GDAA Awards 2008 Results

Company
Game Developers Association of Australia

Well, the awards ceremony dinner of the Game Developers Association of Australia (GDAA) just wrapped up a few hours ago at the Hilton Brisbane, and the results are in! Just like last year with Infinite Interactive and their game Puzzle Quest, this year there was another title which swept the awards. That game was of course, De Blob, by Blue Tongue who won every category they were finalists in with a total of five awards. Here are the results!

And the winners are:

Best unassigned game - indie category
Finalists:
Zompocalypse, Toadtrip
Battle scarred, University of Ballarat
Debug, Qantm college

Winner: Debug, Qantm college

Best audio

Finalists:

De Blob, Blue Tongue
Zoo Hospital, Torus Games

Winner : De Blob, Blue Tongue

Best Graphics

Finalists:

De Blob, Blue Tongue
Monster Jam, Torus Games

Winner : De Blob, Blue Tongue

Best Gameplay

Finalists:

De Blob, Blue Tongue
Monster Jam, Torus Games

Winner : De Blob, Blue Tongue

Best Mobile title for 2008

Finalists:

Dung, Firemint
Pink Slip 3, Firemint

Winner : Dung, Firemint

Best Handheld title for 2008

Finalists:

Zoo Hospital, Torus Games
MX vs ATV untamed, Tantalus

Winner : Zoo Hospital, Torus Games

Best PC title for 2008

Finalists:

Monster Jam, Torus Games
Space Chimps, Red Tribe

Winner : Monster Jam, Torus Games

Best Console title for 2008

Finalists:

De Blob, Blue Tongue
Monster Jam, Torus Games

Winner : De Blob, Blue Tongue

GDAA Award for best game of 2008

Finalists:

De Blob, Blue Tongue
MX vs ATV untamed, Tantalus

Winner : De Blob, Blue Tongue

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 24/11/08 - 4:51 PMPermalink

I believe that the awards are only for companies that are part of the GDAA. Which Krome and some others are not.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 24/11/08 - 1:26 PMPermalink

The games listed are the finalists in their category - there were many more that were nominated but weren't mentioned in the award ceremony (which is where I typed the info from).

For example, there were like six or seven entries in the Best unassigned game - indie category, but only three of them were listed as finalists. I'm sure the case was the same in all the other categories.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 22/11/08 - 6:15 PMPermalink

Good to see a studio brave enough deliver such a game.

Marty

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 22/11/08 - 10:15 PMPermalink

"De Blog"? LOL. What's the sequel gonna be called, De Facebook?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 23/11/08 - 10:13 PMPermalink

Souri,

The University of Ballarat student developed game is called 'Battle Scarred' :P

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 24/11/08 - 1:32 PMPermalink

Hey Souri, slightly off-topic, but are you going to be posting the vids you shot of various sessions?

Cheers,

Ed Orman

Submitted by souri on Mon, 24/11/08 - 1:48 PMPermalink

Hi Ed,

Unfortunately, I'm just about to start packing my luggage again because I'm flying off to Thailand and Laos tomorrow morning! I'm going to be gone until mid-December, just in time for the Modelling and Programmer challenge deadline. I'll be furiously encoding and uploading all the footage when I get back.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 05/12/08 - 1:38 PMPermalink

When we landed in Thailand, I saw the protestors forming outside the airport. They hadn't done enough to block things yet at that time. Anyway, they seem to be letting some flights in and out at the moment, so hopefully things will be fine when we need to fly out :X

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 24/11/08 - 3:03 PMPermalink

We had Puzzle Quest last year and de Blob this year - Australia is on a roll with some great games!
Congrats to Blue Tongue and THQ.

John P

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 25/11/08 - 3:03 PMPermalink

De Blob was a fantastic and innovative effort - congrats are definitely due. Great work Blue Tongue!

That said, where can we see the nomination list? Firemint, Torus and BlueTongue are the only companies that had finalists? I don't think Krome is a member of the GDAA, but no Pandemic or Creative Assembely or Infinite Interative or Team Bondi? Were there so few releases this year?

I'm sure De Blob would have swept the awards anyway, but the lack of variety is a little disappointing...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 25/11/08 - 11:12 PMPermalink

According to the GDAA web site, Pandemic and Team Bondi are not members. So unless those studios were prepared to cough up the $1000, I suppose they never entered the competition. Besides, Team Bondi would have to actually ship a game before they have any chance of winning a prize. ;)

As far as I know Infinite Interactive did not release a new game in 2008, so that explains their absence. Not sure why Creative Assembly didn't qualify though. They are GDAA members and they released "Viking: Battle for Asgard" in March 2008. Maybe the game was nominated but didn't make it to the finals?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 26/11/08 - 10:59 AMPermalink

Wow, that clears it up, thanks. Huh. I am less impressed with the GDAA than I was ten minutes ago.

All the same, congrats to De Blob!

Submitted by Yug on Mon, 01/12/08 - 4:11 PMPermalink

Actually you're not, but I felt like a catchy subject.

As someone who was actually one of the JUDGES this year, I can tell you some categories had lots of games to narrow things down, some didn't have many. I honestly don't know the process behind submitting a game to be nominated, though I'd be interested to find out.

As far as I've been told as well, it doesn't matter if you are a GDAA member or not - you can still submit your game for nomination. I'm unaware of how much is costs though, or the difference for a GDAA or non-GDAA member. $1000 sounds steep.

Notable non-GDAA members include Pandemic, Krome, Creative Assembly (they used to be though) ...

Think about it though. Pandemic (Brisbane) haven't actually released a game since Destroy all Humans 2 (PS2). Last game Sega Creative Assembly did was before Sega even bought them - the Total War expansion - Kingdoms. Everyone else is kinda working away on their next gen titles coming out early next year, so no - not many games this year from your bigger developers.

THQ only just joined the GDAA before the awards I think, as their new Avatar game on the Wii was on of the games we could choose.

Personally I thought the big one missing was Krome. The Force Unleashed, Scene It, Hellboy, Viva Pinata (maybe?), Jedi Battles ... I think it's dissapointing they weren't there, otherwise the nominations may have been a bit closer.

AustralianGamer.com
GamersEvents.com
Vurp.com

Coming soon - GameDamage.net (a new TV show starring Yug, Matt & Yahtzee)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/12/08 - 1:02 AMPermalink

I can confirm from a friend who works at THQ that the GDAA do indeed charge non-members upwards of $1000 per game per category for the privilege of submitting for the awards. Pretty steep alright! Apparently that's why THQ never bothered until they became members just this year. Well they sure timed it well with De Blob.

Yug, I totally agree with you about missing Krome. They are the biggest developer in Australia, for pete's sake! I wonder why they are not members?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/12/08 - 9:46 AMPermalink

Because they are the biggest is probably one of the main reasons they arn't members. GDAA simply cannot offer them any services that Walshy can't do himself by picking up a phone.

The majority of GDAA's services appear to be geared around promoting Australian developers to overseas publishers and assisting with sending devs over to US conferences to promote themselves.

It would be nice if they were members purely so they could be more included in community events, I'm sure there is a lot their staff could teach others and be tought themselves in turn.