Special Award Nominee Eligibility
Nominees for the Special Awards (Lifetime Achievement, Pioneer, Ambassador) are not eligible if they have previously won the equivalent Special Award.
Regular Award Nominee Eligibility
All awards are for the 2007 calendar year.
Any video game which was initially released, and made publicly available to consumers, during the year 2007, irrespective of platform or delivery medium, is eligible for nomination. Upgrades, expansions and mission packs are not eligible.
The following resources can assist in jogging your memory (these resources are provided as reference aids only, and may not be exhaustive):
- GameRankings: 2007's best-reviewed games (select 'Date Range' to be '2007 Releases', Limit Results to '200 Results'.)
- MobyGames: Games released in 2007 browser
- Wikipedia: List of PlayStation Network games, List of Xbox Live Arcade games,
- Game-Sales-Charts: Lists of top PC casual games by sales.
Award Nominator Eligibility
All professional game developers who are part of Gamasutra.com's member list are eligible to provide nominations, both for the Special and Regular Awards. Choice Awards organizers will vet the profiles of those nominating to ensure that the nominating parties are indeed game development professionals. If you are not a member of Gamasutra.com, please sign up to via the Gamasutra.com join page to participate.
Nomination Costs
The Game Developers Choice Awards are about peer recognition and rewarding excellence and innovation in games: there are no fees or costs associated with making nominations.
Special/Regular Award Nomination Process
During the nomination period, any person meeting the above eligibility can come to the Choice Awards web site to submit their nominations. The first set of nominations will be for the Special Awards, followed by Regular Awards nominations. Note that it is not necessary to make a nomination for each category. Nominations for the same game or person in different categories is allowed. You cannot nominate the same game in the same category more than once - any duplicate submissions will be ignored.
Regular Award Finalist Selection Process
Once the nomination process closes, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee will help select the five finalists in each category. Though the committee has some minor discretion to add its own nominations, the list of games nominated during the open process will largely inform and inspire their selections. The winners of the Regular Awards are then voted by the final voting body, including the Advisory Committee but a large amount of additional voters from the Gamasutra.com member database.
The winners for the Lifetime Achievement, Pioneer and Ambassador awards are also determined by the Advisory Committee, following nominations from the public. In this case, the Committee will take all nominations into account, but will vote independently on the winners of each category.
Voter Eligibility
After nominations, the final voting body will be algorithmically selected from those people in the Gamasutra.com member database who participated in nominations. The algorithm will "level out" over representation from any one company, something additionally backed up by hand vetting of voters. The use of algorithmic selection and a closed voting process avoids the issue of keen nominees overloading the polls during the voting process, large companies paying their way into a voting block, and other abusive voting tactics.
Voting Process
The final voting process is not an open process. Voting is done on an "approval" basis. This means that a voter can select as many or as few of the finalists in each category as they like (including all or none). Each final voter will only be allowed to vote once.
Award Recipients/Attributions
The game with the most votes in a category receives the given award. Award categories are attributed in the following manner:
- Best Game: lead designer, executive producer, studio head
- Innovation: creative leads
- Debut Game : studio head, studio founder
- Audio: audio director, audio designer
- Game Design: creative director, lead designer
- Technology: tech director, lead programmer
- Visual Arts: art director, lead artist
- Writing: lead writer
- Downloadable: lead designer, executive producer, studio head
- Handheld: lead designer, executive producer, studio head
Further, each nominated game will be listed with the development studio and publisher company names. For example: Best Game ActionFest2 (DeveloperX/PublisherY) - John Smith, Mary Jane, Joe Johns
Nominated games must provide the names of the developers assuming the above roles. If developer names are not provided, the game will be disqualified and replaced by another finalist.
The recipients for the Lifetime Achievement, Ambassador and Pioneer awards are determined by the Choice Awards Advisory Committee. These special awards are presented to the individuals being recognized.