The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has announced the recipients of the 5th annual Game Developers Choice Awards at a ceremony during the 2005 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.
"The Choice Awards are a celebration of all the passion and hard work that goes into creating ground-breaking games," says Jason Della Rocca, executive director, IGDA. "Developers are the talent that drives this industry and they deserve the recognition for having worked on these great games."
Professional game developers around the world nominated and voted for the awards, free of charge, ensuring that the recipients reflect the community's opinions.
The recipients for the 5th annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:
Best Game
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ken Birdwell, Gabe Newell, Jay Stelly
Audio
Halo 2 (Bungie Software / Microsoft Game Studios)
C Paul Johnson, Marty O'Donnell, Jay Weinland
Character Design
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ted Backman, Dhabih Eng, Bill Fletcher, Bill Van Buren
Game Design
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi
Technology
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Yahn Bernier, Brian Jacobson
Visual Arts
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Sam Didier, William Petras, Justin Thavirat
Writing
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Marc Laidlaw
New Studio
Crytek (
Far Cry)
Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli
Innovation
Donkey Konga (Namco / Nintendo)
Hiroshi Igarashi, Hiroyuki Onoda
I Love Bees (4orty2wo Entertainment / Microsoft Game Studios)
Elan Lee
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi
Recipients for IGDA's special Awards were:
Lifetime Achievement
Eugene Jarvis - legendary arcade game developer
First Penguin
Richard Allan Bartle, Ph.D - founding father of Multi-User Dungeons
(MUDs)
Maverick
Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj -- founders and leaders of Blast Theory, an internationally renowned interactive media artists'
group
Community Contribution
Sheri Graner Ray -- revered advocate of women's interests in game development
"We are extremely happy to host the awards ceremony at the Game Developers Conference," said Jamil Moledina, director, Game Developers Conference. "We believe it's important to celebrate the individual recipients and provide them with as much exposure as possible."
