Game industry personality Geoff Keighley took to Twitch today to run down a partial list of studios, games and game actors nominated for awards in the inaugural
Game Awards, which
Keighley is producing with support from major industry players like Sony, Valve, Nintendo and Microsoft.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the list of award nominees is dominated by familiar faces like Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft and Nintendo.
However, smaller studios like The Astronauts and indie games like
Threes and
Never Alone help diversify the lineup and potentially paint the Game Awards as broader in scope than the long-running
Spike Video Game Awards, which Keighley hosted until this year.
The full list of awards and nominees for next month's event can be found on the Game Awards
website, and it includes a bunch of categories (like "Best Remaster" and "Best Family Game") which were determined with input from representatives of 28 media outlets. It also includes five "Fan's Choice" categories (including "eSports Player of the Year" and "Trending Gamer") which will presumably be put to a public vote before the event takes place in Las Vegas on December 5th.
Here are some of the awards and nominees that may be most interesting to developers:
Developer of the Year
Blizzard Entertainment
Nintendo
Monolith
Telltale Games
Ubisoft Montreal
Game of the Year
Bayonetta 2
Dark Souls 2
Dragon Age Inquisition
Hearthstone
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Games for Change
Mountain
Never Alone
The Last Of Us: Left Behind
This War of Mine
Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Best Performance
Adam Harrington
Melissa Hutchison
Kevin Spacey
Troy Baker
Trey Parker
Best Independent Game
Monument Valley
Broken Age
Transistor
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Shovel Knight
Best Mobile/Handheld Game
Bravely Default
Monument Valley
Hearthstone
Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
Threes