Last night we attended the IGF and the GDC awards. We saw numerous people, including Kotaku Editors and EGM editors. We even got to see numerous speeches by the esteemed Shigeru Miyamoto. It was quite an event…and the first of any award ceremony I have ever attended. Here we will list the winners and talk about it. To see photos of the awards ceremony as well as the GDC CLICK HERE.
Archive for the ‘Awards’ Category
The Game Developer’s Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival Awards Went To…
Thursday, March 8th, 2007Gears of War takes it away at this year’s D.I.C.E. summit
Saturday, February 10th, 2007Microsoft’s little gem Gears of War has earned Epic Games and co. some serious prestige as of late. Already one of the top selling games of 2006, the game has moved on to smoke the competition at the D.I.C.E. summit awards. Indeed, the game took away a whopping eight awards, including Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction, Outstanding Character Performance – Male, Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering, Outstanding Achievement in Online Play, Console Game of the Year, Action/Adventure Game of the Year, and Overall Game of the Year.
Surprisingly enough, Wii Sports won three awards, Oblivion took away two, and Twilight Princess only took home a single paltry award. While Zelda’s performance saddens me, I have to admit that it is warranted. Gears of War and Oblivion are better games by far, and Wii sports is definitely more innovative, so I humbly stand by these decisions.
Yet, I have to pose a question to you readers out there who might be in the know: How slanted are these award ceremonies, anyway? I know that companies are required to pay a “membership fee” to even be nominated, which is a method modelled after the notoriously discriminatory Oscar Academy. I have tried to find information on how steep this fee is, but I have been stymied by the lack of public access. I do know that Capcom was certainly snubbed this year, as Okami and Dead Rising were omitted from the nominations completely, primarily due to Capcom’s refusal to pay the Academy’s fees.
How fair is this system? Should we as gamers even acknowledge awards when companies have to pay to receive them? And how much do these companies actually have to pay for this privilege? Inquiring minds want to know.
-Bedlam-