game-developers-choice-online-awards posts

League of Legends was by far the big winner in Thursday night's first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards. Developer Riot Games' free-to-play RTS-action game won five awards during the ceremony held in Austin Texas as part of GDC Online.

The game won for Best Online Game Design, Best Online Visual Arts, Best Online Technology, Best New Online Game, and the Audience Award voted on by the public. Other winners included World of Warcraft which won the Best Community Relations award and Aion which won for Best Audio for an Online Game. Also, Social City got the Best Social Network Game award, and EVE Online got the nod for Best Live Game.

Earlier this year it was announced that the organizers of the Game Developers Choice Awards would launch a spin-off award honoring online-only games. Today the nominees for the inaugural Game Developers Choice Online Awards were announced with the winners to be revealed during GDC Online in Austin on October 7.

Riot Games' free-to-play online action-RTS game League of Legends got the most nominations in this first annual awards with five nods. Other games got three nominations each including Cryptic's super hero MMO Champions Online and Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online. In addition to the games nominated this year, there will also be an Audience Award where the general public will be able to nominate and vote for their favorite online game. Online voting for the Audience Award will begin in mid-September. The full list of awards and nominated games can be read after the jump:

The folks behind the Game Developers Conference recently renamed the GDC Austin event to GDC Online in order to reflect the conference's emphasis on online and MMO-based gaming. Today it was announced that GDC Online will also get its own award ceremony when it hosts the first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards on October 7.

An offshoot of the long running Game Developers Choice Awards that are held every year at GDC in San Fransisco, this new ceremony will honor games and developers specifically in the online game industry. MMO games, free-to-play titles and social networking games will all be eligible to win in a number of different categories. In addition there will be special awards naming one game to the GDC Online Games Hall of Fame as well as naming a developer to win the Online Game Legend Award. Nominations for the various categories are being taken at the awards' official web site.