Star Wars: The Old Republic wins big at GDC Online Awards

It might not be going down too well with MMOers, but Star Wars: The Old Republic has scooped enough gongs to fill a Sarlacc pit at this year's Game Developers Choice Online Awards . It's been awarded Best Game Design, Best Online Visual Arts, Best Online Technology, and Best New Online Game by a panel of judges consisting of game developers working in the online space. League of Legends also won big, taking home the award for Best Community Relations, Best Live Game, and the coveted Audience Award - the only one voted for by the public.

The awards themselves are concerned with online games only, distinguishing the ceremony from the near-identically named Game Developers Choice Awards, which was held earlier in the year. If you're wondering why Guild Wars 2 isn't scooping trophy after gilded trophy, it was released too late to be included - the nominations were decided back in July. At least Day Z has received some recognition, even if it lost out to Journey in the Online Innovation category. You can see the full list of winners in handy bullet point form below.

  • 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
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.