The Videogame Oscars
Gamasutra has responses to its weekly question of the week, this time looking at whether there will ever be an Oscars for games. The responses focused on some of the current crop of awards currently handed out, from the GDCA to Spike's debacle. From the article: "No one in the industry has taken the previous attempts at an award show seriously because they shows seem to offer up an award to the highest bidder and not the one most deserving. The only exception that I've seen come close to being a decent awards show is the Interactive Achievement Awards put on by AIAS. So how about we stop having rappers involved with the award shows based on the grounds that they like to play their Xbox? Or if we must have them involved, how about having Will Wright host the BET Awards Show? That makes about as much sense."
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.
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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.