Skyrim wins Game of the Year at GDC Awards

At the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards on Wednesday night, game development teams of all backgrounds and sizes shared the stage to be recognized by their industry peers for jobs well done. Hosted this year by Epic’s Gears of War lead Cliff Bleszinski, Bethesda’s epic open world RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim won Game of the Year at the annual ceremony. Skyrim director Todd Howard said, "We never imagined the reception the game would get, or the reception that it has had. This has been an amazing ride for us, not just for this game, but for the last 25-plus years at Bethesda." Valve’s Portal 2 earned three awards: Best Narrative, Best Audio and Best Game Design. "During most of the development of Portal 2, I thought I was going to die," said Valve writer Erik Wolpaw in his acceptance speech. “So just not being dead was the only award that I thought I was going to get.” Another multiple award winner was the young, small studio Supergiant Games for Best Downloadable Game and Best Debut for a new studio for Bastion. The Ambassador Award went to Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the pair of lawyers who spearheaded the successful fight to have the Supreme Court recognize video games as a form of free speech. Smith said to the game developer audience, "This group represents the game development community, and it was a real honor to represent you in the Supreme Court." He did laugh that some games’ content was "hard to explain to Supreme Court judges." Doroshow added, "Going before the Supreme Court with Paul is like going to the Super Bowl with Eli Manning." Warren Spector, a true video game industry veteran best known for Deus Ex and his choice-and-consequence approach to game design, earned the Lifetime Achievement Award. In a heartfelt speech he said, “I'm often credited as the creator of this or that game, which makes me profoundly uncomfortable,” noting the highly collaborative process of game creation. The game designer humbly named the people who he worked with on his games, such as John Romero, Richard Garriott, and Harvey Smith. He added, "Empowering players is what games are all about. ... It's something that games can do that no other media can. "...We can do things that no other medium in history has ever been able to do. We have to focus our energy on those [unique] things." Here is the full list of tonight’s Game Developers Choice Award winners: Best Audio: Portal 2 (Valve) Best Debut: Supergiant Games for Bastion Best Narrative: Portal 2 (Valve) Best Visual Arts: Uncharted 3 (Naughty Dog) Best Downloadable Game: Bastion (Supergiant) Best Game Design Portal 2 (Valve) Best Technology Battlefield 3 (DICE) Best Mobile Handheld Game Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery (Superbrothers and Capy) Innovation Award Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik) 2012 Pioneer Award Dave Theurer, creator of Missile Command, Tempest and I, Robot Game of the Year The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda)