This years awards at GDC 2011 like the previous years were many and varied. Of the awards given out it seems that Red Dead Redemption and Mine Craft cleaned house. As reported today by The Independent, Red Dead Redemption took home Best Audio, Best Game Design, Best Technology, and it’s well deserved title Game of the Year.
Continuing on with what the independent calls a “rag to riches” story, and honestly the dream of many gamer/independent programmer was the awards given to Mine Craft. It was given Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, and an Innovation Award.
I’m sure you’ve heard us rant about Mine Craft before, the game is barely to beta and has sold 1.5 million Downloads at 10 or so Euros a shot. It’s original, exciting, fun, and in my opinion deserves all the awards it received at GDC. It could be the overall soft spot for independent content making it big, or it could be the fact that for 10 Euros I had a great time creating and running around an open world, seeing gorgeous user created content, and just digging up the world looking for ore.
I could rant for days but in lieu of showing the fanboy that I really am for both these titles I will simply say that I think the folks at GDC made a great decision on these awards.