Splatoon wins 2 awards, Iwata honored with lifetime achievement at Golden Joystick Awards

30 October 2015: Today, the 33rd annual Golden Joystick Awards, honoured the very best in international gaming at a lavish ceremony at the indigO2 at London’s O2 Arena, and once again demonstrated why it is the biggest award show in the world of gaming.

With over 9 million votes cast, this is the only gaming award ceremony in the world voted for by the gamers themselves. This years big victor was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Picking up a massive five awards for Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Best Gaming Moment and the evening’s main award - Ultimate Game of the Year. Additionally CD Projekt RED, the studio behind the game, picked up Studio of the Year.

On The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Daniel Dawkins, Future’s Editor-in-chief of games, said “In what has been an incredibly close year across all of the categories, The Witcher 3 has claimed an amazing five awards; which is testament to the quality of its staggering 150 hour duration – the same length as the box sets of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead combined – where the player's focus rarely dips"

Grand Theft Auto was the other big winner, picking up four awards for Best Multi-Player for its online version, the introduction of the first-person mode in GTA 5 won Innovation of the Year, which also won Best PC Game and the PlayFire Most Played Award. Action role-player, Bloodborne, won Best Original Game as well as Best Playstation Game. The independently developed platform adventure game Ori and the Blind Forest won Best Audio and Best Xbox Game. Fun third-person shooter Splatoon won Best Family Game and Best Nintendo Game. The Fallout franchise picked up Best Mobile Game for Fallout Shelter and Fallout 4 was voted the Most Wanted Game - an accolade won last year by The Witcher 3!

Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo CEO who sadly died in July this year at the age of 55, was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award. A revered man of the gaming industry, Satoru was the driving force behind many of Nintendo’s products including the Wii and DS, and is credited for bringing gaming to the masses by making it family entertainment. Starting out as a programmer in the 1980’s for a subsidiary of Nintendo, he became president in 2002, the first outside of the company's founding family. He was renowned for first and foremost being a gamer and was described as “... having the brain of a game developer and the heart of a gamer”. His contribution and impact on modern gaming is second to none.

Elsewhere in proceedings, Kerbal Space Program won Best Indie Game. PewDiePie’s 40 millions subscribers ensured he once again picked up the Gaming Personality Award. eSports Icon went to Counter-Strike GO’s Anders Blume. Ashly Burch was honoured with Best Gaming Performance as Chloe in Life is Strange. Sam Barlow’s independently produced Her Story won the inaugural Breakthrough Award, and Steam was once again Best Gaming Platform.

Daniel Dawkins, says, “This year's Golden Joystick Awards are the most diverse yet, with AAA blockbusters and lo-fi indie games competing head-to-head, from Batman: Arkham Knight to Her Story; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to Life is Strange. We're delighted that people voted in their millions to recognise the games, platforms and people they love, as this vibrant industry broadens and evolves".

“Also a special mention for our first-ever Critics' Choice Award which was incredibly closely-contested – with the winner being decided by a single vote – but Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain united critics in praise of its imagination, depth and exemplary mechanics.”

Declan Gough, Future’s Head of Content & Marketing, Film, Games & Music, says, “The Golden Joystick Awards have once again demonstrated the depth and remarkable innovation of the video gaming world. The awards have been a triumph, not only for Future and the gaming industry, but also the gamers who have voted in their millions to make sure their voice is heard. We look to the 2016 awards with huge excitement in the knowledge that the next 12 months is full of incredible games - and they are only the one’s we know about!”

This years awards were hosted by Danny Wallace.

The full list of winners are...

Best Original Game sponsored by GamesRadar+ - Bloodborne
Best Storytelling - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Best Visual Design sponsored by 3D World - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Best Audio sponsored by DTS - Ori and the Blind Forest
Best Multi-Player - GTA Online
Best Indie Game sponsored by PC Gamer Weekender - Kerbal Space Program
Best Family Game - Splatoon
Best Mobile Game - Fallout Shelter
Innovation of the Year sponsored by techradar - First-person mode in GTA 5
Best Gaming Moment sponsored by Absolute Radio - Bloody Baron quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Gaming Personality sponsored by Kotaku UK - PewDiePie
eSports Icon sponsored by Gfinity - Counter-Strike GO - Anders Blume
Studio of the Year sponsored by Hype (Edge Conference) - CD Projekt RED
Best Gaming Platform sponsored by Digital Spy - Steam
Best Gaming Performance - Ashly Burch as Chloe in Life is Strange
Best PlayStation Game sponsored by Official PlayStation Magazine - Bloodborne
Best Nintendo Game sponsored by Gamesmaster Magazine - Splatoon
Best PC Game sponsored by PC Gamer - GTA 5
Best Xbox Game sponsored by Official Xbox Magazine - Ori and the Blind Forest
Most Wanted Game sponsored by The Sun - Fallout 4
Ultimate Game of the Year - Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Lifetime Achievement - Satoru Iwata
Playfire Most Played - GTA 5
Critics Choice - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Breakthrough Award - Her Story