Welcome to the 8th Annual Mod of the Year Awards - the premiere event that celebrates the best creations within the modding and indie gaming scene. Developers have delivered plenty of great gameplay experiences this year, and now it is our turn as gamers to nominate and recognize the best of 2009.
From now until Feb 20th, we shall be sharing a year in review and showcasing the editors' picks of 2009, culminating in the announcement of this year's best mod and game as voted by you. The top mods and games will win the honors of being placed alongside other projects that have gone on to become commercial successes and cement their place in ModDB's hall of fame. And to the winner goes the spoils; ModDB has teamed up with a whole lineup of sponsors that have provided prizes ranging from software to servers to beanbags. Everything to help budding developers excel at their craft.
It takes a great idea and years of hard work (7 years in the case of The Nameless Mod and Out of Hell) to make a brilliant mod and indie game reality. We know you do it for experience and for the love of making something new, but to thank you (the winning teams) for your creativity and dedication, we have a few small prizes to hand out from our sponsors. If you would like your product / service shown here and given to a deserving development team at the conclusion of the awards, please contact us for information.
From CVSDude, we have both professional and team editions of their ultimate development platform to give away:
- Mod of the Year, wins a 25 person pro account worth $5,375 per year
- Indie Game of the Year, wins a 10 person pro account worth $2,250 per year
- Runner Up Mod of the Year, wins a 25 person team account worth $690 per year
- Runner Up Indie Game of the Year, wins a 10 person team account worth $350 per year
- All Editors Choice and Top 100 Players Choice, receive a gift certificate on request worth 50% off any purchase
CVSDude Professional Edition is the Enterprise-class source control management solution for mission-critical development on the CVSDude Platform. With Professional Edition, you get all Team Edition features, plus 99.9% Uptime SLAs backed by 24/7 Emergency Support, Enterprise level security which includes multi-service role-based permissions and the ability to restrict access by IP address (IP whitelist), and more. Learn more about CVSDude Professional Edition.
CVSDude Team Edition is the industry standard hosted source control and issue tracking system. Team Edition helps teams of all sizes grow, collaborate, share work with clients, and securely back up their projects and version histories. Team Edition tools include Subversion, Trac, Bugzilla, DAV and more. You can set up users and applications on a per project basis and import existing SVN, CVS or Trac repositories. Learn more about CVSDude Team Edition.
From Sumo, we have the ultimate way to relax after a tough day/night developing games. Hide under your own massive omni beanbag, throw it at friends or be practical and scuplt it into a chair. We have a couple in the ModDB office, and now we have 10 to give away to the winning teams (note. due to their size we can only ship these to US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong):
- Mod of the Year, 2 Sumos
- Indie Game of the Year, 2 Sumos
- Runner Up Mod of the Year, a Sumo
- Runner Up Indie Game of the Year, a Sumo
- Editors Choice Best Single Player Mod, a Sumo
- Editors Choice Best Multiplayer Mod, a Sumo
- Editors Choice Best Indie Game, a Sumo
From Mixamo, we have a 3D character animation service game developers package; which will drastically speed up the time it takes to create high-quality character animation for the winners:
- Mod of the Year, 10 credits for Mixamo motions and free 1:1 consulting on any 3D character models that the user uploads
- Runner Up Mod of the Year, 5 credits for Mixamo motions
- Third Place Mod of the Year, 3 credits for Mixamo motions
From Noesis we have 28 game development DVDs worth over $1500 to give away. The winners of the categories below will be able to choose a title(s) from the Noesis catalogue and receive it via digital distribution:
- Mod of the Year, 5 titles
- Best Upcoming Mod, 4 titles
- Indie Game of the Year, 4 titles
- Runner Up in each Players Choice category, 2 titles
- All Editors Choice Winners, 1 title
From 3D Total we have $900 worth of texture DVDs and artist magazines to give away. The winner of the 2009 Mod of the Year will be receiving the complete 19 DVD total textures pack. All other teams which make the Players and Editors Choice showcase will be receiving a PDF copy of the latest 2DArtist and 3DCreative magazines.
From NuclearFallout.net we have $1000 worth of game servers to give away. The winners of the categories below will be able to give their playerbase access to a high-speed 16-32 slot NuclearFallout game server in the United States:
- Mod of the Year, 4 x 16-32 Slot Servers
- Mod of the Year Runner Up, 2 x 16-32 Slot Servers
- Editors Choice Best Released Mod, 2 x 16-32 Slot Server
From Hourences we have $1000 worth of level design and game industry books to give away. The winner of the 2009 Mod of the Year will be receiving a hard copy of Hourences books The Hows and Whys of Level Design and The Hows and Whys of the Games Industry. All other teams which make the Players and Editors Choice showcase will be receiving a PDF copy of each of these books. Hourences is creator of The Ball mod and one of the leading experts of UDK, the hottest game engine on the planet now free to indie teams.
The Players Choice Top 10 and Editors Choice Winners, will have the option to publish their game and mod (provided they can be supported) on the newly launched Desura digital distribution platform for gamers. The Mod of the Year and Indie Game of the Year will be invited to our "publishing assistance program", which includes promotion on the rotator, newsletter and news dialog. This will ensure their title is showcased to all users of Desura, helping them get the sales and players a winner deserves. This program also includes API, profile and content presentation support and tips to get the most out of Desura.