Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski, one of the key visionaries behind the Unreal and Gears of War games, will take the stage during the 2012 Game Developers Conference to host the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Pocketwatch Games’ Andy Schatz, creator of 2010 Independent Games Festival Grand Prize winner Monaco will return for his fourth stint as host of the Independent Games Festival awards, now celebrating their 14th edition. The two award ceremonies will take place on the evening of Wednesday, March 7th during GDC 2012 beginning at 6:30pm. For the third consecutive year, leading game site GameSpot (www.gamespot.com) will exclusively live stream both award shows along with their channel on YouTube.
The Independent Games Festival was established in 1998 by UBM TechWeb’s Game Network to encourage the rise of independent game development and to recognize the best independent game titles, in the same way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. The 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards recognizes the creativity, artistry and technical genius of leading industry professionals and games released in 2011.
As design director at Epic Games, Cliff Bleszinski has been a key visionary behind the award-winning, multimillion-selling Unreal series, as well as Gears of War, which has become a billion-dollar franchise. Gears of War received top honors at the 2007 Game Developers Choice Awards, and was crowned the winner of the Best Game, Best Technology and Best Visual Arts categories. He continues to lend his creative expertise to Epic’s upcoming projects for PC, mobile and console titles. Easily one of the most recognizable faces in the business, Bleszinski gained instant fame as a teen by shipping his first commercial game, Jazz Jackrabbit, before graduating high school. Jazz became a bestseller and remains a cult classic amongst gamers.
Now a leader in the world of indie games, Andy Schatz founded Pocketwatch Games in December, 2004. Pocketwatch Games released the ecological sim games Venture Africa (which was nominated for the Grand Prize in the 2006 IGF) and Venture Arctic. Schatz later developed the co-op stealth game Monaco which won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Design awards in the 2010 IGF. Returning as host, Schatz presented the IGF awards in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
“Cliff and Andy both have huge personalities and fantastic stage presence. We’re excited for GDC attendees to see these two work their charm while celebrating this amazing industry,” said Meggan Scavio, GM of GDC. “Partnering with GameSpot.com to live stream the IGF and Choice Awards ceremonies was a natural choice and we’re thrilled to be working with them again. I’m so glad we’re able to make these ceremonies available to developers unable to attend as well as fans of all the nominated games.”
As is customary, this year’s Choice Awards is held immediately following the Independent Games Festival Awards, and for the third year running, those not attending GDC can watch both sets of awards show live online only via GameSpot.com, the official streaming media partner to the GDCAs and IGF.
For more information about the 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, visit http://www.gamechoiceawards.com and for more information about the 14th annual IGF visit http://www.igf.com. For information about the 2012 Game Developers Conference visit http://www.gdconf.com.
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Tiffany "Token Gamer Chick" Toms – who has written 1101 posts on Anjel Syndicate.
Long time female gamer who has been playing all genres since the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 days. Freelance Graphic Artist and Web Designer, studied one year of Game Design. Freelance Writer, Reviewer, and News Editor for Anjel Syndicate. Follow me on Twitter @CeissaDesiste.
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