SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The CMP 2008 Game Developers
Choice Awards, the highest honors in game development acknowledging
excellence in game creation, have named the recipients of two of the
special awards. Electronic engineer Ralph Baer, known to many as the
"Father of Video Games" for inventing the first home video game system,
commercialized as the Magnavox Odyssey game system, will receive the
Pioneer Award; and Jason Della Rocca, Executive Director of the
International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society
committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game
developers, will receive the Ambassador Award.
Presented by CMP's Game Developers Conference (GDC) and Webby-award
winning Gamasutra.com, this year's awards ceremony, held in conjunction
with the Independent Games Festival, will be hosted on Wednesday, February
20, during GDC 2008 in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San
Francisco's Moscone Center. For complete details, please visit
http://www.gamechoiceawards.com.
The Pioneer Award celebrates those individuals responsible for
developing a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a
crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the myriad
developers who followed them. Ralph Baer, best known as the "Father of
Video Games," holds the pioneer patents covering both the method and
apparatus of video games. His work in the sixties resulted in the Magnavox
Odyssey game system, which was the first commercial home video game. His
early video game hardware already resides in such places as the Smithsonian
and the Japanese National Science Museum, and replicas are on display all
over the world.
"Ralph Baer invented video games. In the inaugural year of the Pioneer
Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards, it felt natural to bestow that
award on the man who established our entire industry," said Jamil Moledina,
executive director of the Game Developers Conference. "Ralph is an
inspiration to all who attend our conference, and we are proud to host this
opportunity for our attendees to recognize and thank the creator of their
vocation and art form."
The Ambassador Award honors an individual or group of individuals who
have helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through
facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside
the industry to be an advocate for video games to help further the art.
Jason Della Rocca's focus as executive director of the IGDA on connecting
developers with their peers, promoting professional development and
advocating on issues such as quality of life, creative freedoms, workforce
diversity and credit standards are qualities for which the Choice Awards
Advisory Committee are naming him this year's recipient.
This year, the editors of Gamasutra.com, newly in charge of award
management, worked in association with a distinguished Advisory Committee
that included Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), Raph Koster (Areae), Ray Muzyka
(BioWare), Ryan Lesser (Harmonix) and Brian Reynolds (Big Huge Games) to
pick the Special Award winners following audience nominations. The
Committee concurred with multiple developer nominations in deciding that
Della Rocca deserved this first-ever Ambassador Award.
"Jason Della Rocca continues to advocate for game developers on
multiple vital levels, from quality of life through crediting and beyond,"
said Simon Carless, publisher and editorial director of Gamasutra.com. "The
Advisory Committee felt it was high time to recognize him as a true
Ambassador to our industry."
For further information about the Choice Awards, please visit
http://www.gamechoiceawards.com. For further information about GDC and to
register for attendance, please visit http://www.gdconf.com.
Ralph H. Baer is an electronic engineer and engineering consultant with
nearly 60 years of hands-on engineering management and product licensing
experience. In the sixties and seventies Mr. Baer was the Chief Engineer
for Equipment design at Sanders Associates in Nashua, NH and later became
Sanders/Lockheed first Engineering Fellow. Mr. Baer has over 150 US and
foreign patents. He is probably best known as the "Father of Video Games"
and holds the pioneer patents covering both the method and apparatus of
video games. His work in the sixties resulted in the Magnavox Odyssey game
system, which was the first commercial home video game. His early video
game hardware already resides in such places as the Smithsonian and the
Japanese National Science Museum. Replicas are on display all over the map,
including German and German museums. Mr. Baer also spent the better part of
a decade in support of patent attorneys in pursuit of infringers of his and
his associates' patents and in the support and surveillance of licensees.
For over fifty years Mr. Baer has been active in both the commercial and
defense electronics development and production business; and in electronic
toy and game invention, design and licensing. Many well-known handheld
electronic toys such as Milton-Bradley's "Simon" came from his lab. His
home has been Manchester, New Hampshire for the past 48 years.
Jason Della Rocca is the executive director of the International Game
Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society committed to
advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers. Jason and
the IGDA focus on connecting developers with their peers, promoting
professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the
developer community -- such as quality of life, creative freedoms,
workforce diversity and credit standards. As the spokesperson for the IGDA,
Jason has appeared in countless news outlets (e.g., Wired, Nightline, LA
Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, G4, etc.) and has spoken at conferences
around the world (e.g., GDC, E3, TGS, SIGGRAPH, ChinaJoy, DiGRA, etc).
Jason has been a member of the game development community for over a
decade, and has spent time at Matrox Graphics, Quazal and Silicon Graphics.
He blogs at http://www.realitypanic.com and can be reached at
jason@igda.org.
About the Game Developers Conference (http://www.gdconf.com)
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world's largest
professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San
Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and
networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and
online games. The GDC attracts over 16,000 attendees, and is the primary
forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio
professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the
development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the
future of the industry. The GDC is produced by the CMP Game Group, a
division of CMP Technology.
About CMP (http://www.cmp.com)
CMP (http://www.cmp.com/) is a media and marketing solutions company
serving the technology industry. With the leading online, event and print
brands in all technology market categories, and with services and tools
that reach beyond traditional advertising, CMP shapes and influences the
technology industry worldwide. CMP publishes highly respected media brands
such as TechWeb, InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, CRN, EE Times and TechOnline;
produces major industry events such as Interop, Web 2.0 Expo, XChange, Game
Developers Conference and the Embedded Systems Conferences; and provides
business information and marketing services such as the International
Customer Management Institute, Semiconductor Insights and Second Life
consulting for technology marketers. CMP is a subsidiary of United Business
Media (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/), a global provider of news
distribution and specialist information services with a market
capitalization of more than $3 billion. For more CMP news, go to
cmp.com/news.
SOURCE CMP Game Group
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Related links:
http://www.gamechoiceawards.com
http://www.gdconf.com http://www.cmp.com
CONTACT:
Loria Ryan of CMP Game Group,
+1-415-947-6287, lryan@cmp.com; or Sibel Sunar,
sibel@fortyseven.com, or Brian Rubin, brian@fortyseven.com, both
of fortyseven communications, for CMP Game Group, +1-323-658-1200
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