GDC 2010 Pioneer Award Goes to Gabe Newell

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve Corporation, is the winner of this year’s Pioneer Award, which will be presented at the Game Developers Conference Awards ceremony in San Francisco in March 2010. This is the tenth annual awards celebration, but only the second presentation of the Pioneer Award, which is given to individuals credited with a major breakthrough in technology or game design that will clearly lead the way for future developers and designers. This year’s panel included gaming greats such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft). Newell was selected for the award for his work in co-creating the PC download service Steam, as well as helping to make some of the best games of the past decade (think everything included in The Orange Box) possible. Over 3,000 of the industry’s top developers will be present

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Opening Animation released for Shira Oka: Second Chances

We have been following Shira Oka since around 2007. We met up with Okashi Studios at Anime Expo and then following at GDC and I fell in love with the team and what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, because it’s a smaller studio, it’s taking them some time to get things going. Yesterday we received a New Year’s gift from the studio with some news and the opening sequence animation below. It looks like they are fixing things from last beta test and will be opening to more beta testers soon. Watch their blog here for upcoming details. Shira Oka: Second Chances is an anime-themed, single player game where the user gets to re-live their fate in high school and make choices on friends and loves. Enjoy the video!

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