Journey wins GameCity Prize
Second year of arts prize to celebrate videogames - Fez also highly commended by judges - Judges from a wide range of cultural backgrounds - www.gamecity.org
Wednesday 24 October: Journey, from US indie developer thatgamecompany, has today been announced as the winner of the second GameCity Prize, an award that aims to celebrate videogames as a cultural artform. The announcement was made at GameCity7 in Nottingham, as part of Europe’s biggest annual videogame culture festival.
A PlayStation 3 game, Journey is an anonymous online adventure that allows the player to experience a person’s life passage and their intersections with others. The player controls a robed figure who wakes alone in a vast desert and journeys towards a distant mountain, through rolling sand dunes, age-old ruins, caves and howling winds. The experience is discovering who and where you are and what your purpose is. Other un-named players are discovered on the same journey who can assist but not communicate via speech or text – only through wordless singing which creates magic powers affecting the game world and allowing the player to fly. The music, composed by Austin Wintory, responds to the player's actions.
The game evokes a sense of smallness and wonder and creates an emotional connection between anonymous players. It has been called ‘beautiful and haunting’ (Wired) and ‘absolutely gorgeous’ (gaming magazine The Escapist) with the Guardian saying, ‘it manages more meaningful communication with one button than most can with endless text and voice.’ Journey is the last game made under a three-game contract between thatgamecompany and Sony, the first two being Flow and Flower.
Jenova Chen, President & Creative Director, thatgamecompany, comments, “I really like the goal of GameCity, to get people to notice games and talk about games, particularly for people who don't encounter many video games in their daily life. Thatgamecompany has always focused on making games for everyone, so it's nice to see GameCity recognize our game and give us an award. In the end, we believe that games are a mature media that deserve to be enjoyed and loved by everyone, by people. Thank you very much for this prize."
The judges of the prize, each one acclaimed within their own fields, include Lucy Kellaway, columnist with the Financial Times; comic artist and writer, David Gibbons; UK designer Wayne Hemingway; award winning journalist and BBC broadcaster Samira Ahmed; writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun; the actress Louise Brealey; author, actor and comedian, Charlie Higson and BBC Radio DJ and television presenter, Jo Whiley.
The Chair of judges, film maker Lord Puttnam, comments, "Journey was a unanimous choice for the GameCity Prize 2012, many of the jurors were un-experienced in playing videogames and it confounded their expectations of what videogames were. Of all the shortlisted titles, Journey presents the player with an especially coherent vision, simultaneously fantastic and familiar.
“All of the Jury commented on the art direction in particular, the extraordinary sense of size and scale it portrayed. Whilst it was a short game, it was in no way small. It's a focused, detailed piece of work - challenging you to measure it in terms other than just the length of gameplay. One of the jury commented that it was like a favourite place, a walk in the country, that she would love to go back and revisit. In particular, Journey was a videogame that had been created by artists immersed in a broad culture. Both obviously a game, but challenging of what a game could be - it displayed an extraordinary level of care and attention.
“Whilst Journey was a clear winner, the jury also want to commend Fez. It explored, iterated and carefully mined a single idea - showing us new dimensions in it - but never descending into bland repetition. An extraordinary work of invention, whilst never losing sight of the fact that it was first and foremost a videogame."
Journey was selected from a shortlist of seven games including Catherine (Atlus Persona Games), Fez (Polytron), Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik), Mass Effect 3 (Bioware), Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga) and Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo EAD).
The GameCity Prize was launched last year to explore and celebrate the very best in interactive entertainment and drive understanding and appreciation of videogames within a wider cultural context. GameCity Director Iain Simons comments, “We're really excited to be bringing the conversation about videogames to an ever wider audience. The short-list this year was a diverse mix of brilliant titles which pushed at the boundaries of what videogames are and can be.”
The shortlist was selected by an anonymous, international and gender-neutral academy of videogame experts, drawn from within and outside the industry.
GameCity, now in its seventh year, is a free festival powered by Nottingham Trent University, for everyone from dedicated gamers to the culturally curious providing a platform for world class developers to share their creativity and interact with the public, showcasing the most exciting new work in the world and highlighting their culture significance, resulting in a unique celebration of videogames.
Minecraft won the inaugural GameCity Prize in 2011.
Quotes from the press about Journey:
“Journey's emotional impact, which is not inconsiderable when playing along, is multiplied exponentially by sharing the experience with a stranger. It manages more meaningful communication with one button than most can with endless text and voice. Journey's visual and sound design sets new standards for interactive entertainment. This alone makes it an extraordinary work, but it's the way that these aesthetic elements come together with beautifully subtle direction and storytelling to create a lasting emotional effect that elevates this to one of the very best games of our time." The Guardian
“Journey is quietly beautiful, demanding your attention not by shouting at you, but by whispering. The game's soundtrack is as moving as its scenery - the cello solo that serves as the main theme is especially striking. Journey doesn't just want you to shlep through a bunch of wrecked buildings and sand, it wants you to feel the solitude of the empty spaces and discover the life still within." Gaming magazine The Escapist
For further information please contact
Lucy Chavasse or Jane Acton at Four Colman Getty
Tel: 020 3023 9039 / 020 3023 90
Email: lucy.chavasse@fourcolmangetty.com / jane.acton@fourcolmangetty.com
2012 Jury
Lord David Puttnam (Chair)
Leading this year’s jury is film producer Lord David Puttnam. Awarded the Best Picture Oscar in 1981 for his work on Chariots of Fire, a year later he received the BAFTA Michael Balcon Award for his outstanding contribution to the British film industry. Lord Puttnam currently sits on the Labour bench in the House of Lords and is responsible for the promotion and creation of numerous academic institutions, boards, councils and awards.
Lucy Kellaway
Lucy Kellaway is a columnist on the Financial Times, and has worked there for more than a quarter of a century. She has written two novels, is an agony aunt, a broadcaster and is a non-executive director of Admiral. She has four children, two of whom are compulsive gamers.
Dave Gibbons
A celebrated comic artist and writer, Gibbons’ career has lasted more than 35 years and includes collaborations with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Frank Miller and more. He is best known for collaborating with Alan Moore on the 12-issue limited series Watchmen, now one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, and the only one to feature on Time’s “Top 100 Novels” list.
Wayne Hemingway
Internationally acclaimed UK designer Hemingway began his creative design career in fashion, launching the iconic Red or Dead in 1983. A staunch advocate that Britain is the most creative country in the world, the now MBE turned his hand to urban, graphic and product design with HemingwayDesign, creating a range of affordable, social housing projects and winning a raft of awards along the way.
Samira Ahmed
Samira Ahmed is an award winning journalist and BBC broadcaster with a special interest in comics, Westerns and Science Fiction. Previously a news anchor on Channel 4 News, she presents Night Waves on BBC Radio 3, news programmes on BBC Radio 4 and The Proms on BBC4.
Ekow Eshun
Writer, journalist and broadcaster, Ekow Eshun was Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts from 2005 to November 2010. Eshun is a contributor to BBC’2 Friday night arts programme Newsnight Review and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Tank magazine. A critic on Saturday Review on BBC Radio 4, he also occasionally appears on The Review Show on BBC Two.
Louise Brealey
Best known as ‘Molly’ in BBC TV’s acclaimed drama Sherlock, Louise began her career training at the Lee Strasberg institute in New York. She is also a widely published journalist and author, having contributed to titles as varied as SKY, Premiere, Wallpaper, The Face and I-D, as well as being Deputy Editor of Wonderland magazine. Louise is currently producing and co-writing children’s comedy drama, The Charles Dickens Show.
Charlie Higson
Author, actor and comedian Charlie Higson has experienced every form of popular media and first made his mark on The Fast Show before turning to writing with James Bond novels, and now teen horror. His latest novel, The Sacrifice, was published by Puffin in September.
Jo Whiley
Jo Whiley is a veteran BBC Radio DJ and television presenter. She was the host of the long running weekday Jo Whiley Show on BBC Radio 1 and has been a presenter on shows such as Top of the Pops, Glastonbury, and the Mercury Awards.
Notes to Editors:
Journey is developed by thatgamecompany and published by Sony.
For further information please contact hugo_bustillos@scee.net
A selection of judges and Iain Simon, Director of GameCity, are available for interview
The shortlist for the inaugural GameCity Prize included:
Catherine - Atlus Persona Games
Fez - Polytron
Johann Sebastian Joust - Die Gute Fabrik
Journey - thatgamecompany
Mass Effect 3 - Bioware
Proteus - Ed Key and David Kanaga
Super Mario 3D Land - Nintendo EAD
For more information about GameCity7 and The GameCity Prize please visit http://www.gamecity.org/ and [url=http://prize.gamecity.org or www.twitter.com/gamecity]http://prize.gamecity.org[/url] or www.twitter.com/gamecity
Eligible games were released between June 2011 and June 2012.
Images of Journey are available through Four Colman Getty.
GameCity is an innovative arts and culture project powered by Nottingham Trent University. It delivers major research and inclusion projects such as the GameCity videogame culture festival, GameCityNights, the Interactive Technology and Games (ITAG) conference and the National Videogame Archive, a unique collaboration with the National Media Museum.
GameCity’s aim is to bring together developers and the public to explore and celebrate videogames and videogames culture, with a particular focus on students. We attract the best speakers in the world, offer up-and-coming artists and developers a platform for their games and create totally unique events.
Some of GameCity’s greatest hits include a world-record breaking zombie gathering, Keita Takahashi designing a children’s playground and Masaya Matsuura, Lorne Lanning, Alexey Pajitnov and Eric Chahi having headlined.
They have worked alongside some of the most prominent names in gaming, including: Nintendo, Microsoft, SCEE, Electronic Arts, Rare, Crytek UK, Harmonix, thatgamecompany, Warner Bros, TTGames, Activision, Namco Bandai, Ubisoft, Freestyle Games, David Braben, Media Molecule, Splash Damage, Harmonix, Denki, Naughty Dog, Midway, Zoe Mode, Nana-on-Sha, Amanita Design and lots more.
Going way beyond just playing games, GameCity offers other new ways for people to interact with videogame culture. Art exhibitions, director commentaries, playground building, live recreations of videogames, gigs, gong-shows, three World Records, arcade trails, club nights – nothing is off limits for this most radical of videogame festivals.
GameCityNights is a series of after-dark monthly events that brings together developers, students and players in an exploration of videogame culture. Every month a series of brilliant headline speakers share their insights, passions and experiences in games as they offer a unique look into their work.
A PlayStation 3 game, Journey is an anonymous online adventure that allows the player to experience a person’s life passage and their intersections with others. The player controls a robed figure who wakes alone in a vast desert and journeys towards a distant mountain, through rolling sand dunes, age-old ruins, caves and howling winds. The experience is discovering who and where you are and what your purpose is. Other un-named players are discovered on the same journey who can assist but not communicate via speech or text – only through wordless singing which creates magic powers affecting the game world and allowing the player to fly. The music, composed by Austin Wintory, responds to the player's actions.
The game evokes a sense of smallness and wonder and creates an emotional connection between anonymous players. It has been called ‘beautiful and haunting’ (Wired) and ‘absolutely gorgeous’ (gaming magazine The Escapist) with the Guardian saying, ‘it manages more meaningful communication with one button than most can with endless text and voice.’ Journey is the last game made under a three-game contract between thatgamecompany and Sony, the first two being Flow and Flower.
Jenova Chen, President & Creative Director, thatgamecompany, comments, “I really like the goal of GameCity, to get people to notice games and talk about games, particularly for people who don't encounter many video games in their daily life. Thatgamecompany has always focused on making games for everyone, so it's nice to see GameCity recognize our game and give us an award. In the end, we believe that games are a mature media that deserve to be enjoyed and loved by everyone, by people. Thank you very much for this prize."
The judges of the prize, each one acclaimed within their own fields, include Lucy Kellaway, columnist with the Financial Times; comic artist and writer, David Gibbons; UK designer Wayne Hemingway; award winning journalist and BBC broadcaster Samira Ahmed; writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun; the actress Louise Brealey; author, actor and comedian, Charlie Higson and BBC Radio DJ and television presenter, Jo Whiley.
The Chair of judges, film maker Lord Puttnam, comments, "Journey was a unanimous choice for the GameCity Prize 2012, many of the jurors were un-experienced in playing videogames and it confounded their expectations of what videogames were. Of all the shortlisted titles, Journey presents the player with an especially coherent vision, simultaneously fantastic and familiar.
“All of the Jury commented on the art direction in particular, the extraordinary sense of size and scale it portrayed. Whilst it was a short game, it was in no way small. It's a focused, detailed piece of work - challenging you to measure it in terms other than just the length of gameplay. One of the jury commented that it was like a favourite place, a walk in the country, that she would love to go back and revisit. In particular, Journey was a videogame that had been created by artists immersed in a broad culture. Both obviously a game, but challenging of what a game could be - it displayed an extraordinary level of care and attention.
“Whilst Journey was a clear winner, the jury also want to commend Fez. It explored, iterated and carefully mined a single idea - showing us new dimensions in it - but never descending into bland repetition. An extraordinary work of invention, whilst never losing sight of the fact that it was first and foremost a videogame."
Journey was selected from a shortlist of seven games including Catherine (Atlus Persona Games), Fez (Polytron), Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik), Mass Effect 3 (Bioware), Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga) and Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo EAD).
The GameCity Prize was launched last year to explore and celebrate the very best in interactive entertainment and drive understanding and appreciation of videogames within a wider cultural context. GameCity Director Iain Simons comments, “We're really excited to be bringing the conversation about videogames to an ever wider audience. The short-list this year was a diverse mix of brilliant titles which pushed at the boundaries of what videogames are and can be.”
The shortlist was selected by an anonymous, international and gender-neutral academy of videogame experts, drawn from within and outside the industry.
GameCity, now in its seventh year, is a free festival powered by Nottingham Trent University, for everyone from dedicated gamers to the culturally curious providing a platform for world class developers to share their creativity and interact with the public, showcasing the most exciting new work in the world and highlighting their culture significance, resulting in a unique celebration of videogames.
Minecraft won the inaugural GameCity Prize in 2011.
Quotes from the press about Journey:
“Journey's emotional impact, which is not inconsiderable when playing along, is multiplied exponentially by sharing the experience with a stranger. It manages more meaningful communication with one button than most can with endless text and voice. Journey's visual and sound design sets new standards for interactive entertainment. This alone makes it an extraordinary work, but it's the way that these aesthetic elements come together with beautifully subtle direction and storytelling to create a lasting emotional effect that elevates this to one of the very best games of our time." The Guardian
“Journey is quietly beautiful, demanding your attention not by shouting at you, but by whispering. The game's soundtrack is as moving as its scenery - the cello solo that serves as the main theme is especially striking. Journey doesn't just want you to shlep through a bunch of wrecked buildings and sand, it wants you to feel the solitude of the empty spaces and discover the life still within." Gaming magazine The Escapist
For further information please contact
Lucy Chavasse or Jane Acton at Four Colman Getty
Tel: 020 3023 9039 / 020 3023 90
Email: lucy.chavasse@fourcolmangetty.com / jane.acton@fourcolmangetty.com
2012 Jury
Lord David Puttnam (Chair)
Leading this year’s jury is film producer Lord David Puttnam. Awarded the Best Picture Oscar in 1981 for his work on Chariots of Fire, a year later he received the BAFTA Michael Balcon Award for his outstanding contribution to the British film industry. Lord Puttnam currently sits on the Labour bench in the House of Lords and is responsible for the promotion and creation of numerous academic institutions, boards, councils and awards.
Lucy Kellaway
Lucy Kellaway is a columnist on the Financial Times, and has worked there for more than a quarter of a century. She has written two novels, is an agony aunt, a broadcaster and is a non-executive director of Admiral. She has four children, two of whom are compulsive gamers.
Dave Gibbons
A celebrated comic artist and writer, Gibbons’ career has lasted more than 35 years and includes collaborations with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Frank Miller and more. He is best known for collaborating with Alan Moore on the 12-issue limited series Watchmen, now one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, and the only one to feature on Time’s “Top 100 Novels” list.
Wayne Hemingway
Internationally acclaimed UK designer Hemingway began his creative design career in fashion, launching the iconic Red or Dead in 1983. A staunch advocate that Britain is the most creative country in the world, the now MBE turned his hand to urban, graphic and product design with HemingwayDesign, creating a range of affordable, social housing projects and winning a raft of awards along the way.
Samira Ahmed
Samira Ahmed is an award winning journalist and BBC broadcaster with a special interest in comics, Westerns and Science Fiction. Previously a news anchor on Channel 4 News, she presents Night Waves on BBC Radio 3, news programmes on BBC Radio 4 and The Proms on BBC4.
Ekow Eshun
Writer, journalist and broadcaster, Ekow Eshun was Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts from 2005 to November 2010. Eshun is a contributor to BBC’2 Friday night arts programme Newsnight Review and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Tank magazine. A critic on Saturday Review on BBC Radio 4, he also occasionally appears on The Review Show on BBC Two.
Louise Brealey
Best known as ‘Molly’ in BBC TV’s acclaimed drama Sherlock, Louise began her career training at the Lee Strasberg institute in New York. She is also a widely published journalist and author, having contributed to titles as varied as SKY, Premiere, Wallpaper, The Face and I-D, as well as being Deputy Editor of Wonderland magazine. Louise is currently producing and co-writing children’s comedy drama, The Charles Dickens Show.
Charlie Higson
Author, actor and comedian Charlie Higson has experienced every form of popular media and first made his mark on The Fast Show before turning to writing with James Bond novels, and now teen horror. His latest novel, The Sacrifice, was published by Puffin in September.
Jo Whiley
Jo Whiley is a veteran BBC Radio DJ and television presenter. She was the host of the long running weekday Jo Whiley Show on BBC Radio 1 and has been a presenter on shows such as Top of the Pops, Glastonbury, and the Mercury Awards.
Notes to Editors:
Journey is developed by thatgamecompany and published by Sony.
For further information please contact hugo_bustillos@scee.net
A selection of judges and Iain Simon, Director of GameCity, are available for interview
The shortlist for the inaugural GameCity Prize included:
Catherine - Atlus Persona Games
Fez - Polytron
Johann Sebastian Joust - Die Gute Fabrik
Journey - thatgamecompany
Mass Effect 3 - Bioware
Proteus - Ed Key and David Kanaga
Super Mario 3D Land - Nintendo EAD
For more information about GameCity7 and The GameCity Prize please visit http://www.gamecity.org/ and [url=http://prize.gamecity.org or www.twitter.com/gamecity]http://prize.gamecity.org[/url] or www.twitter.com/gamecity
Eligible games were released between June 2011 and June 2012.
Images of Journey are available through Four Colman Getty.
GameCity is an innovative arts and culture project powered by Nottingham Trent University. It delivers major research and inclusion projects such as the GameCity videogame culture festival, GameCityNights, the Interactive Technology and Games (ITAG) conference and the National Videogame Archive, a unique collaboration with the National Media Museum.
GameCity’s aim is to bring together developers and the public to explore and celebrate videogames and videogames culture, with a particular focus on students. We attract the best speakers in the world, offer up-and-coming artists and developers a platform for their games and create totally unique events.
Some of GameCity’s greatest hits include a world-record breaking zombie gathering, Keita Takahashi designing a children’s playground and Masaya Matsuura, Lorne Lanning, Alexey Pajitnov and Eric Chahi having headlined.
They have worked alongside some of the most prominent names in gaming, including: Nintendo, Microsoft, SCEE, Electronic Arts, Rare, Crytek UK, Harmonix, thatgamecompany, Warner Bros, TTGames, Activision, Namco Bandai, Ubisoft, Freestyle Games, David Braben, Media Molecule, Splash Damage, Harmonix, Denki, Naughty Dog, Midway, Zoe Mode, Nana-on-Sha, Amanita Design and lots more.
Going way beyond just playing games, GameCity offers other new ways for people to interact with videogame culture. Art exhibitions, director commentaries, playground building, live recreations of videogames, gigs, gong-shows, three World Records, arcade trails, club nights – nothing is off limits for this most radical of videogame festivals.
GameCityNights is a series of after-dark monthly events that brings together developers, students and players in an exploration of videogame culture. Every month a series of brilliant headline speakers share their insights, passions and experiences in games as they offer a unique look into their work.
Games:
Journey