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Carmack/Stoltz, separated at birth?

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http://www.interactive.org/ima...

From: http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-9/winners.as p

        The Interactive Achievement Awards have been presented annually since 1998.

        Interactive Achievement Award recipients are determined by a vote of
        qualified Academy members. As such, selection as an Interactive Academy
        award finalist or recipient represents the strongest possible peer
        recognition.

----

9th Annual Interactive Achievement Award Winners

The award winners in each category are as follows:

Game of the Year:

Overall . God of War
Computer . Battlefield
Console . God of War
Outstanding Innovation in Gaming . Guitar Hero

Outstanding Achievement:

Animation . God of War
Art Direction . Shadow of the Colossus
Soundtrack . Guitar Hero
Original Music Composition . God of War
Sound Design . God of War
Story and Character Development . Call of Duty: Big Red One
Game Play Engineering (Tie) . Nintendogs - Guitar Hero
Online Game Play . Battlefield 2
Visual Engineering . Shadow of the Colossus
Game Design . Guitar Hero

Outstanding Character Performance:

Male . God of War
Female . Jade Empire

(Game of the Year In) Genre Awards:

Sports . SSX On Tour
First-Person Action . Battlefield 2
Role-Playing . Jade Empire
Fighting . Soul Calibur 3
Action/ Adventure . God of War
Racing . Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Children's . We Love Katamari
Downloadable . WIK: Fable of Souls
Family . Guitar Hero
Simulation . The Movies
Strategy . Civilization IV
Massively Multiplayer /
Persistent World (Tie) . City Villains - Guild Wars
Handheld . Nintendogs
Cellular . Ancient Empires II

AIAS Hall of Fame Honoree Richard Garriott is the ninth member to be inducted and joins an already impressive fraternity of gaming icons, including Trip Hawkins, Peter Molyneux, Yu Suzuki, Will Wright, John Carmack, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Sid Meier and Shigeru Miyamoto. Garriott is best known for creating and publishing the best-selling Ultima series, including the first commercially successful online game, Ultima Online.

By glancing down a list of award winning games over the last nine years and eyeballing the ones I thought were (a) innovative and (b) come from indie developers. There's no question that innovative games have come from large companies as well, but then that wasn't the point of the article was it?

There is a legitimate video game awards ceremony. It's called the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (http://www.interactive.org/).

It's not publicized much, broadcast on TV, nor is it open to the public.

To be a voting member, you must have been actively employed in the games industry for at least 2 or more years, and be credited on 1 or more published commercial titles.

The annual DICE summit is when the peer-based awards, the Interactive Achievement Awards, are given out, after months of voting. The titles are nominated and voted on by members for all categories.

Trip Hawkins is an interesting choice, in that the other inductees were all heavily involved in game development, whereas he was more of a facilitator. There's also a great deal of debate on whether Hawkins is to be villified or celebrated. I'll throw in with the latter category, because he pulled together the "electronic artists" who created my favorite games of the early '80s.

An article written by the Dot Eaters does a good job of describing how I think of Electronic Arts when it was just a small studio. I'm still fond of those LP-style packages. And their toolbox-titles, such as Adventure Construction Set, Pinball Construction Set and Racing Destruction Set brought about my own interest in creating games with a strong building component to them. There was nothing in the world like M.U.L.E. before Dan Bunten/Danielle Bunten Berry created it. And I think it was Hawkins that made these things possible.

He may deserve the harsh scrutiny he receives -- and, certainly, he's not going to win any points with anyone for his comments earlier this year. But somehow I can't hate the fellow who brought together so many bright folks under one roof. Electronic Arts has recently published some of my favorite games, but it's the early ones I remember best.
___________________________________________
Inago Rage - Create and fight within your own FPS arenas.
Try the new demo for Windows!

Unfortunately, the SpikeTV VGA's is nothing but a marketing orgy. How much coss-media synergy do we need? Should the Chronicles of Riddick game really win an award for anything other than gross revenue?

There are real bodies and organizations such as 'The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' that have also been holding an award ceremony (not televised to my knowledge) for the past 8 years. While I may not agree will all the award winners, they definitely have more of the right idea about where this should go. Their hall of fame inductees list is quite impressive: http://www.interactive.org/awards/halloffame/induc tees.asp

2004 - Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios
2003 - Yu Suzuki, SEGA® Corporation
2002 - Will Wright, Maxis
2001 - John Carmack, id Software
2000 - Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy
1999 - Sid Meier, Firaxis Games
1998 - Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Inc

It's not well known but there IS an Academy Awards for video games, similiar to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences - the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences at http://www.interactive.org/.

I believe it is run by the same organization as the Motion Picture Academy. Membership is only open to full-time employees of the industry with a minimum of 2 years on development teams, who have been credited on a commercially published title. Like the Academy Awards, it is the talent of the industry judging its peers.

The 2005 DICE summit and 8th annual awards ceremony (the AIAS equivalent to the Academy Awards) is in late January.

What SpikeTV ran was nothing more than sensationalism, probably based on sales figures and TV producers misperceptions of the culture of video game players, more than it was based on any actual sampling of video gaming culture.

There actually is a more 'Oscar-like' videogame awards show: The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has an awards show every year, although to my knowledge, it's never been televised. This is the type of awards show that actually does the 'art form' of gaming justice. Also, each year they induct people into the "Hall of Fame". Previous inductees include Miyamoto, Will Wright, John Carmack, etc. (and if you want to see acceptance speeches, they have some of them online)

There actually is a more 'Oscar-like' videogame awards show: The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has an awards show every year, although to my knowledge, it's never been televised. This is the type of awards show that actually does the 'art form' of gaming justice. Also, each year they induct people into the "Hall of Fame". Previous inductees include Miyamoto, Will Wright, John Carmack, etc. (and if you want to see acceptance speeches, they have some of them online)

I guess something should be said about the game, since it didn't get a lot of press when it was released in 2001: it's a unique action/adventure title for PS2 that got great reviews (91% average), and was nominated for or won a bunch of awards, but didn't sell very well. It's still available, though getting harder to find.

darn enter key submitted this thing bufore i was done... here is the link: http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-7/finalist.a sp

"One interesting tidbit from the article, the original Dragon's Lair is one of only three video games on display at the Smithsonian. The other two games being Pac-Man and Pong."

Failed to mention that Yu Suzuki's Virtua Fighter is also on display.

If you're curious about who he is, read this

It's an ADVENTURE website. The article is listing cancelled ADVENTURE games.

This ADVENTURE site's article on cancelled ADVENTURE games also lists ROLE PLAYING games, and the Babylon 5 games was to have ADVENTURE elements as well.

If the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences can call Diablo 2 a role-playing game (let alone the role-playing game of the year), I can call Babylon 5 an adventure game.