Portal won Game of the Year at the eighth annual Game Developers Choice Awards as video gamemakers heaped laurels on the action puzzle.

The game was created by DigiPen Institute of Technology students in 2005 and released as an independent game. It was voted the best video game, and took home awards for innovation and design excellence at the awards late Wednesday.

The Game Developers Choice Awards stand out from other game industry prizes by being open to all games of a calendar year and by recognizing the individual developers behind each celebrated game, said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference.

The recipients of the 8th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:

2007 Best Game Design

Portal (Valve)

Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham

2007 Best Visual Art

BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)

Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James

2007 Best Technology

Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts)

Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring

2007 Best Writing

BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)

Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, Joe McDonagh, Susan O'Connor

2007 Best Audio

BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)

Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins

2007 Best Debut

Crackdown (Real Time Worlds / Microsoft Game Studios)

Ramon Gonzalez, Violetta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Jose Guerra

2007 Innovation

Portal (Valve)

Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

2007 Best Handheld Game

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo / Nintendo)

Eiji Aonuma

2007 Best Downloadable Game

Flow (thatgamecompany / Sony Computer Entertainment)

Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards,

Nick Clark

2007 Game of the Year

Portal (Valve)

Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

Recipients for the evening's special awards were:

Lifetime Achievement Award

Sid Meier

Pioneer Award

Ralph Baer

Ambassador Award

Jason Della Rocca

The Game Developers Conference is expected to attract over 16,000 game e developers will run up to Feb. 22.

See full GDC coverage here:

https://www.ibtimes.com/coverage/gdcsf2008/

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