Naughty Dog's critically-acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the big winner at the 10th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, presented at a ceremony this evening at UBM TechWeb Game Network's 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC), receiving a total of five awards, including Best Writing and the coveted Game of the Year award.
Another major honoree, 5th Cell received the award for Best Handheld Game and the Innovation Award, for its creativity-fueled portable game, Scribblenauts. Zynga, creators of the wildly addictive and popular Facebook game, Farmville, received the honor for Best New Social/Online Game, marking the first winner for this inaugural category.
Other winners include Rocksteady Studios' dark and gritty adventure, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which won for Best Game Design. The Best Debut Game went to Runic Games' Torchlight. The Best Downloadable Game award went to thatgamecompany's Flower, marking the second such award for the developer, following their win in 2008 with fl0w.
The Game Developers Choice Awards, which honor the very best games of the year, created for developers and voted on by developers. The finalists were chosen via a combination of open game industry nominations and the votes of the leading creators in the Choice Awards Advisory Committee.
Starting this year, winners were selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), which is a new invitation-only group comprised of 500 leading game creators from all parts of the video game industry.
This year, John Carmack, the technological patriarch and co-founder of id Software was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award for more than two decades of groundbreaking technical contributions, and his role pioneering and popularizing the first-person shooter genre with the groundbreaking Doom and Quake series.
The Game Developers Choice Awards also honored Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik and Robert Khoo, the crew behind the popular webcomic Penny Arcade, with the Ambassador Award.
The trio, who have also created and spearheaded the Child's Play Charity and the Penny Arcade Expo, were awarded the honor for their work creating their genuine, gamer-friendly empire by skewering video game culture and developers while building up a following, events and an industry-leading video game charity that help epitomize the positive elements of 'gamer spirit.'
Finally, Gabe Newell was given the Pioneer Award for his work in co-creating PC key digital download service Steam, and helping to make possible some of the most important video games of recent years -- from the Half-Life series through Portal to Team Fortress and beyond.
The recipients of the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:
Game of the Year Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog)
Best Game Design: Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios)
Best Writing: Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog)
Best Debut Game: Torchlight (Runic Games)
Best Technology: Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog)
Best Handheld Game: Scribblenauts (5th Cell)
Best Visual Arts: Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog)
Innovation Award: Scribblenauts (5th Cell)
Best Audio: Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog)
Best Downloadable Game: Flower (thatgamecompany)
Recipients for the evening's special awards were:
Lifetime Achievement Award
John Carmack
Pioneer Award
Gabe Newell
Ambassador Award
Penny Arcade (Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik, Robert Khoo)
"This year has seen some incredible titles across platforms and genres -- big-budget blockbusters like Uncharted 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum and addictive online games like Farmville all made for an amazing year in games," says Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference.
"The winners at the Game Developers Choice Awards have exhibited that they can create compelling experiences that set the bar even higher for other developers to follow. We'd like to thank all the winners and the nominees for their countless hours furthering the art of game creation, and crafting some awesome experiences for gamers the world over."
[NOTE: Due to a technical error, Brian Min's name was left off Brutal Legend's nomination for 2009's Best Audio award. Choice Awards organizers apologize to Brian for this, and are happy to credit him here as a key part of the Double Fine team that received the nomination.]
