According to Xbox mouthpiece Major Nelson (he’s been really prolific with his posts today!), over one million Xbox LIVE users voted on your favourite Xbox LIVE Arcade games of 2009, from games like Trials HD and Splosion Man, to Battlefield 1943 and Shadow Complex, in categories such as ‘Best Original Game,’ ‘Best Graphics’ and ‘Best Innovation.’

The results of the voting follows below:

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[Update] You can now watch the entire Independent Games Festival awards ceremony below. [End of Update]

The 12th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) awards winners were announced last night after the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, honouring indie game developers with the recognition, and hard cold cash, that they so rightly deserve.

Taking top honours for the night was a game by the name of Monaco, “a 4-player co-op crime caper inspired by classic French heist movies and set in modern day Monte Carlo,” which received the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and $20 000 for the development team’s efforts.

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During a ceremony hosted by the one and only Tim Schafer, The Game Developers Choice Awards, the best games of 2008 were acknowledged by all those attending the event.

The Game Developers Choice Awards are honours given to game developers, by game developers, voted and chosen by fellow members of the game development industry and community.

The Indie Games Festival awards are also voted on and chosen by experienced professional game developers, and recognise exciting and outstanding achievements in the independent side of the game development industry.

Without further ado, here are the winners, first looking at the Indie Games Festival:

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The awesome 2D side-scrolling arcade brawler, Castle Crashers, has won the Xbox LIVE Arcade Game of the Year award, as voted on by 185 000 members of Xbox LIVE.

Castle Crashers also won Best Original Game and Best Co-Op Mode. Congrats to The Behemoth! Look below for the full list of winners in this year’s Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards, for games released in 2008:

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It’s official: Insomniac Games was recently named one of “California’s Best Places to Work” in the latest Employers Group survey, ranking number five in the roundup - the only videogame company to make the list in a state that can safely be called the ‘Hollywood of Gaming.’

This award represents Insomniac’s eighth ‘best workplace’ honour since 2005, despite what must have been torturous development cycles over the years, working on Resistance, moving straight onto work on Ratchet and Clank Future, and then Resistance 2 and Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, while simultaneously opening its new North Carolina studio. Wow.

Additionally, to mark and celebrate their upcoming 15th anniversary, all of Insomniac’s employees (and partners) are going on a cruise to the Bahamas. That doesn’t begin to explain the company perks you get if you work at Insomniac, as the following cheesy video will demonstrate (yes, it’s old, but still kinda funny… kinda).

Congrats, Insomniac!

That’s right, starting March 3rd, the Second Annual Xbox LIVE Arcade Awards will give you the chance to cast your vote for the games (released on Xbox LIVE Arcade) you think are worthy of winning an award in a variety of categories, from ‘Best Overall Arcade Game’ and ‘Best Original Game’, to ‘Best Co-Operative Multiplayer Game’ and ‘Best Solo Game’, and more.

Brush up on how to cast your votes over here, and then get voting on March 3rd.

The full list of categories and nominations follows below:

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The legendary founder of the legendary Atari (in its initial form in the 70’s), as well as the man behind Pong, Nolan Bushnell is to receive the prestigious Fellowship award from BAFTA at this year’s British Academy Video Game Awards in March. Bushnell said:

“I am humbled to be selected for this honour from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

“The British people are not only great game players but have historically been some of the best game creators. The pub culture and country house drawing room environments have been instrumental in spawning games and game players through the centuries.

“I am very grateful to receive an award from the people with a history of creating and embracing this type of entertainment.”

The Jim Henson Honors have recognised the work of Shigeru Miyamoto and the technological advances of EA’s Spore with an award each.

The Jim Henson Honors, says Jim Henson’s son, Brian Henson, are awarded to recipients who show “true creativity and commitment to innovation… They have raised the bar in their respective fields.” The program was founded in 2005 and “acknowledges organizations, individuals or products that reflect the core values and philosophy of Jim Henson and the company he founded.”

The Jim Henson Celebration Honor, the highest award, was given to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto for his previous work as well as the re-ignition of “America’s love for gaming with the creation of Nintendo’s hugely popular Wii console.”

The Jim Henson Technology Honor was given to Spore for its creative, ground-breaking technology. Other Jim Henson Honors include The Jim Henson Community Honor and the The Jim Henson Creativity Honor, this year won by The Center for Puppetry Arts Distance Learning Center and Shepard Fairey respectively.

Previous recipients of Jim Henson Honors include former Vice President Al Gore author JK Rowling and British entrepreneur Richard Branson.

As evidenced by the multitude of videos posted below, the Spike TV Video Game Awards were held last night, which not only served as a platform to see some new gameplay footage from the most anticipated, upcoming games, but also acted as the stage to actually hand out awards to honour great achievements in the videogame world.

Hosted by Jack Black this year, the awards were bestowed upon the those games that the judges thought were worthy of being called ‘The Best’ of 2008. What were those games? Well, click below to find out!

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The Develop Industry Excellence Awards is apparently the only event that rewards Europe’s leading game development houses. Now in its sixth year, the Develop Awards 2008 stuffed 600 industry professionals into a hall to recognise some top game development talent.

Frontier Developments, headed by David Braben (known for Elite), won the Best New IP prize for Lost Winds on WiiWare. Traveller’s Tales took the Best Use of a License prize for Lego Indiana Jones, while Realtime Worlds (Crackdown) won the Business Development prize. Top studios include Splash Damage (Best Independent developer), Kuju’s DoubleSix (Best New Studio) and IdeaWorks3D (Best Mobile Studio).

Rockstar North, however, were the biggest winners, walking away with 3 awards; Visual Arts and Audio Accomplishment (GTA IV) and Best In-House Developer, as well as the Grand Prix awarded to Rockstar Games, Rockstar North’s parent company.

Other awards included the Publishing Hero award (won by Nintendo), Best Tools Provider (taken by Epic Games for Unreal Engine 3), Best Recruitment Firm (OPM), Best Services firm (awarded to Babel Media), Creative Outsourcing King (to Richard Jacques Studio) and the inaugural Games:Edu New Talent Award (won by University of Abertay & Dare to be Digital).

The Game Critics Awards have announced their ‘Best of E3’ finalists.

The Game Critics comprise “an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry.” That group goes around handing out awards for video games based either on fully released code or based on hands-on preview code available at trade shows, such as E3.

The nominees for ‘Best of Show’ this year include Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, LittleBigPlanet, Mirror’s Edge and Spore (again). The full list is on The Game Critics website. The winners will be announced August 5th.

Source: www.gamecriticsawards.com