Shortlists for world’s most popular video game awards

The world’s videogame community can now cast their votes following a classic year for videogame releases as the 28th annual Golden Joystick Awards announce the shortlists for this year’s awards.

Nearly 270,000 votes have already been cast in the long list stage that saw the introduction of a number of new categories.

Assassin's Creed 2 grabs seven gold awards at MI6 conference

MI6, the association dedicated to supporting marketing, promotion and advertising professionals in the video game and interactive entertainment community, hosted a festive awards show to honor the best marketing work in the video game industry, wrapping up the action-packed fifth annual MI6 Conference. Comedian Ryan Stout hosted the evening and kept the crowd laughing. Assassin’s Creed 2 took home the most gold with seven MI6 Awards, including the highly competitive “Outstanding Overall Integrated Marketing Campaign” award.

Miyamoto awarded BAFTA Academy Fellowship in the Video Games Sector

Shigeru Miyamoto's career began in 1977, when he was hired by a family friend - Hiroshi Yamauchi, then president of Nintendo - as a staff artist. Yamauchi selected Miyamoto to re-work the company's unsuccessful arcade machine Radar Scope and, after working on a range of new options, Miyamoto eventually settled on the characters and composition which became one of the first running-and-jumping "platform" games, Donkey Kong.

2010 GAME British Academy Video Games Awards results - here's the winners....

UK British Academy Video Games Awards 2010 - the winners
Action

Assassin’s Creed II
Sebastien Puel, Patrice Desilets
Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft Entertainment

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Development Team
Rocksteady Studios/Eidos

Video game legend - David Jones wins double honours at Directors of the Year Awards

Institute of Directors, Scotland, Present Realtime Worldsı Founder and Creative Director with two Prestigious Awards. Dundee, Scotland , March 19th, 2010, Realtime Worlds, the leading British independent video game developer, can announce founder and creative director, David Jones, has been awarded Director of the Year 2009 by the Institute of Directors, Scotland.

British Academy video game Award nominations 2010

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves leads with 9 BAFTA nominationsCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 garners 8 nominationsBatman: Arkham Asylum follows with 7 and Assassin's Creed II with 6

The Academy announce the nominations for the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards. This year 40 different games have been recognized and together they represent some of the most popular, innovative and cutting-edge creativity in today’s gaming industry.

Dare to be Digital computer game design competition ask student programmers and artists to apply for this year’s competition

The Dare organising team are calling for teams with games ideas targeted for any platforms including social networking sites, mobile phones, pc and any consoles, to apply online now.

The winners of Cricket Gaming Awards 2010

It was a really tight competition but the real winners were at the top. Ashes Cricket 2009 wins the best cricket game award while the old cricket game Cricket 07 became the most popular cricket game. From old classics, Brian Lara Cricket 99 won the Best Classic Cricket Game award.

'Killing Floor' Video Games Wins Several Voodoo Extreme Awards 2009

Iceberg Interactive is proud to see that its adrenaline rush, horror first-person shooter Killing Floor for PC has won several Voodoo Extreme 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards.

Cricket Video gaming Awards 2010 - and the best cricket game is...?

CricketGaming Network presents the inaugural Cricket Gaming Awards 2010. The awards will feature the best cricket games of all category. In year 2009, many new cricket games were released but the Cricket Gaming Awards will feature the best of best. The main purpose of this Awards is to recognize the best cricket games released last year. The award is just an honor for the companies who have worked hard on their game.

Full video game awards list from Spike TVs VGA awards 2009 -

As you'll have read on my earlier post, Uncharted 2 Among thieves won 'game of the year' and another two awards. Here's a list of the rest of the winners...

• Best Voice in a Video Game: Jack Black as Eddie Riggs in Brutal Legend
• Best Cast: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Best Performance by a Human Male: Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Best Performance by a Human Female: Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Spec Ops: The Line exclusive video game trailer from VGA awards

Recorded at the awards event, a shaky hand held video game trailer...

"Junk: Battles" video game nominated for Canadian New Media Award

Antic Entertainment, Inc today announces that their title: Junk: Battles has been nominated for a Canadian New Media Award in the category “Best Web-based game”. Please visit http://www.nextmediaevents.com/toronto/ to view the list of all of this year’s finalists.

Junk: Battles is a free-to-play, fast paced real-time action-strategy game available on all major web browsers. The game can be played at www.junkbattles.com.

Mobile Entertainment Awards Highlights Air on Sky this Weekend

Highlights from the recent Mobile Entertainment Awards will air this weekend on Sky within the popular TV show Playr. The awards, which celebrate the very best in mobile gaming, gambling, music and video, showcased the broad range of entertainment available on today’s phones.

Think Services' Game Developer Magazine releases 7th annual top 20 Publishers Report

Game Developer magazine’s highly anticipated annual Top 20 Publishers report has debuted for 2009, revealing that publisher Nintendo has maintained its top position on the chart for the third year running. The countdown, which builds on six years of ongoing research, includes a wide-ranging reputation survey distributed to industry professionals, alongside revenue data, release counts, average review scores, and anonymous feedback from development partners.

Globulos Party wins the "best mobile platform" video game Milthon award.

Globulos Party has been elected "the best mobile platform game of the year" by the Milthon French awards http://www.milthon.fr/palmares.html jury who particularly appreciated playing the game in multi player.

Video Game 'Section 8' to feature original music by BAFTA winning Jason Graves

BAFTA award-winning composer Jason Graves (www.jasongraves.com) has created an original music score for the intense first-person shooter SECTION 8 developed by TimeGate Studios. Renowned for his cinematic and prolific orchestral music on video games such as Dead Space and the Star Trek franchise, Graves delivers a powerful and anthemic score for SECTION 8 featuring vintage synth and guitar elements blended with orchestra to portray the futuristic, sci-fi setting of the game. SECTION 8 is being released by SouthPeak Games for Xbox 360 and PC on September 1st, 2009.

"SECTION 8 was a great opportunity to combine my three musical passions: orchestra, electronics/synths and guitars," said composer Jason Graves. "It was so much fun playing guitar and tweaking my analog synths. I treated them as additional members of the orchestra, sometimes taking the spotlight and other times adding textural background."

SECTION 8 gives players unprecedented strategic control over the battlefield, employing tactical assets and on-demand vehicle deliveries to dynamically alter the flow of combat. Set at the crossroads of a growing insurrection among its colonies, Earth dispatches the elite 8th Armored Infantry to turn the tide. Utilizing advanced powered armor suits, these brave volunteers are the only ones crazy enough to smash through enemy defenses and drop directly into the battlefield from 15,000 feet, earning them the nickname "Section 8."

"The music focuses on the two primary locations of the game," added Graves. "One is more orchestral in nature and the other has a hybrid rock edge to it. TimeGate gave me a lot of freedom to try different things - it was refreshing to experiment with such a diverse sound palette."

For more information about the game please visit www.JoinSection8.com.

Disney win Best Racing Game award at E3 for Split/Second

Split/Second, the action racing game from Disney Interactive Studios and Black Rock Studio, was selected as Best Racing Game in the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2009. The award gives Black Rock Studio back-to-back victories in the category and marks the first time a development studio repeated in the racing category with different original properties.

Watch the video here...

“The award is tremendous recognition for the innovation and uniqueness of Split/Second, which distinguished it from other established racing franchises and new properties,” said Tony Beckwith, vice president and general manager, Black Rock Studio. “Being the first development studio to win this award consecutively with two different racing game properties recognises the accomplishments of both of our development teams.”

Set within the world of a hyper-competitive reality television show in a made-for-TV city rigged for destruction, Split/Second is an intense action racing game in which competitors can trigger events that take out opponents or completely change the track as they compete for the ultimate prize – to become the season’s champion. Split/Second will be released in early 2010 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. Split/Second is currently available for pre-order at select major retail chains.

The Game Critics Awards are chosen by a consortium of video games media representing 29 industry and consumer publications. The annual awards recognize the most outstanding products shown at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) which was held June 2-4, 2009.

Black Rock Studio is also the development studio behind the critically acclaimed 2008 action sports game, PURE. PURE won numerous awards, including the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2008 for Best Racing Game, and was named among the top 10 video games of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Formerly Climax Racing, Black Rock Studio is a development studio of Disney Interactive Studios and is based in Brighton, England.

Guiness World Records E3 awards

Nintendo, Activision, Red Octane, Bethesda, Blizzard & Microsoft make their way into the Guinness World Records 2010 Gamers Edition. On the heels of February’s launch of the annual Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer’s Edition, representatives were on hand at the E3 Expo this week to honor gaming publishers with brand new records.

Guinness World Record recipients included Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Wii Sports, who received the record for the Best Selling Video Game with sales of 45.7 million to date.

Major Nelson and Mark Whitten from XBOX LIVE received the award for the Most Popular Online Console Gaming Service during Monday night’s Microsoft party. Xbox Live serves 20 million active subscribers to date, representing 67% of the total install base as of May 2009.

Blizzard Entertainment’s Mike Morhaime and Paul Sams accepted the records for World of Warcraft for the Most Popular MMORPG with a total of 11.6 million subscribers and Starcraft for being the Best Selling Strategy Game for a PC, selling 9.5 million copies worldwide.

Bethesda Softworks’ Lead Designer Todd Howard was awarded with the record for the Fastest-selling Multi Platform RPG after Fallout 3 sold over 4.7 million copies in its first week on sale from October 28th to November 4th 2008.

The entire Infinity Ward team were officially presented with the record for the Most Played Online Video Game as Call of Duty 4 has an excess of 15 million minutes played daily and the up and coming US band The Dares performed the First concert to Take Place Simultaneously in the Real and Virtual Worlds in SOE’s new massively multiplayer game Free Realms

In addition Charles and Kai Huang of Red Octane received the accolade for the Best-selling Rhythm Game Series for Guitar Hero’s sales of in excess of 25 million copies.

An honorable mention goes out to Steve Wiebe who unsuccessfully tried to win back his Donkey Kong crown from Billy Mitchell. Guinness World Records and Twin Galaxies were on hand to witness the potential new record. Wiebe’s final score of 989, 400 points fell short of the 1,050,200 score achieved by Mitchell in 2007.

All of the publishers validated at this year’s show will make their mark on history and will be featured in the Guinness World Records 2010 Gamers Edition which will launch early next year. The book itself contains a comprehensive guide to gaming and will feature the latest gaming records, the history behind gaming, and interviews with key figures in the industry.

About Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records is the universally recognized authority on record-breaking achievement. First published in 1955, the annual Guinness World Records book is published in more than 100 countries and 25 languages and is one of the highest-selling books under copyright of all time with more than 3 million copies sold annually across the globe. Guinness World Records celebrated its 50th anniversary edition in 2004, a year after the sale of its 100 millionth copy. Guinness World Records also annually publishes the Gamer’s Edition; a records book devoted solely to the world of computer gaming and high score record achievements. The Guinness World Records website (www.guinnessworldrecords.com) receives more than 11 million visitors a year. Guinness World Records is part of the Jim Pattison Group, one of Canada’s largest privately owned companies which is a conglomerate of interests, including advertising, broadcasting, grocery stores and automotive retailing.

Can Sackboy beat Hookers media molecule and Rockstar to win award?

Nominations unveiled for 7th annual Industry Excellence Awards

The nominations for the 2009 Develop Industry Excellence Awards have today been unveiled, with Rockstar and Media Molecule set to contest the most categories.

Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North share six nominations for GTA: Chinatown Wars and GTA IV: The Lost and the Damned, whilst Media Molecule scoop five after a stunning year for LittleBigPlanet.

A real mix of coding talent go head to head in the Best New Studio category, where home console developers compete against handheld and web-based programmers after a year which has seen gaming explode across a range of platforms.

Perhaps the most interesting contest will be in the Technical Innovation category, where LittleBigPlanet will take on Killzone 2, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Fable II, PlayStation Home and Football Manager Live.

The Develop Industry Excellence Awards are the only accolades that celebrate the achievements of the European development community. An industry-wide panel of experts drawn from the magazine's extensive readership will vote on 16 awards spread across four categories, with a very special Grand Prix award determined by the Develop team themselves. In addition, another Development Legend will be honoured.

“This year's finalists showcase the wide array of talent working in and serving the UK and European games development sector, and also the broad, forward-thinking remit of the Develop team,” says Michael French, Editor-in-Chief, Develop. “The shortlist covers everything from traditional console games to iPhone, Facebook, Flash and social experiences, proving just what a rewarding and vibrant sector games development in Europe is. We wish all of the nominees the best of luck and look forward to seeing them on what's set to be a great night.”

The Develop industry Excellence Awards are held in association with Partnertrans, Black Rock Studios, Babel Media and Crytek.

The Awards will be held on Wednesday July 15th at the Hilton Metropole Brighton and hosted by Eight out of 10 Cats star, Jason Manford.

Develop Industry Excellence Awards nominations in full:
CREATIVITY

Best New IP
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Mirror's Edge (EA DICE)
Pure (Black Rock Studio)
Zen Bound (Secret Exit)
You're in the Movies (Zoe Mode)
Burn Zombie Burn! (Doublesix)

Best Use of a Licence
Lego Batman (Traveller's Tales)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (Starbreeze Studios)
Outrun Online Arcade (Sumo Digital)
Beijing 2008 - The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games (Eurocom)
House of the Dead: Overkill (Headstrong Games)
Hasbro Family Game Night (EA BrightLight)

Visual Arts
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Leeds)
Killzone 2 (Guerrilla)
Xbox 360 Avatars (Rare)
PlayStation Home (London Studio)
Pure (Black Rock Studio)

Audio Accomplishment
Fable II (Lionhead)
Mirror's Edge (EA DICE)
You're in the Movies (Zoe Mode)
House of the Dead: Overkill (Headstrong Games)
GTAIV: The Lost and the Damned (Rockstar North)
Empire Total War (The Creative Assembly)

Publishing Hero
Apple
Sega
Direct2Drive
Codemasters
Ngmoco
Valve

TECHNOLOGY & SERVICES

Technical Innovation
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Killzone 2 (Guerilla)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Leeds)
Fable II (Lionhead)
PlayStation Home (London Studio)
Football Manager Live (Sports Interactive)

Best Tools Provider
Autodesk
Havok
Audiokinetic
Hansoft
Perforce
Scaleform
Quazal

Best Engine
Unreal Engine 3 (Epic Games)
Gamebryo (Emergent Game Technologies)
BlitzTech (Blitz Games Studios)
Unity (Unity Technologies)
Vision Engine (Trinigy)
PhyreEngine (SCEE R&D)

Recruitment Company
Aadvark Swift
Datascope
OPM
Amiqus
Natural Selection
Specialmove

Services
Testology
Babel
Universally Speaking
Partnertrans
Testronic Labs
Audiomotion
Centroid

Creative Outsourcing
High Score Productions
Axis Animation
Outsource Media UK
Side & Sidelines
Richard Jacques Studios
Nimrod
Pitstop Productions

STUDIOS

Best New Studio
Media Molecule
nDreams
Hand Circus
Proper Games
Playfish
Crytek Budapest

Best Handheld Games Studio
Rockstar Leeds
Exient
Curve
Traveller's Tales Fusion
Secret Exit

Business Development
Revolution
Gimme5Games
Monumental Games
Playfish
Crytek
Blitz Games Studios

Best Independent Developer
Media Molecule
Sumo Digital
Crytek
Asobo Studio
Starbreeze Studio
Jagex

Best In-House Team
Lionhead
Sports Interactive
Black Rock Studio
EA DICE
Rockstar North
Rockstar Leeds

Winners of the Development Legend and Grand Prix Awards will be announced on the night.