gdc-online 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.

It's been an interesting summer for UTV True Games. The free-to-play game publisher was supposed to launch Mytheon with developer Petroglyph in July but later it was revealed that Petroglyph was no longer developing the title and True Games had taken over with plans to launch the title pushed back to sometime in 2011. The company also revealed plans for another internally-developed game, Faxion Online.

Now comes word that True Games has plans to announced yet another MMO game sometime during GDC Online on October 5-8. The game will be shown to media who tour the company's Austin, Texas headquarters during the event.

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.

While game industry members prepare for the mothership Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco next month, the show's organizers Think Services are already thinking ahead for the next event. Today they announced that GDC Austin, which has always concentrated on discussions of online gaming, has now been officially renamed GDC Online.

The event will still be held in Austin, Texas with the new version to be held on October 5-8. The newly renamed GDC Online will concentrate even more on online gaming, including MMO titles, social gaming and more. Submissions for the event will begin later this spring.