2007 Game Developers Choice Awards To Honor Miyamoto, Pajitnov

The Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Board has named the 2007 special award recipients for the Awards, which will take place on March 7th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco during GDC, revealing the winners of its regular jury-selected special honors. Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris, will receive the First Penguin Award for pioneering the casual games market; veteran designer and Manifesto Games founder Greg Costikyan will receive the Maverick Award for his tireless efforts to create a viable channel for indie games; and game audio legend George "The Fatman" Sanger will receive the Community Contribution Award for his numerous programs that encourage interactive audio innovation and industry improvement. In addition, Nintendo game design icon Shigeru Miyamoto will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for a career that spans the creation of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda to the company's recent revolutionary systems, Nintendo DS and Wii. Recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award, as with the other awards, are selected by the Choice Awards Advisory Board, comprised of a diverse set of developers from around the globe. Past recipients of this award include Richard Garriott, Eugene Jarvis, Mark Cerny, Gunpei Yokoi (posthumously), Yuji Naka and Will Wright. "This year's recipients of the Game Developers Choice Award special honors reflect the dramatic impact of their visionary creations and industry work," said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director of the Game Developers Conference. "Our four honorees are each responsible for inspiring the industry to creative heights through personal example and challenging conventional wisdom." The seventh annual Game Developers Choice Awards will also hand out honors for Best Game, Audio, Character Design, Game Design, Technology, Visual Arts, Writing and Innovation. For more information about the ceremony or award nominees, interested parties can visit the Game Developers Choice Awards website.