‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ Wins Four Awards At 2012 GDC Online

Perhaps there really is a silver lining in every cloud after all. After taking a thrashing financially, losing close to one million subscribers in 2012, MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic finally has something to cheer about. Bioware’s flagship title won four major Game Developers Choice Online Awards over the weekend.

Star Wars: The Old Republic was nominated for a total of six awards and took home the trophy for Best Game Design, Best Online Visual Arts, Best Online Technology, and Best New Online Game. The awards were presented at the 2012 Game Developers Conference Online after voting earlier in the year.

The other big winner at the GDC Online was League Of Legends. The popular title from Riot Games was victorious in three categories including Best Community Relations, Best Live Game, and the Audience Award. (The highly prized Audience Award is the only award at the GDC Online voted on by the gaming public. The other awards were voted on by game developers from the online gaming industry.)

This year’s awards heralded a significant break through for social gaming. Zynga’s massively popular title Draw Something not only won the award for Best Social Network Game, but it was nominated for the Best New Online Game award. Several other social games were also nominated for awards including The Sims Social from Playfish, Zynga’s CastleVille, and Zynga’s Empires and Allies.

Conspicuous in its absence was the outstanding new MMORPG Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately for publisher NCsoft, Guild Wars 2 was released in late August 2012, and all the votes were counted by July. Guild Wars 2 will just have to wait until 2013 to receive all the accolades and awards that many writers and gamers are already predicting it will win.

Here is a complete list of all the winners of the 2012 GDC Online Awards:

Best Live Game: League of Legends(Riot Games)

Best New Online Game: Star Wars: The Old Republic(BioWare Austin)

Best New Social Network Game: Draw Something(OMGPOP/Zynga)

Best Online Technology: Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin)

Best Audio for an Online Game: Diablo III (Blizzard Entertainment)

Best Online Visual Arts: Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin)

Best Community Relations: League of Legends (Riot Games)

Best Online Game Design: Star Wars: The Old Republic(BioWare Austin)

Audience Award: League of Legends (Riot Games)

Online Innovation Award: Journey (thatgamecompany)

Hall of Fame award: World of Warcraft(Blizzard Entertainment)

Online Game Legend Award: Raph Koster