The Ambassador Award honors an individual or 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 and help further our art.

9th annual Game Developers Choice Awards (2009)

Tommy Tallarico

Tommy is the founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), which is a non-profit organization formed in 2002, and tasked with educating on interactive audio by providing information, instruction, resources, guidance and enlightenment not only to its members, but to content providers and listeners throughout the world.

In addition, Tallarico, who has created music for games over the past 18 years, from Earthworm Jim through Sonic & The Black Knight, co-founded Video Games Live, a public concert series started in 2005 which features music from notable video games performed by top orchestras and choirs around the world. The concert show has been performed worldwide to hundreds of thousands of people, from the Hollywood Bowl to major venues in Europe, Asia and South America, and continues to raise the profile of game music as an art form in its own right.

 

8th annual Game Developers Choice Awards (2008)

Jason Della Rocca

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.