IGF Awards/Game Developers Choice Awards 2013

GDC is next week and with GDC comes the last big award show to highlight last year's games, the "by devs, for devs" show that is probably the closest thing to gaming's Oscars. While the IGF and GDC Awards could easily have separate threads, they take place on the same night in the same venue and will both be livestreamed (Wed, Mar 27 6:30 PM PDT), so may as well lump them into one.

(And there are no Doritos in sight, except for any the people in Moscone Center might have smuggled in to nibble on.)

Independent Games Festival Awards

http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html - The full list of awards and finalists.

The Grand Prize finalists:

• Cart Life
• FTL: Faster Than Light
• Hotline Miami
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Little Inferno

Game Developer's Choice Awards

Double Fine's Tim Schafer will be hosting again this year, so expect a good amount of entertainment.

http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/winners/index.html - The full nominee list

Game of The Year finalists:

• Dishonored
• The Walking Dead
• Mass Effect 3
• X Com Enemy Unknown
• Journey

Discuss away.

edited 17th Mar '13 6:20:30 PM by Elle

...

I have played 3 out of 5 of the grand prize finalists.

THEY ALL DESERVE THEIR SPOT.

Bump. Livestream starts here at 6:30 PM Pacific time (6 hours from the time of this post)

IGF: Gotta go with FTL. Fantastic game.

Other awards: Mass Effect 3? Seriously? I'd go with Xcom or Journey.

edited 27th Mar '13 12:38:21 PM by Scardoll

IGF stream has started.

.....so anyone else watching? >.>

I be watching.

So FTL took the Design and Audience Choice awards. The grand prize went to Cart Life.

I really want to check out Kentucky Route Zero at some point.

Poor Cart Life dev, making the point that yes, there are introverted nerds in the field. Even with liquid courage, he couldn't really look at the audience...I wonder if he's autistic or something.

Sooner or later I'm going to get a PS 3. First game I'll get is MGS 4, second is Journey. Everything I see the latter the more interesting it seems.

The Walking Dead! <3

edited 27th Mar '13 7:23:46 PM by Spirit

In honor of the Pioneer award going to the guys who made Spacewar! ...Spacewar, emulated! (Requires java).

Play it to pass the time while they run the Mega64 videos. :P I wish they'd get new people to do the entrainment sections, the "be a pest to random people on the street" skits are more annoying than funny.

Edit: And FTL picks up Best Debut Game. I believe that makes it the first since Minecraft to take both IGF and Choice awards.

edited 27th Mar '13 8:02:10 PM by Elle

Someone in the comments made a sly "2013 Journey choice awards" about an hour back. I'm inclined to think he's got a point.

edited 27th Mar '13 8:24:53 PM by Spirit

2012 really wasn't a good year for games.

2011 was much better.

I'd hesitate to back that assumption. I think the nominee lineup puts the lie to the publisher assertion that people don't want new IP...or, at least, marks the point where these awards become more like the Oscars, in that the winners and the games with the most marketing/sales don't line up very closely. Most of the games that were numbered sequels got nominated in things like tech.