Voting Opens In The Golden Joystick Awards 2007

Celebrating 25 years of gaming history, The Golden Joystick Awards are the UKâ€™s biggest games award show.

The longlists (Any game released between July 31st 2006 and August 1st 2007) for the awards have been unveiled at www.goldenjoystick.com and voting has now begun.

As the only gaming awards ceremony voted for solely by gamers, organisers of the Golden Joystick Awards want gamers to take part in the two-stage voting process. This year, gamers can vote for their favourite games of the last 12 months across 17 different categories, including the newly-created UK Developer of the Year award. Stage one of voting is now open and determines which games will make it from longlists of thousands onto the shortlists, comprising the top 10-15 games from each category. Voting on the shortlists kicks off on Wednesday, 1st August.

By having their say now, gamers across the UK can directly influence the games that make the shortlist and help organisers smash the record 540,000 votes that were cast last year. The organisers of the Golden Joystick Awards are aiming for no-less-than 1 million votes in 2007. The full list of award categories are as follows:

Ultimate Game of the Year
The Sun Family Game of the Year
Bliss Girlâ€™s Choice Award
Nuts All Nighter Award
BBC 1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year
Handheld Game of the Year
Innovation of the Year
The One To Watch Award
Mobile Game of the Year
Nintendo Game of the Year
Online Game of the Year
PC Game of the Year
Playstation Game of the Year
Xbox Game of the Year
Publisher of the Year
Retailer of the Year
UK Developer of the Year

The final results of the Golden Joystick Awards 2007 will be unveiled at the glitzy award ceremony, held at Londonâ€™s Park Lane, Hilton hotel on Friday, 26th October 2007. Once again, the entire night will be webcast live on the computerandvideogames.com and gamesradar.com websites.

Officially the worldâ€™s oldest and most respected games award ceremony, the Golden Joystick Awards this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. Held for the first time in 1982, the Golden Joystick Awards have been honouring innovation in gaming since the days when Atari, Commodore and Spectrum ruled the earth. Now, as the world enjoys a golden age of video gaming there has never been a period when the pastime was more popular. With 2006 proving to be the â€˜year of the handheldâ€™, it remains to be seen who will emerge triumphant from this yearâ€™s Golden Joystick Awards. The sheer muscle of the recently launch Sony Playstation 3 grabbed the attention of gamers in last yearâ€™s awards as it received the One To Watch accolade but itâ€™s already shaping up to be a heated battle as the innovation of the Nintendo Wii console and Microsoftâ€™s Xbox 360 are both proving popular amongst UK gamers.

Once considered the past time of bedroom geeks and younger kids, video gaming has finally broken through to the mainstream to become one of the biggest entertainment industries in the UK, equalling the film industry in economic value. The Golden Joystick Awards 2007 are set to be the definitive guide to whatâ€™s exciting the worldâ€™s rapidly growing gaming community.

VOTE NOW AT www.goldenjoystick.com
(From Press Release)

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