The nominees for the 6th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have just been announced. Congrats and good luck to all those nominated.

I’ve certainly been vocal in the past about how great the Choice Awards are, and at times, how crap other game awards have been. Of note, is the Choice Awards’ focus on the people behind the games. I do believe the Choice Awards is the only awards program that actually names the people responsible for the work behind a game’s nomination. In fact, not providing attributions will get a game disqualified (as happened with one high-profile game last year).

While this has not gone over so while with some corporate muckymucks (who want to invariably push the company brand instead and not divulge the names of their best people), the more interesting aspect has been the reaction from developers themselves. For many it is a non-issue. We request the names and the names are provided. In other cases, it is the developers who are hesitant to take credit for work done via team effort (ie, like the Oscars, only four names can be attributed for each nomination, usually team leads/directors, and so not everyone can be listed). This is commendable, but sometimes it goes to the extent of not taking any credit at all (in case of not providing any attributions and forfeiting the nomination altogether)… Luckily, that didn’t happen this year.

Over the past six years, we’ve seen much less resistance to this approach. And, in fact, more and more studios are taking great care to ensure all the right folks are appropriately attributed.

Overall, I like to think this is a good thing. Perhaps if David Jaffe wins a few awards, he’ll get paid more ;)