GamesIndustry.biz is reporting the British Academy of Film and Television Arts has decided to postpone this year's announcement of its prestigious game awards for 2008 to March 10, 2009. The move is intended to avoid some of the timing issues with last year awards which required some games to be evaluated before they were done (at least one nominee wasn't even released until 2008). The postponement will also avoid conflict with the competing Golden Joystick awards, which last year were announced just a few days after the BAFTAs.

The only thing that's consistently more ham-handed and embarrassing than the writing in games is the writing about games. Unlike the latter, however, small glimmers of hope emerge every year with the few games that thought it wise to deliver engaging dialogue and thoughtful plotting. This year alone saw titles like Mass Effect, BioShock and Portal being praised for exceptional writing and the emotional heft it lent to gameplay.

Of course, none of those were nominated for the Writer's Guild of America's first ever Video Game Writing Award, but never mind. The winner to grace the stage during the Writer's Guild Awards held in Los Angeles on February 9, 2008, will be chosen from this list of witty nominees:

• Crash of the Titans -- Written by Christopher Mitchell for Sierra Entertainment
• Dead Head Fred -- Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan for D3 Publisher
• The Simpsons Game -- With lead writer Matt Selman, written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, dialogue by Jeff Poliquin for Electronic Arts
• The Witcher -- With lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, dialogue by Sebastian Stepien, additional dialogue by Marcin Blacha and writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole for Atari
• World in Conflict -- Story design by Christofer Emgard, story consultant Larry Bond and script consultant Ed Zuckerman for Sierra Entertainment.

A game's eligibility hinged on being released between Dec. 1, 2006, and Nov. 30, 2007, and credited writers must have been or applied to become members of the WGA's New Media Caucus. Though we're undecided about which game deserves to win, we're certain that highlighting and rewording the good righting in games are vary importent.

Last year's inexplicable granting of an Emmy Award to practically every game system ever invented apparently went so well that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) decided to dip its toes into gaming again this year. Last night's Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony at CES included a bevy of awards for "Engineering & Technology for Creation and Implementation of Video Games and Platforms." Just trips off the tongue, doesn't it?

The most notable winner was Nintendo, which got a coveted "game controller innovation" Emmy for its Wii and DS systems (because, really, why narrow it down to one? Since when have awards been about exclusivity?). Nintendo won a similar award for the NES d-pad last year, and used the repeat performance to talk up "even more exciting control innovations from Nintendo in 2008," such as Wii Balance Board and the Wii Wheel, in a press release. Color us skeptical that either of these will have the impact of the d-pad, but still ...

The other game-related awards given were notable mainly for their expansive view of video game history. Recent games like Second Life and World of Warcraft shared billing in their wins with classics like Quake and Pinball Construction Set in this year's awards. That's cool and all, but ATAS really showed its old-school gamer cred by giving a "Handheld Game Device Display Screen Innovation" award to the Atari Lynx, of all things. Way to keep up with the times, TV industry. Hey, how about, at our next awards show, we return the favor by giving special awards to All in The Family and "Color TV," the latter for "outstanding use of color in a cathode ray tube device." Wouldn't you all feel special then?

We'd also like to call out "The Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for Best Use of Commercial Advertising on Stand-Alone Broadband Devices (Personal Computers)," which should win its own award for "most amazingly specific award category in the history of mankind."

A complete list of 2007's game-related Emmy's below the break.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, has chosen Ken 'Krazy' Kutaragi as the recipient of the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Interactive Achievement Awards. The man behind that PlayStation thing (which we hear was really popular with you kids some years ago) will be honored on February 7th during a ceremony held at the Red Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, in conjunction with next year's D.I.C.E. Summit.

Though now retired (or "squeezed out" depending on who you ask), the former Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. president and CEO was instrumental in the creation and launch of the PlayStation brand, the importance of which cannot be overstated -- we'd be surprised (and disappointed) if you were reading this and haven't had some sort of PlayStation product pass through your hands. If we have to wonder what the gaming landscape would be like without Kutaragi's kontributions, we reckon he deserves a fancy trophy. At the very least, we'll get a great acceptance speech out of it.

[Thanks, ShortFuse]

Unlike in previous years, Madden is not nominated for "Game of the Year," so already you know it's more credible. BioShock, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, and Halo 3 appear on the list, making up the usual suspects that'll be appearing on many an outlet's GOTY ballots, but some more unexpected titles might be crashing the party -- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, Puzzle Quest: Challenge the Warlords, and Portal. One question though: why remove the Best Song category the one year there's a video game song worth celebrating?

For a full list of the nominees, would you kindly peer past the break?

Apologies to hasty readers who initially saw that as "Miyamoto makes out with Economist award." That isn't to say Nintendo's revered game designer is ungrateful to be in the company of an "Innovation Award for Consumer Goods," but his joy isn't likely to extend beyond a hearty smile, tinged with concern over just how many of these things that mantelpiece can support.

The UK publication announced its recognition of Shigeru Miyamoto's contribution to society at a ceremony held at London's Science Museum, reports MCV. Tom Standage, business editor at The Economist, added that when it comes to video games, Mario and his maker are quite unavoidable. "No one is more identified with modern video games than Shigeru Miyamoto," he said. "His pioneering vision and creativity truly created a new category of entertainment."

You won't catch us arguing with that. ('Specially not with the comments section activated.)

[Via DS Fanboy]

Video game writing is a mixed bag, running the gamut from the thoughtful story and dialogue of Bioshock to "wizard needs food badly." Still, no form of writing should be without its accolades, and it's encouraging to see the Writer's Guild of America finally calling attention to the often-thankless field of writing for video games.

The Guild's New Media Caucus has officially announced the Video Game Writing Award, which will first be presented in Los Angeles at the Writer's Guild Awards on February 9, 2008. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the award has been introduced to broaden the Guild's repertoire of acknowledged writing fields, as well as promote awareness of game writing as a craft, and hopefully raise the bar on the quality of game writing as well. No words yet on the nominees, but we can probably make a few guesses.

[Via Gay Gamer]

The good news for Sony: The PlayStation 3 has won another prestigious award for hardware design. The bad news: It has little to nothing to do with it's capabilities as a video game system.

The European Imaging and Sound Association's convergence panel has named the PS3 the best European media center for 2007/2008. The award description cites the systems audio/video/photo playback capabilities, included 60GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, ethernet, bluetooth and surround sound support and, most importantly, the Blu-ray disc player. Oh, and they also mention, almost as an afterthought, that the system is "of course a very advanced game console and a worthy heir to the grand PlayStation heritage."

We have to wonder how well Sony's convergent set top box would have done without its game-playing capabilities. Would consumers have been interested in an all-in-one TV entertainment center on its own merits, or are all these multimedia features just nice additions to a unit that's primarily meant for games. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

[Via PS3Fanboy]

We hope that Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, was happy when Joystiq gave Rock Band the Best in Show Award for E3, but just in case he wasn't, the Game Critics Awards also gave them the same award just to make sure. Rigopulos recently spoke to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal about their Game Critics award saying that they took a break from beta to polish off "several crates of champagne."

With all the delays lately, it's good to know that Rock Band is still on track for its holiday release. Rigopulos says all the major stuff is out of the way and they're just bug-fixing and polishing the game. He also believes that the music game genre has "finally arrived" and become a major mainstream category in games. Now we're just waiting to see if the mass produced versions of Harmonix's new guitar, mic and drum hardware (the prototypes at E3 worked well) hold up to the quality which Red Octane's guitars have -- ignoring those two weeks in April.

Sony Europe won the Grand Prix award at the UK-focused Develop Industry Excellence Awards held in Brighton, England for "capping 12 months which have seen the firm deliver a new hardware format that has inspired developers around the world to make cutting-edge next generation games." Sega won for being the industry's "Publishing Hero" and Motorstorm won "New Console IP accolades." And apparently, although we can't quite confirm this, the event was neither a roast, nor was the Hasty Pudding theatre company anywhere to be found.

A little less confusing is that Traveler's Tales won "Independent Developer" for their work with Lego Star Wars and Realtime Worlds won the "Innovation Award" for the "thrillingly original" Crackdown. (While we love us some Crackdown, nobody who isn't on their third glass of Cabernet is going to call it "thrillingly original.") But we shouldn't be so mean, the Develop Awards – judged by 100 "industry experts" – are focused on UK and Euro companies so the pool is intentionally narrowed. Check out the full list of those winners by following that Read link.

We haven't fully recovered from E3 2007 just yet, but in the final stages (there's 12, naturally) of recovery, we're told it's only proper to hand out awards for the best (and sometimes the worst) of what we saw in Santa Monica.

The nominations for this year's Game Critics Awards were given out on Monday and, next Monday, we'll learn who the final winners are in categories such as Best of Show and Best Original Game. For our first Joystiq E3 Awards, we've borrowed those two categories and made a bunch of our own.

So what did we like the most? Assassin's Creed, Metroid Prime 3, My Word Coach? Those were all great, but one title stood above the rest. The answers you seek lie after the break. Disclaimer: Any comments regarding Harry Potter were made prior to the release of the book and therefore do not necessarily reflect what happens in the book.

The official Independent Games Festival website is now open for submissions for a chance to win a spot to their 2008 awards in February at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). There are $50,000 in prizes up for grabs with a $20,000 grand prize. The deadline to enter the competition is Oct. 1 2007.

The IGF awards, which we've covered semi-live before, is the ever growing arena to get a feel for what today's up-and-coming developers are interested in. It's where we first get a feel for games like Castle Crashers and Darwinia. So, independent developers get cracking -- you've got three and a half months to put something award winning together.

[Via GameSetWatch]

Most people with minimal literacy skills know good writing when they see it. But some people, tragically, are unable to distinguish the good from the bad in games writing. For those tragically handicapped people, help is on the way in the form of Britain's Games Media Awards.

Sponsored by Intent Media (publishers of British trade mag MCV), the just-announced awards will be given out Oct. 11 in London's Soho Revue Bar (not exactly the Kodak Theatre, but you gotta start somewhere). A dozen awards will be presented for everything from print publications to podcasts with winners "voted by the industry itself" according to the press release. We can only hope this means the journalism industry and not the larger game industry as a whole. We can see the potential blackmail now: "Oh, look who gave my latest game a bad review. I guess I know who I won't be voting for at the GMAs this year."

Several different girl gaming networks and groups have pulled together a mass of games from different sites, forums, and other networks devoted to female gamers, and have put together this list of the final nominees. While they encourage female gamers to log in and vote, it doesn't look like they'll be screening for X or Y chromosomes at login.

We've recently been talking about developing and marketing games for females, and this is a great example of how to do that -- find out what they're playing, not tell them what they should be playing. However, in all honesty ... this looks like a list of games that could have been pulled together from sites populated by only male gamers. Further proving that the line between girl gamers and guy gamers is something created by PR and marketing, not the people who play the games.

Our advice? Open up the voting to everyone, but have them identify which sex they are (Austin Powers: "Yes, please!) from the outset. Once the awards are done, give us the winners, and show us how the demographics break down by sex, age, toothbrush color, favorite type of pizza, etc. That way the marketers will see we're all just playing games.

With Capcom's recent bitterness over the AIAS "snubbing," four Okami nominations and a Technology nod for Dead Rising should satiate their ego. We're also glad that Rayman Raving Rabbids, Dreamfall, and Sam & Max: Episode One are getting some much-deserved kudos.

The awards ceremony will occur Wednesday, March 7 at 6:30 p.m. and is being hosted by Tim "Psychonauts owns your soul" Schafer (also known for Monkey Island and Grim Fandango). The nominations are listed after the break.