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Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet leads the nominees for the ninth annual Game Developers Choice Awards with seven nominations, organizers have revealed.
Number None’s Braid follows closely with five nominations. Among the nominations for LittleBigPlanet is the coveted Game of the Year award.
Other nominees for that category include Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead, each of which received a total of four award nominations; Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which earned a total of three nominations; and Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2. Winners will be honored at an awards show taking place during the 2009 Game Developers Conference.
The two leading nominees are celebrating a homecoming of sorts with their nominations for the Choice Awards. Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet made its debut during a keynote lecture at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, while Number None’s Braid was winner of the Innovation in Game Design award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival (IGF), which is also part of the Game Developers Conference.
Produced and hosted by Think Services’ Game Developers Conference and presented by Gamasutra.com and Game Developer Magazine, the Game Developers Choice Awards honors the developers of the best video games released during the previous calendar year, as well as awarding key figures from the video game community.
Other multiple nominees for this year’s event include such diverse and notable titles as EA Maxis’ Spore, 2D Boy’s World of Goo, Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 4, Epic Games’ Gears of War 2, and Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry 2. The complete list of nominees is:

[In the fifth of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures, sister site Gamasutra examines the Production Track, featuring talks from the Spore, Crysis Warhead and Fable II creators, as well as production analyses from BioWare Austin, Microsoft Game Studios, and Bungie.]
Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Gamasutra parent company Think Services) is set to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009 - with the important early registration deadline now imminent, and set for February 12.
With nearly 390 sessions now confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.
Fifth on the list is GDC's Production Track, which will look at "the game development process from the standpoint of running project nuances" and will offer "proven strategies for effective game production."
Notable highlights thus far announced for this track are as follows:

The 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, have named the recipients of two of its special awards, while also revealing that popular host of the 2007 Awards and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer is returning to present this year's Choice Awards.
Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, co-developers of a groundbreaking decade-plus long line of music games culminating in the Rock Band franchise, will receive the Pioneer Award for their work.
In addition, Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of the Video Games Live concert series and founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), will receive the Ambassador Award for helping to advance the game audio community.

[In the fourth of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures, presented by sister site Gamasutra, they examine the Programming Track, with newly added talks from the Killzone 2, Halo Wars, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves creators.]
Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Think Services) is set to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.
With nearly 280 sessions now confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.
Fourth on the list is GDC's Programming Track, which will focus on the "ever increasing challenge to produce games that capture the attention of the public and the media," as well as the opportunities presented by "mature consoles, new handhelds, a highly competitive sales environment, and increased demand for very high production values in games."
Notable highlights thus far announced for this track are as follows:

The organizers of the Casual Games Summit at the 2009 Game Developers Conference have revealed speakers and sessions for the two-day March summit, with notables from PopCap, EA/Pogo, Oberon Media, Playfirst and more discussing the state and future of casual games.
The GDC Casual Games Summit will take place on Monday and Tuesday, March 23rd and 24th, 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco as part of Game Developers Conference.
This always popular Summit returns to GDC with a broad range of topics that reflect the increasingly diversified casual games industry. CGS' theme for this year is based on the dueling business strategies from the book 'Blue Ocean Strategy', by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.
The makers of Bejeweled, Women’s Murder Club, Build-A-Lot, Fairy Godmother Tycoon, Diner Dash and more will evaluate opportunities and challenges of the Red Ocean (established markets, audiences, and players) and the Blue Ocean (newly recognized or created markets addressing new segments) approaches in casual games:

The organizers of the Game Developers Conference 2009 announced that ngmoco founder and CEO -- and former Electronic Arts executive -- Neil Young will provide this year's GDC Mobile keynote.
In his speech, titled "Why the iPhone just changed everything," Young will discuss Apple's platform and its effects on the mobile games industry.
Young's session summary describes the iPhone as "the most exciting innovation of the last year," and likens its launch to the introduction of industry-defining consoles like the Atari 2600, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Game Boy.

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the ten winners in the Student Showcase for its 11th annual awards, with games from three continents spanning ecological, paint-splattering and fantasy exercise games to be shown at GDC this year.
Chosen from a new record of 145 Student Showcase entries (up over 15% on last year's 125 entries), these games will go on to compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, to be awarded at the IGF Awards Ceremony on the evening of March 25th, 2009.
Some of this year's Student Showcase winners include CMU's 'active play' exercise-centered game Winds Of Orbis, quirky Danish first-person dish cleaning game Dish Washington (pictured), and ecological management puzzle game City Rain from Brazilian students.
Also honored are titles including USC's abstract painting game The Unfinished Swan and reality-manipulating German side scrolling shooter Zeit Squared: