14 DAY TRIAL // The MCV Industry Excellence Awards are United Kingdom's highest honors when it comes to the videogames industry. They are awarded each year to gaming companies in a range of categories designed to paint a picture of the state of the gaming in the United Kingdom. The prizes were awarded in London and a lot of big names got a piece of the MCV Industry Excellence Awards.
This year's event saw Nintendo as the big winner, in what many saw as a repeat of last year's ceremony. The prizes for best games publisher, best PR team of a gaming company and best marketing team of a videogame company all went home to Nintendo, again (the trek to Japan is really long). The company also received a Grand Prix, a special award that recognizes the contribution that the company, through such products as the Nintendo Wii or the DS, made to the games market in the United Kingdom in the last year.
The judges of the awards, including more than a hundred personalities from the fields of game retail, game development and game marketing, also offered recognition to Codemasters, as England's premier game developer, Ubisoft, as the best sales team that operates on the island, and the now famous Cooking Mama, from 505, in the Sales Triumph category of the night. The casual and independent game was noted for the way it exploited marketing niches and word of mouth to achieve an unexpected sales success.
Industry giant Electronic Arts took home the prize for Trade Marketing Team, while Assassin's Creed, from French developer Ubisoft, was named as the best New Game Brand of last year. The effort to promote Halo 3 in which Microsoft offered the money and organization muscle, while Bungie offered the ideas, was named the best promotion campaign for a videogame.
The awards were a clear sign of the importance that the videogame industry has in England.