Tag: Game of the Year

DICE Awards: All the Winners from 1997 to Today

The DICE Awards have been awarded by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences as part of the DICE Summit (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) since 1998. The ceremony is held each Winter, honoring games released during the previous calendar year.

The nominees are chosen annually by a select group of Academy members known as Peer Panelists. In their attempt to harvest a wide-ranging set of opinions each year, the AIAS reaches out to industry experts from all corners of the game industry, including art, design, engineering, animation, performance, and production.

For the final vote, the entire Academy votes for the four major awards (“Game of the Year”, “Mobile Game of the Year”, “Online Game of the Year”, and “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game”), while voting on creative/technical categories is limited to developers within that field (“Game Design & Production”, “Art, Animation & Programming”, and “Audio Design & Music”).

From 1998 through 2012, the ceremony was known as the Interactive Achievement Awards, though the public would often refer to the event as the DICE Awards because of its connection to the DICE Summit. After more than a decade, the AIAS officially adopted the ceremony’s current name in 2013.

All the “Game of the Year” winners from the DICE Awards can be found here…

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2024-2025 DICE Awards Deals its “Game of the Year” Award to Astro Bot

Astro Bot had the momentum coming out of the 2024 Game Awards with four total wins, including “Game of the Year” honors. But there wasn’t a clear frontrunner going into awards season, and there was no guarantee it would be able to fend off the rest of this year’s field of contenders forever.

All that said, Sony’s adorable little automaton ended up dominating the 2024-2025 DICE Awards in similar fashion. Astro Bot, and developers from Team Asobi, took home the “Game of the Year” prize last night, as well as statuettes for “Family Game of the Year”, “Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”, “Outstanding Technical Achievement”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Animation”.

Not to be outdone, the rest of the “Game of the Year” contenders performed pretty well during rest of the ceremony, with Helldivers II, Balatro, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle divvying up the majority of the remaining awards.

Helldivers II nearly matched Astro Bot‘s total as it collected four statuettes for “Online Game of the Year”, “Action Game of the Year”, “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design”.

Meanwhile, Balatro (“Mobile Game of the Year”, “Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year”, and “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game”) and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (“Adventure Game of the Year”, “Outstanding Achievement in Character”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Story”) earned three awards apiece.

Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller and IGN’s Stella Chung returned to host this year’s DICE Awards, and you can watch a full replay of the ceremony (as well as find a complete list of all the winners and nominees) after the break.

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Astro Bot is “Game of the Year” at the 2024 Game Awards

Is this a new era for The Game Awards? Geoff Keighley, the producer and host, seemed to take the many complaints about last year’s show to heart.

Many viewers were bothered by the excessive amount of “World Premiere” trailers in 2023, as well as the scant amount of time the winners were given to speak. Leaning into this criticism, the 2024 Game Awards seemed to be packed with more trailers than ever, shifting the balance of the show to operate more like a Winter E3 with the actual awards serving as a secondary segment. And that’s okay. There are lots of awards shows out there. The Game Awards can be the fun one while the GDC Awards, the DICE Awards, and the BAFTAs give out the real “Game of the Year” honors.

Keighley also received criticism from the press and the public about his lack of concern for the huge number of layoffs that ravaged the video game industry in 2023. This year saw even more job losses, and The Game Awards responded by creating the “TGA Game Changer” award, which was given to Amir Satvat for his curation of Amir Satvat’s Games Community, a website that offers support, mentorship, and job postings for game developers.

Keighley’s introduction to this part of the show was particularly good:

“The sad reality is that over the past few years the gaming industry has suffered significant and unprecedented industry-wide layoffs. Those affect the games we get to play and even more importantly, the people who make the games we love. We can debate and certainly disagree with the reasons why, and honestly, as a show, we kind of struggle how to address these topics in a constructive way. But this year, inside of these challenges, we found greatness. I’m proud to share with you the story of a single individual who saw developers in need and did something truly extraordinary.”

Even the awards themselves felt different this year, as Team Asobi’s Astro Bot won the “Game of the Year”. Astro Bot is the first family-friendly game to win the top prize in the ten-year history of The Game Awards, beating out flashier competition such as Black Myth: Wukong, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio. All of those games got their chance to shine, but it was Team Asobi’s night, as the developer also won “Best Game Direction”, “Best Action/Adventure Game”, and “Best Family Game” for Astro Bot.

Not only is Astro Bot an extreme outlier among previous Game Awards winners, but so is the next most-honored game of the night. Balatro didn’t win “Game of the Year”, but developer LocalThunk did collect statuettes for “Best Independent Game”, “Best Mobile Game”, and “Best Debut Indie”. Atlus’s Metaphor: ReFantazio also picked up three statuettes last night, winning for “Best Narrative”, “Best Art Direction”, and “Best Role Playing Game”.

Black Myth: Wukong parlayed its strong fan support into wins for “Best Action Game” and the public-voted “Player’s Voice” award. While Final Fantasy VII Rebirth had to settle for the statuette for “Best Score and Music”.

Finally, let’s talk about that lineup of “World Premiere” trailers, because it really was pretty impressive this year. There were blockbuster sequels, which included The Witcher IV, Elden Ring: Nightreign, Borderlands 4, The Outer Worlds 2, Dying Light: The Beast, and Slay the Spire 2. There were the shocking returns of long-forgotten franchises such as Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Turok: Origins, Virtua Fighter 6, and Okami 2. And there was plenty of new stuff including Warren Specter’s Thick As Thieves, the currently untitled next game from Fumito Ueda, Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, and the absolutely bonkers Shadow Labyrinth (which is being pitched as a Pac-Man spinoff). It was almost overwhelming.

And that’s it for the 2024 Game Awards. A complete list of all the winners and nominees, as well as a full replay of the ceremony, can be found after the break.

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GOTY Flashback: 2014 Game Awards

The Game Awards has seen its share of ups and downs, but the Geoff Keighley-hosted awards show is celebrating its tenth anniversary this Thursday, December 12th. While we wait to see which game will take the coveted “Game of the Year” statuette this year, let’s look back at the first Game Awards.

After the dissolution of the Spike Video Game Awards a year earlier, Keighley rebranded the show and produced it himself as an independent production. With questions about whether the show could continue beyond 2014, he chose to carry over multiple aspects from his previous gig, including a similar slate of categories, a star-studded lineup of special guests, and a heavy focus on “World Premiere” trailers (including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt).

Eschewing a celebrity host, Keighley even took over hosting duties for the 2014 Game Awards, but he found himself in the middle of an awards show attempting to honor a strange year for gaming.

The industry was going through a console transition, as the PS4 and Xbox One had launched the year before. Many of the year’s biggest games were also released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and many players had yet to make an investment in new hardware. This industry identity crisis was present in the “Game of the Year” nominees, which included two cross-generation games (Dragon Age: Inquisition and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor), From Software’s Dark Souls II (which wasn’t available on the PS4 or Xbox One at the time), and the mobile-focused Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Meanwhile, Nintendo was floundering, though you wouldn’t know it from the Wii U’s performance at the show. Super Smash Bros. For Wii U (“Best Fighting Game”) and Mario Kart 8 (“Best Family Game” and “Best Sports/Racing Game”) both took home statuettes, though neither was nominated for “Game of the Year”. Instead, the Nintendo-published and Platinum-developed Bayonetta 2 earned the final spot on the “Game of the Year” ballot.

On top of all this, a coordinated harassment campaign against developers and journalists was growing in the worst corners of the Internet. Popularly known as GamerGate, we’re still dealing with the aftereffects of the campaign and probably will be for a long time. But what else can you really say about GamerGate at this point?

Ultimately, BioWare’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was named “Game of the Year” at the 2014 Game Awards, sandwiched between the aforementioned Breath of the Wild premiere and a trailer for Eve Online.

Rewatching bits of the show, I’m struck by how little The Game Awards has changed from 2014 to today. Then as now, you’ve got a lot of rapid fire awards montages, short speeches from the winners, musical performances, and “World Premiere” trailers.

The “Game of the Year” contenders can even be said to represent similar slots as subsequent years, in any given year, the “Game of the Year” category will include the flashiest action games (Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor), at least one action RPG (Dark Souls II and Dragon Age: Inquisition), a representative from Nintendo (Bayonetta 2), and a smaller game that captured the zeitgeist (Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft). You could easily map this year’s nominees onto the same template.

But after ten years, you have to wonder if it’s time for the show to freshen things up a little, but this is probably the way that Keighley likes it. And as he’s said in the past, the commercial realities of producing a show like this practically require him to seek outside sponsors and publishers willing to pay for the placement of their “World Premiere” trailers. Though it’s hard to know if any of that is true.

But other big winners during the very first Game Awards were Destiny (“Best Score/Soundtrack” and “Best Online Experience”), Far Cry 4 (“Best Shooter”), Shovel Knight (“Best Independent Game”), and Grand Theft Auto V (in the since-abandoned “Best Remaster” category). It was a strange year for gaming, but as always, we got a lot of great games.

You can find a replay of the full ceremony for the 2014 Game Awards and a complete list of winners and nominees after the break.

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2023 GOTY Scoreboard: Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, Tears of the Kingdom, and More

How do you even begin to talk about what happened in the video game industry in 2023?

From January all the way through to December, 2023 was one of the best years for games ever. New classics literally appeared out of nowhere, while dozens of other hotly-anticipated new releases absolutely lived up to the hype. But it was hard to celebrate last year’s triumphs without also looking back at the seemingly endless parade of developers who lost their job in 2023. Multiple times per week, we would hear about a mass layoff or studio closure at yet another company.

Farhan Noor, an artist who previously worked with Telltale and Activision, has been tracking these job losses at Game Industry Layoffs and he estimates that at least 10,500 people were laid off in 2023. The final tally is most likely quite a bit higher and things don’t seem to be slowing down as we head into 2024.

One outlet, But Why Tho?, directly confronted this grim reality by selecting “The People Who Make the Games Industry” as their “Top Video Game.” Picking the developers, artists, and writers who lost their jobs over any of the games they played in 2023, it’s hard to argue with their reasons for making this choice:

Many of the games on this list and on lists across games media were made by people who are no longer employed by the studios that developed, published, or are the owners. We saw the shuttering of not only studios but also of websites dedicated to covering video games. We can not celebrate a stacked year of fantastic games without trying to honor those who deserve to be respected as talented people who have given us hours and days of play in fantastic worlds. They matter, their futures matter, and the beauty of the video games we love so much is only possible when the developers are respected, cared for, and fought for, too.

So with that in mind, let’s take every chance we can to honor the actual people behind our favorite games, and the fabulous work they did in 2023 while mired in chaos.

Any discussion of 2023 will begin with a trio of games… Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Fans spent years waiting patiently as each game slowly moved through the development process and all three delivered (including a full sweep of the major “Game of the Year” awards for Baldur’s Gate 3).

Larian (including Director Swen Vincke, Producer David Walgrave, and a talented troupe of voice actors) first unleashed Baldur’s Gate 3 in Early Access in 2020, but the expansive RPG still seemed to come out of nowhere. Likewise, Sam Lake and Remedy had been slowly building out a sequel to Alan Wake since that game’s launch in 2010. Most of this work was done away from the public, but it likely won’t take 13 more years to get the next chapter in Alan Wake’s story.

And then there’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Eiji Aonuma and his team at Nintendo EPD poured everything they had into this Breath of the Wild sequel and redefined what a console like the Switch can offer players in its waning days. Its seemingly-limitless world mesmerized critics and players, and left other developers wondering exactly how Nintendo was able to pull it off.

But dozens of other games also competed for attention and accolades, including Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, Geometric Interactive’s Cocoon, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4, Tango’s Hi-Fi Rush, Square Enix’s Final Fantsasy XVI, From Software’s Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Blizzard’s Diablo IV, Mintrocket’s Dave the Diver, and on and on and on.

Even the long shadow of Wordle continued to inspire new daily browser-based games, including the time-gobbling Connections, Puzzmo, and Immaculate Grid.

Altogether, more than 25 games received some form of “Game of the Year” accolades by at least ten publications (that’s a win, a nomination, or a selection on an unranked list), and a total of more than 200 games appeared on at least one list. It was truly an historic year for video games, and you can see how it all shook out by viewing the 2023 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Completes the Sweep After Winning “Best Game” at 2023-2024 BAFTA Games Awards

More than The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Alan Wake II or Super Mario Bros. Wonder or any of the rest of 2023’s biggest games, it often felt like all anyone wanted to talk about last year was Baldur’s Gate 3.

The RPG’s uncanny ability to become the center of the conversation has continued throughout awards season, as it won “Game of the Year” honors at The Game Awards in December, the DICE Awards in February, and the GDC Awards in March. Could we be looking at another sweep of the major year-end awards? The first, and only, time that happened was when Sony Santa Monica’s God of War took home all the “Game of the Year” trophies in 2018.

I could try to draw the suspense out a little more… but if you saw the headline you know… the development team from Larian Studios did indeed complete their sweep at the 2023-2024 BAFTA Games Awards. Baldur’s Gate 3 was the big winner of the night, not only winning “Best Game”, but also a handful of other statuettes as well. The RPG’s tally also includes awards for “Narrative”, “Music”, “Performer in a Supporting Role” (for Andrew Wincott portrayal of Raphael, and the fan-voted “EE Players’ Choice”.

While Baldur’s Gate 3 won a lot last night, the three aforementioned games also took home a few trophies. Remedy’s Alan Wake II was honored with “Artistic Achievement” and “Audio Achievement” awards. Playing together was at the heart of Super Mario Bros. Wonder‘s victories for “Family” and “Multiplayer”. And The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom took home yet another “Technical Achievement” award at this year’s BAFTA Games Awards.

Comedian Phil Wang led the ceremony in London last night, but the membership of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts also decided to reveal the competition’s Longlist for the first time. Focusing on the “overwhelming proof of the tremendous creative talent prevalent across the industry”, the 60 titles chosen provide a great overview for one of the best years for video games ever.

You can view a replay of the ceremony after the break, along with a complete list of all the nominees and winners from this 20th edition of the BAFTA Games Awards.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Cruises to its Third “Game of the Year” Award of the Season at the 2023-2024 GDC Awards

The voters at the Game Developer’s Choice Awards have thrown their lot in with the biggest RPG of the year for the second straight year, bestowing “Game of the Year” honors on Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 earlier this week at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

This is the third major “Game of the Year” trophy that Larian has collected this season (including the DICE Awards in February and The Game Awards in December). We’ll know if they can complete the sweep after the conclusion of the BAFTA Games Awards in a few weeks.

That said, Larian wasn’t quite done with the 2023-2024 GDC Awards. Members of the development team took the stage an additional three times to collect “Best Design”, “Best Narrative”, and the “Audience Award”. But Baldur’s Gate 3 couldn’t win them all, and there were six other awards up for grabs during this year’s ceremony.

Two of those prizes went to Nintendo for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which took home the “Best Technology” trophy and the “Innovation Award”. Venba, from Visai Games, also bested the competition in a pair of categories. The game’s story of an immigrant family and the food they cook to preserve their culture won “Best Debut” and the “Social Impact Award”.

That leaves just two awards, and they were split between a pair of impressive titles. “Best Audio” went to Tango Gameworks’s Hi-Fi Rush, while “Best Visual Art” belonged to Remedy’s Alan Wake II.

The 2023-2024 GDC Awards were hosted by Alanah Pearce, and you can view the ceremony, along with a complete list of all winners, nominees, and honorable mentions, after the break.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Stacks Up Another “Game of the Year” Award at the 2023-2024 DICE Awards

Continuing its momentum from The Game Awards, Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 won “Game of the Year” at last night’s DICE Awards. Unsurprisingly, the expansive RPG also won “Role-Playing Game of the Year”, as well as “Outstanding Achievement in Story”, “Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction”.

With five total awards, Baldur’s Gate 3 had a good night, but Spider-Man 2 doesn’t just do whatever a spider can, it also won six statuettes for Insomniac Games. The wallcrawler’s third Sony-published PlayStation outing collected “Action Game of the Year”, “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition”, “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design”, “Outstanding Achievement in Animation”, “Outstanding Technical Achievement”, and “Outstanding Achievement in Character” for Miles Morales.

More than a dozen other titles also claimed victory at this year’s DICE Awards, including Cocoon (“Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game”), Diablo IV (“Online Game of the Year”), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (“Adventure Game of the Year”), and Street Fighter 6 (“Fighting Game of the Year”).

Finally, Nintendo’s Koji Kondo took the stage last night as the latest recipient of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’s “Hall of Fame” award. It was a fitting tribute to the composer, especially on the same night that Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which he worked on as Sound Director, won the statuette for “Family Game of the Year”.

The 2023-2024 DICE Awards, which were hosted by Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller and IGN’s Stella Chung, was a fantastic showcase for the developers that made 2023 such a great year for games. You can watch the full ceremony, as well as view a list of every winner and nominee, after the break.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Wins “Game of the Year” and “Player’s Voice” at the 2023 Game Awards

Geoff Keighley’s Trailer-Palooza took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles last night… oh, and he also found the time to hand out The Game Awards too! If it felt like there were even more “World Premiere” trailers than ever before, that was by design. Keighley shortened up the already-pretty-short awards portion of the ceremony this year, limiting acceptance speeches from winners to just 30 seconds.

The Game Awards has jumped from controversy to controversy over the past few weeks, and this latest misstep is just the latest in a long line of mistakes made by Keighley.

Even before the nominees were announced, there were calls for the Game Awards host to open the show with a statement about the thousands of layoffs that have ravaged the game industry this year. More recently, he has been criticized by most of the members of the Game Awards Future Class, who asked him to make some kind of public plea for a “long term ceasefire” in Israel’s war on Gaza. Keighley failed to acknowledge either request during last night’s show, and it’s possible the new rules about acceptance speeches were a way to keep the show on-brand.

So the 2023-2024 awards season began on something of a sour note, but a lot of great games received recognition from the judging panel and the public, even if they didn’t have enough time to thank anyone after receiving their statuette.

Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 was the big winner of the night, and the team climbed the steps to the stage a total of six times, including for “Game of the Year” and “Player’s Voice” (it was also the first time a single game had won both awards). Unsurprisingly, the RPG also won “Best Role Playing Game,” as well as “Best Multiplayer” and “Best Community Support.” Neil Newbon rounded out the game’s haul with a “Best Performance” win for his role as Astarion.

Remedy’s Alan Wake II wasn’t far behind, as the survival horror sequel won three statuettes (for “Best Game Direction,” “Best Narrative,” and “Best Art Direction”).

Even the hype around 2023 as the best year for gaming ever got a nod, with the rest of the night’s awards going to a wide variety of different titles. Just some of the other winners are The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (“Best Action/Adventure Game”), Super Mario Bros. Wonder (“Best Family Game”), Pikmin 4 (“Best Sim/Strategy Game”), Final Fantasy XVI (“Best Score and Music”), Hi-Fi Rush (“Best Audio Design”), and Sea of Stars (“Best Independent Game”).

A video replay of the 2023 Game Awards can be found after the break, along with a list of all the nominees and winners. Hopefully next year they’ll actually get to speak.

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2022 GOTY Scoreboard: Elden Ring, Vampire Survivors, God of War: Ragnarok, and More

After wandering in the wilderness during the early part of the PS4 era, the God of War franchise came back in a big way with God of War (2018). With a new pantheon to slay, Kratos slashed his way into our hearts, and he helped Sony Santa Monica collect a decent chunk of accolades from reviewers and players alike during the 2018-2019 “Game of the Year” season (including a sweep at all five of the major year-end awards shows).

But it’s been five long years since Kratos first brought his unique brand of godly violence to the Norse realm, what could the Ghost of Sparta do for an encore?

God of War: Ragnarok, which was released this past November, answered that question with spectacular battles against the one-eyed Allfather, Odin, and the Mighty Thor himself. But not even the end of the world could topple From Software’s Elden Ring, which has steamrolled the competition.

Elden Ring was named “Game of the Year” by dozens of publications and took home the statuette at three major awards show. Only one game managed to break through From Software’s stranglehold on voting bodies across the industry, with Poncle’s Vampire Survivors taking the last major year-end award.

You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles in the 2022 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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