The 19th annual Game Developers Choice Awards took place last night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA. Unsurprisingly God of War came away with top honors, winning the overall Game of the Year Award. Other winners include Nintendo Labo with the Innovation Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award for industry veteran Amy Hennig.
The Game Developers Choice Awards is made up of developers who were invited to join the International Choice Awards Network. The organization honors the best games of the year in several categories, as well as two individual awards, the Pioneer Award and Lifetime Achievement Award.
This year the Pioneer Award was given to Rieko Kodama, a Japanese game artist and producer, who was also one of the first female artists in the industry when she joined Sega in 1984. Her work can be seen in a lot of classic Sega series like Sonic the Hedgehog and Phantasy Star.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded to Amy Hennig. Like Kodama, Hennig has been in the games industry since the 1980s, working for Electronic Arts, Crystal Dynamics, Naughty Dog, and Visceral Games. She’s best known for writing and directing the Uncharted series.
The full award stream isn’t on YouTube yet but you can watch the archived video (along with the Independent Games Festival) on the GDC Twitch channel (embedded above).
Here all the winners of the Game Developers Choice Awards 2019:
Best Audio
Celeste (Matt Makes Games)
Best Debut
Mountains (Florence)
Best Design
Into the Breach (Subset Games)
Best Mobile Game
Florence (Mountains)
Innovation Award
Nintendo Labo (Nintendo EPD / Nintendo)
Best Narrative
Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope / 3909)
Best Technology
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
Best Visual Art
Gris (Nomada Studio / Devolver Digital)
Best VR/AR Game
Beat Saber (Beat Games)
Audience Award
Beat Saber (Beat Games)
Game of the Year
God of War (Sony Santa Monica / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Pioneer Award
Rieko Kodama
Lifetime Achievement Award
Amy Hennig
“The Game Developers Choice Awards represent the most refined games of the year, and the sheer variety of games honored tonight showed that games can still represent wholly new and unique creative visions,” said Katie Stern, General Manager of the Game Developers Conference. “We embrace and accept all these amazingly creative works, and we’re proud to recognize these nominees and winners alike for the imagination and hard work that brought them here.”
