasy Games’ Everyday Shooter, an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. The title picked up awards for Best Audio and Design Innovation, and was one of three games to get a distribution deal with Turner’s GameTap, an expansive online offering of video games and gaming related content. Accepting the award for Design Innovation, developer Jonathan Mak was self-effacing in light of a clip of his work, asking the audience, ‘I don’t know, does that make you question everything you know about game design? I thought some of the student stuff was pretty hot. You should go check that out.’
Castle Crashers from developer The Behemoth received the Audience Award and Aquaria from Bit Blot won the coveted $20,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize. The Bit Blot team was presented the award by Chris Delay and Mark Morris of Introversion software, which won last year with the game Darwinia. Delay and Morris first offered some tips for the up-and-comers, including ‘Don’t take any money from publishers, they’ll only screw up your game.’
Nintendo’s Wii Sports was an obvious crowd favorite in the Game Developers Choice Awards segment. The game received an Innovation award, along with Bostjan Cadez’s Line Rider and Clover Studio/Capcom’s Okami, which also won for character design. Meanwhile, Titan Quest developer Iron Lore Ent. was named Best New Studio, winning out over Gastronaut Studios (Small Arms), Naked Sky Ent. (RoboBlitz), Ready at Dawnn Studios (Daxter) and WadJet Eye Games (The Shivah).
On hand to accept the Maverick Award was Manifesto Games founder and CEO Greg Costikyan, who has designed more than 30 commercially published board, roleplaying, online, computer and mobile games. Half jokingly, he noted that it was a mistake to give him a podium and went on to admonish the many game companies that cater to the lowest common denominator and put out generic content. He said he believes there’s hope outside of the major studios and dreams of a day when game developers can tackle controversial subject matter and be praised, rather than condemned, for it. ‘Software is a plastic medium, and so are games,’ he commented. ‘If we can imagine it, we can make it happen.’
Another industry veteran in attendance was Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov, who received a standing ovation when he accepted the First Penguin Award, a distinction that recognizes the bravery of a developer who leapt in to test uncertain waters. Pajitnov created the simple, but addictive, puzzle game in 1985 while working for the Computer Center of the Moscow Academy of Science, an R&D center founded by the Soviet government. He joined Microsoft in 1996 as the company’s first staff games designer and currently creates games for MSN as part of the Microsoft Zone Group.
While showing their love and respect for Pajitnov, the crowd reserved the rockstar treatment for Shigeru Miyamoto, the celebrated creator of such enduring franchises as Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and Pikmin. With Wii Sports, he has proved that he is still on the cutting edge of the game design industry and shows no sign of slowing down. ‘Getting awards like this makes me feel old and like you expect me to retire soon,’ he quipped. ‘But making games makes me feel young and I plan to do it for a long time.’
The Game developers Choice Awards is produced and hosted by the Game Developers Connference, and presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).
The recipients for the 7th annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:
Best Game‘Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios), Cliff Bleszinski, Michael Capps, Rod Fergusson
Audio‘Guitar Hero II (Harmonix Music Systems/RedOctane), Jeff Allen, Eric Brosius, Izzy Maxwell
Character Design‘Okami (Clover Studio/Capcom Entertainment), Mari Shimazaki, Sawaki Takeyasu, Kenichirou Yoshimura
Game Design‘Wii Sports (Nintendo), Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita
Technology‘Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios), Michael Capps, Ray Davis, Tim Sweeney, Daniel Vogel
Visual Arts‘Gears of War (Epic Games/Microsoft Game Studios), Jerry O’Flaherty, Chris Perna
Writing‘The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD/Nintendo), Kyogoku Aya, Nate Bihldorff, Mitsuhiro Takano
New Studio‘Iron Lore Entertainment (Titan Quest), Paul Chieffo, Jeff Goodsill, Brian Sullivan
Innovation‘Line Rider, Bostjan Cadez; Okami (Clover Studio/Capcom Entertainment), Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya; Wii Sports (Nintendo), Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita
Recipients for the evening’s special awards were:
Lifetime Achievement
Shigeru Miyamoto
First Penguin
Alexey Pajitnov
Maverick
Greg Costikyan
Community Contribution
George “The Fat Man” Sanger
For a complete list of winners, go to www.gdconf.com/events/index.htm#choice.
