Oculus Rift Wins NAVGTR Awards 2014

Oculus Rift wins NAVGTR Awards for 2014!

The NAVGTR Corp – for National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers – is a 501(c)(6) non-profit corporation devoted to promoting and recognizing the developments and achievements of the interactive entertainment industry for public awareness and education.

The NAVGTR Award winners were selected from a giant list of nominees that featured Sony, which had 50. The full list of nominees was announced at a ceremony held during International CES 2014 Las Vegas. They were introduced by Kate-Madonna Hindes of girlmeetsgeek.com, the presenters were Tish Trotter of Geek Smash, Larry Hester of Complex Media, Marshall Honorof of Laptop Magazine, and Ivo Lukas of Huffington Post.

The nominees as determined by a group of 815 press voters in 54 competitive categories were announced for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show with 97 registered media guests. The recipients for two honorary awards were also announced. For a complete list of categories and nominees, visit http://navgtr.org

The leader in nominations (17) is The Last of Us, followed by Bioshock: Infinite with twelve. Other highlights include four actresses dominating a performance category, five new gaming platforms in the Innovation (Technology) category, six nominations for the 1989 throwback DuckTales Remastered, eight nominations for Studio Ghibli’s first video game Ni No Kuni, two Roman era games nominated for costumes, and only one next-gen game (Black Flag) in the Graphics, Technical category.

Small budget nominees include Antichamber, The Stanley Parable, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, Gone Home, Jungle Rumble, Propinquity, Monaco, Slayin, High Strangeness, and Depression Quest.

With 21 nominations, Ubisoft is the most-nominated development company this year. Sony development houses are close behind with 18 nominations, followed by Naughty Dog’s 17 nods.

By publisher, Sony leads with 50 nominations, about one-fifth of all nominations. Other totals are 29 for Nintendo, 22 each for Ubisoft and 2K Games, 15 for Capcom, 13 for Electronic Arts, 12 for Microsoft Studios, 9 each for Namco Bandai and Telltale Games, 8 each for Disney and Square Enix, 7 for Deep Silver, and 6 for Warner Bros.

Journey beat Boarderlands 2, Far Cry 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Torchlight II and The Walking Dead for the prize.

For ‘Best Animation’ Dust: An Elysian Tail beat Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Assassin’s Creed III, Borderlands 2, Karateka, and Max Payne 3.

The nominees for GAME OF THE YEAR are:

· Battlefield 4

· Bioshock: Infinite

· Grand Theft Auto V

· The Last of Us

· The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

· Super Mario 3D World

· Tomb Raider

Creative and technical award categories recognize achievement in animation, art direction, character design, control design, control precision, game design, game engineering, musical score, sound effects, writing, and more.

Selected categories include:

CONTROL DESIGN, 2D OR LIMITED 3D

Badland

Civilization V: Brave New World

Dragon’s Crown

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

Rayman Legends

INNOVATION IN GAME TECHNOLOGY

iPad Air

Oculus Rift Development Kit

Ouya

PlayStation 4

Xbox One

LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A DRAMA

Troy Baker as “Joel,” The Last of Us

Kezia Burrows as “Nilin,” Remember Me

Camilla Luddington as “Lara Croft,” Tomb Raider

Ashley Johnson as “Ellie,” The Last of Us

Ellen Page as “Jodie Holmes,” Beyond: Two Souls

Winners will be announced February 17.

Honorary awards will be given to Mark Cerny for his role shepherding developer-friendly hardware architecture in PlayStation products, as well as to Anita Sarkeesian for exhaustive research of game tropes in “Damsel in Distress,” a YouTube series.

Stay tuned.