I felt a bit tender on Friday morning…Thursday night was the second annual Games Media Awards in Camden, London. The event is run by those brilliant chaps and chapettes at Intent Media, who publish the gaming trade paper MCV and Develop.
Each year, the event will recognise and award the journalists, websites, broadcasts, magazines and special people who help make video game journalism awesome and also gives them an excuse to cut loose and have a Friday off (unlike some poor souls who had to work, where’s their award?)
After some pretty generous, but totally ruinous pre-festivities hosted by the wonderful folks at Sega, the event kicked off across the canal at Jongleurs comedy club. The editorial team at Edge magazine, never ones for doing things in halves, arrived on a canal barge in impressive but painfully slow style, well played guys, the Simpsons sea captain would be proud!
Nibbles and more free drink were the order of the day and the host, riotously funny Canadian comedian Tom Stade, kept things fun flowing nicely for the full house of 300 guests. After what seemed like an age, the events kicked off, so here we go with the all-important winners…
Best Specialist Games Writer (online) – Ellie Gibson, Eurogamer
Best Rising Star (sponsored by Rising Star Games) – Simon Miller, X360
Best Games Website – Eurogamer
Best Games Broadcast – Games Night on Xleague.tv
Best National Newspaper Games Coverage – The Guardian
Best Regional Games Columnist – Dave Cook, The Scotsman
Best Mainstream Magazine Writer (sponsored by Ubisoft) – Simon Munk, FHM
Best Specialist Games Writer (print) – Tom Francis, PC Gamer
Best Games Magazine – Edge
Games Media Legend – Steve Jarratt
Special mention to Steve Jarratt, truly a tour de force of the games media industry. Steve started out at the ace Commodore 64 mag Zzap! and has since made his name at some of the most successful mags in the business including Edge and Official Playstation magazine and has helped launched several publications which have gone on to do very well indeed.
Truly an excellent magazine which truly helped pave the way for British game journalism
Congrats Steve, you absolutely deserve it ๐
By the end of the awards, it was time for a bit of ‘networking’, which in no way means dancing like idiots to awful disco tunes (seriously). It was a great evening and it’s good to see the industry awarded in this way, particularly those working on small but hugely influential websites and publications, congratulations to all the winners!
Ann Scantlebury from ace gaming radio show One Life Left steals my award to barter for some Haribo Starmix – cheeky!
Roll on GMAs 2009!
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