Game Developers' Choice Awards Announced

Well, it's a morning of awards. Walker's already dealt with the IGF , but the Developers' Choice Awards are also interesting. It's the award ceremony where, as the name may suggest, the winners are chosen by their peers. This abstractly leads to a slightly different picture of the industry than most awards. Abstractly, anyway. In terms of nominations, Portal and Bioshock had five a piece, with Call of Duty 4 lagging slight below with four.

So, who won? Opening the red envelope...

It's Portal! Which means that the majority of developers agree with us, which makes us like them more and find them more attractive. That said, the receiver of this year's lifetime achievement award, Sid Meier, shamefacedly admitted at GDC he hadn't played it yet, ("It's on my pile of games") (and he doesn't play strategy games at home either). Portal also picked up another couple of awards - Innovation and Design, while rival Bioshock also managed three (Writing, Sound and Visual Arts). Crysis picked up the technology award. Not strictly relevant to our mandate, but Realtime Worlds picked up best debut for their 360 open-world action game Crackdown, which we mention as an excuse to say how much we're looking forward to hearing more about their PC/360 MMO APB.

Anyway - the full list of winners, courtesy of Gamesindustry.biz can be found below...

Best Game Design:
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Mass Effect
Portal
Super Mario Galaxy

Best Debut Game:
Crackdown
flOw
The Witcher
Everyday Shooter
Aquaria

Best Audio:
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Everyday Shooter
God of War II
Mass Effect

Best Downloadable Game:
Everyday Shooter
flOw
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Peggle
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Best Technology:
Assassin's Creed
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Crysis
Halo 3
Portal

Innovation Award:
flOw
Mass Effect
Peggle
Portal
Rock Band

Best Visual Arts:
Assassin's Creed
Bioshock
Crysis
Team Fortress 2
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Best Handheld Game:
Contra 4
Peggle
Phase
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Best Writing:
Bioshock
God of War II
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Mass Effect
Portal

Game of the Year:
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Portal
Rock Band
Super Mario Galaxy

Ralph Baer recieved the Pioneer Award for his part in developing the Magnavox Odessey's prototype The Brown Box... in 1968, the first home console. Jason Della Roca, the IGDA executive director recieved the Ambassador Award for his efforts to forward the industry. Sid Meier recieved the Lifetime Achievement Award for being generally awesome.

Our congratulations to all the winners.