High-Profile Judges Announced for 10th Annual Independent Games FestivalOctober 1st Deadline to Enter Prestigious Event; $50,000 in Prizes on OfferPRNewswire SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Organizers of the Independent Games Festival (IGF) have announced the full line-up of judges for the 10th annual IGF competition. High-profile journalist N'Gai Croal of Newsweek and leading indie game creators Derek Yu (Aquaria) and Don Wurster (Small Arms) are among those joining the roster this year. The complete line-up includes more than 40 judges, many of whom are returning for the fourth or fifth time to help evaluate this year's entries. Winners will be announced at the IGF ceremony, February 20, 2008 during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. All finalist games will be playable on the GDC show floor, and an Independent Games Summit will once again take place alongside the main conference. For more information, please visit http://www.igf.com/. "We are excited to be adding further indie-centric journalists and leading independent game creators to the growing list of experts supporting the IGF mission," said Simon Carless, Chairman, Independent Games Festival. "For nine years the IGF has been the launching pad for innovative titles from smart independent developers, and we're looking forward to continuing that trend." The 2008 IGF Main Competition is open to all independent developers to submit their games -- whether on PC, console, digital download, Web browser, or other more exotic formats. The prizes for the 2008 event total nearly $50,000, including the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. The deadline to enter the Main Competition is Monday, October 1st, 2007. The 2008 IGF Student Competition will once again award the best student games, and this year will also include student 'mods' to existing games. As a result, the number of Student Showcase winners has been increased to 12. The deadline to enter the Student Competition is Monday, October 15th, 2007. New judges to this year's roster include:
-- ThatGameCompany's Kellee Santiago, co-creator of Fl0w
-- Big Huge Games' Brian Reynolds
-- Neversoft co-founder and Game Developer columnist Mick West
-- Games For Windows magazine's Darren Gladstone
-- Newsweek's N'Gai Croal
-- Gastronaut's Don Wurster, co-creator of XBLA title Small Arms
-- Bit-Blot's Alec Holowka and Derek Yu (also of TIGSource), co-creators
of 2007 IGF Grand Prize-winning Aquaria
-- Fuel Industries' Brian Robbins
-- MTV News' Stephen Totilo, veteran journalist
-- SuperVillain Studios' Chris Rausch, indie-centric developer of Dungeon
Siege: Throne of Agony
-- Number None, Inc.'s Jonathan Blow, developer of 2006 IGF award winner
Braid
The journalistic and content-centric contingent for this year's judging panel includes: -- Wired's game editor Chris Baker -- Joystiq's Chris Grant -- Wonderland Blog and Channel 4's Alice Taylor -- Kotaku's Brian Crecente -- Joystick Nation author JC Herz. Independent game stalwarts returning to the judging panel this time include: -- Raigan Burns, previous IGF prize-winner with N -- Indygamer editor Tim W. Other notable 'mainstream' game industry judges returning this year: -- Sony and Ubisoft veteran Mark DeLoura -- Foundation9's Chris Charla -- Nihilistic's Mark Cooke -- Midway's Richard Rouse III About the CMP Game Group (http://www.cmpgame.com/) The CMP Game Group delivers essential information and enables community within the game industry through events, services, and media. The group's flagship products include the Game Developers Conference and the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com. For more information, please visit http://www.cmpgame.com/. About CMP CMP (http://www.cmp.com/) is a media and marketing solutions company serving the technology industry. With the leading online, event and print brands in all technology market categories, and with services and tools that reach beyond traditional advertising, CMP shapes and influences the technology industry worldwide. CMP publishes highly respected media brands such as TechWeb, InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, CRN, EE Times and TechOnline; produces major industry events such as Interop, Web 2.0 Expo, XChange, Game Developers Conference and the Embedded Systems Conferences; and provides business information and marketing services such as the International Customer Management Institute, Semiconductor Insights and Second Life consulting for technology marketers. CMP is a subsidiary of United Business Media (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion. For more CMP news, go to cmp.com/news. SOURCE: CMP Game Group CONTACT: Craig Sinel, craig@fortyseven.com, or Sibel Sunar, |