6th Game Developers Choice Award Nominees Announced

According to the organizers, Sony Computer Entertainment's “God of War” and “Shadow of the Colossus” lead the list of nominated games for the 6th annual Game Developers Choice Awards with each game receiving six nods. Harmonix and RedOctane's “Guitar Hero” follows close behind with four nominations. The ceremony, produced and hosted by the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), is the only peer-based, open nomination awards program in the industry where honors are bestowed to developers by developers. Recipients will be announced during the GDC, slated for March 20-24, 2006 in San Jose, Calif. "Every year, thousands of nominations are submitted by developers from around the world,” Jason Della Rocca, executive director, IGDA, said. “Voting on the final recipients will be extremely competitive, and who can spot excellence and creative achievement better than the creators themselves?” Nominations were free of charge and open to all IGDA members, ensuring that the nominees reflect the international development community's opinions. The IGDA membership will vote on the finalists. The 6th annual Game Developer Choice Awards are supported by Platinum Sponsor Motorola and Gold Sponsor AGEIA. In addition to the voted award categories, honors will be presented for the Lifetime Achievement, First Penguin, Community Contribution, Maverick and Innovation awards. For Best Game, the nominees were Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Wild World, Incog's God of War, Harmonix's Guitar Hero, Sony's Shadow of the Colossus, and Lionhead's The Movies. Animal Crossing, God of War, and Shadow of the Colossus also received nominations in the Best Game Design category, alongside Nintendo's Nintendogs and Double Fine's Psychonauts. In the Visual Arts category, Incog's God of War, Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 3, Capcom's Resident Evil 4, Sony's Shadow of the Colossus, and Namco's We Love Katamari were nominated. The tangentially related field of Character Design saw nominations for Cryptic's City of Villains, God of War, Oddworld Inhabitants' Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Double Fine's Psychonauts, and Shadow of the Colossus. The Technology nominations consisted of DICE's Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for its large-scale multiplayer, Harmonix's Guitar Hero for the unique controller, Nintendo's Nintendogs for the voice-controlled gameplay, Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 3, and Sony's Shadow of the Colossus, for the vast, seamless outdoor world. In the Audio category, the nominees were Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 2, Nintendo's Electroplankton, Incog's God of War, Harmonix's Guitar Hero, and Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 3. Writing nominations went to Irrational's Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich, God of War, Quantic Dream's Indigo Prophecy, BioWare's Jade Empire, and Double Fine's Psychonauts. Finally, New Studio nods went to ArenaNet for Guild Wars, Double Fine Productions for Psychonauts, New Crayon Games for Bonnie's Bookstore, TellTale Games for Bone: Out From Boneville, and Wideload Games for Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. The Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony will take place Wednesday, March 22 at 6:30p.m. at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. Further information is available on the official Game Developers Choice Awards site.