MCV Awards ’08: The winners in full

A dozen different companies picked up awards at last night’s trade awards, but the event was still dominated by Nintendo.

The Japanese giant’s impact on the booming UK games industry over the past 12 months pushed it to victory across four award categories.

Nintendo won prizes for PR Team, Marketing Team and Games Publisher and then capped a very good night’s work by becoming the first ever company to win the prestigious Grand Prix two years on the trot.

Another multi-winner was Ubisoft. It wrestled the Sales Team award from THQ, which had won this competitive and much coveted category on the previous two occasions.

Ubi’s Assassin’s Creed also just pipped Sega’s Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games to win New Games Brand.

There were some familiar names amongst the winners, such as GAME winning Specialist Retailer for the second year running, Microsoft picking up Game Campaign with Halo 3 and Electronic Arts beating its rivals to Best Trade Marketing Team.

But there were also plenty of new names being handed awards by special guest comedian Simon Amstell.

Amongst these were Independent Retailer of the year Grainger Games, which has become a growing force on the High Street.

Zavvi, previously Virgin, won Star Store for the fine retail experience offered by its Oxford Street outlet.

Codemasters beat off stiff competition to win UK Development Team and 505 Games was a highly popular winner of the Sales Triumph award thanks to the stunning success of Cooking Mama.

A judging panel of 89 senior figures from all sectors of the industry chose the winners from a set of Finalists announced earlier in the year.

Photos and tales from last night, plus another full review of all the winners, will appear in MCV next week.

The winners in full:

RETAIL CATEGORY

Independent Retailer:

Grainger Games

Specialist Retailer:
GAME

Entertainment Retailer:
HMV

Online Retailer:
Play.com

Star Store:
Zavvi, Oxford Street

PR & MARKETING CATEGORY

PR Team:

Nintendo

Game Campaign:

Halo 3 (Microsoft)

New Games Brand:

Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft)

Trade Marketing Team:

Electronic Arts

Marketing Team:

Nintendo

PEOPLE & INDUSTRY CATEGORY

UK Development Team:

Codemasters

Distribution Team:

Centresoft

Sales Triumph:

Cooking Mama (505 Games)

Sales Team:

Ubisoft

Games Publisher:

Nintendo

SPECIAL RECOGNITION

Paul Donnelly (Gem)

GRAND PRIX

Nintendo