Xbox Live Arcade Triumphs At DEMX 2005 Awards

The Digital Entertainment & Media Awards, which are held by Billboard and Digital Media Wire, and award prizes in 22 categories honoring achievements involving games, music, advertising and film, television and video, have announced the winners of its 2005 awards. There were a total of seven directly game-related awards handed out at the ceremony at the Western Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, and Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade digital game download system headed the honors, taking a game award and also triumphing in the cross-media Innovator Of The Year award, where it beat out products including Napster's Napster To Go service and HDNet's concept of releasing movies in the cinema, on DVD, and on cable simultaneously. In addition, Xbox Live Arcade won out in the top-line Game Innovation award, trumping Nintendo for its DS and NCSoft for Guild Wars, among others. Console game of the year was Bungie's Halo 2, which outranked titles including Capcom's Resident Evil 4, and mobile phone game of the year went to Jamdat's DoomRPG, which sidled past titles that included Glu's Zuma and Namco's Pac-Mania. Elsewhere, casual game of the year went to PopCap's Chuzzle Deluxe, outscoring PlayFirst's Diner Dash and EA Games/Pogo's Poppit, and multiplayer game of the year was, naturally, carried off by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, much to the chagrin of NCSoft's Guild Wars and City Of Villains. Also interesting was the decision to give an award for best advergame, won by America’s Army over WildTangent's controversial Mojo Master, and a straggling best use for sound in a game was picked up by EA's SSX on Tour, beating out the likes of Rockstar's mighty Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The full list of winners in all categories can be found on the official DEMX Award website.