Heavy Rain and Quantic Dream Win Big at the Develop Awards

In a ceremony at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Brighton Develop hosted its video game oriented awards, which reward the European gaming industry and the products and creators that represent it worldwide. The big winner of the night was the United Kingdom video game industry, which picked up most of the awards handed out, with the only outsiders breaking in being the team at Quantic Dream, which is headquartered in Paris, France, and the studio behind Angry Birds, Rovio, located in Helsinki.

Quantic Dream received recognition for its newest launch, Heavy Rain, a game that pushes against the boundaries of the video games medium, aiming to create a real emotional connection between the player and the characters that he encounters in the story. The company has recently said that it will not be working on more Heavy Rain content and that it is creating two new video games that will probably make use of the PlayStation Move motion tracking system from Sony.

Here's the full list of the companies and video games that got awards:

Creativity

Best New IP - Heavy Rain from Quantic Dream
Best New Download IP - Angry Birds from Rovio
Best Use of a Licence or IP - Batman: Arkham Asylum from Rocksteady Studios
Visual Arts - Split/Second from Black Rock Studio
Audio Accomplishment - DJ Hero from FreeStyleGames
Publishing Hero - Channel 4

Technology & Services

Technical Innovation - Unity Engine from Unity Technologies
Tools Provider - Hansoft
Engine - Unreal Engine 3
Audio Outsourcer - Side
Visual Outsourcer - Axis Animation
Recruitment Company - Amiqus

Studios

Best New Studio - Hello Games
Micro Studio - Hello Games
Handheld Studio - SCE Cambridge
Business Development - Sony XDev
In-House Studio - Rocksteady Studios
Independent Studio - Quantic Dream

Special Awards

Development Legend - Andrew Gower & Paul Gower from Jagex
Grand Prix - Unity Technologies