One of the highlights of the Game Developer’s Conference is the Annual Game Developer’s Choice Awards – an awards show that recognizes some of the best games of the prior year. But the winners here are selected by developers, and that’s not an easy task considering the amazing year 2007 was for games.
Rock Band, BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Portal, and Halo 3, are a tough crowd to choose from so there are no easy winners, instead only difficult choices. And let’s not forget the presentation for the Independent Games Festival Award winners, whose talents and achievements are equally as impressive. Here are this year’s winners:
Best Student Game: Synesthete - DigiPen Institute of Technology
Audience Award: Audiosurf - Invisble Handlebar
Excellence in Visual Art: Fez – Kokoromi
Design Innovation Award: World of Goo – 2D boy
Best Web Browser Game: Iron Dukes – One Ton Ghost
Gleemie Awards:
First Place: Desktop Tower Defense – Handdrawngames
Second Place: Skyrates – Team Skyrates
Third Place: Quadradius – Quadradius
Audience Award: Audiosurf – Invisible Handlebar
Seamus McNally Grand Prize: Crayon Physics Delux – Kloonigames
2007 Best Game Design: Portal (Valve) – Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham
2007 Best Debut: Crackdown (Real Time Worlds/ Microsoft Games Studios) –
Ramon Gonzalez, Violetta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Justin Mullins
2007 Best Audio: BioShock (2K Boston/ 2K Australia/ 2K Games)
Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins
2007 Best Downloadable Game: Fl0w (thatgamecompany/ Sony Computer Entertainment)
Kelee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards, Nick Clark
2007 Best Technology: Cyrsis (Crytek/ Electronic Arts)
Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring
Ambassador Award: Jason Della Rocca
2007 Innovation: Portal (Valve) – Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham
2007 Best Visual Art: BioShock (2K Boston/ 2K Australia/ 2K Games)Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James
Pioneer Award: Ralph Baer
2007 Best Handheld Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hour Glass (Nintendo)
Eiji Aonuma
2007 Best Writing: BioShock (2K Boston/ 2K Australia/ 2K Games)
Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, joe McDonagh, Susan O’Connor
Lifetime Achievement Award: Sid Meier
2007 Game of the Year: Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw
