Press Release Details

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Hosted by the acclaimed international film, stage and video game star Samuel L. Jackson, executive produced by Emmy® Award winner Mark Burnett and featuring world premiere footage from highly anticipated releases, Spike TV's tenth annual "Video Game Awards" (#VGA) proved to be the biggest night in gaming ever.  Industry titans gathered as the network celebrated the outstanding artistic and technical achievements in the gaming universe over the past year during the two-hour global event which premiered LIVE on Spike TV on Friday, December 7 at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT from Sony Picture Studios in Los Angeles.  The live awards show simulcast on MTV 2, MTV Tr3s and streamed live on Spike.com, GameTrailers.com and for the first time ever, on Xbox consoles through Xbox Live.

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A host of the most influential members of the gaming industry, as well as stars from the worlds of television, music and movies gathered at the biggest night in video games, and watched Telltale Studios win the two biggest honors of the year — Game of the Year and Studio of the Year.  "The Walking Dead: The Game" also won Game of the Year, Best Adapted Video Game and Best Downloadable Game.  

Other multiple award winners included "Journey," which won in three categories, including Best Independent Game, Best PS3 Game, and "Halo 4" which won two awards, including Best Xbox 360 Game, and "Borderlands 2" which took home awards for Best Shooter and Best Multi-Player Game.

Additional awards included "Half-Life 2" which was revealed as the Entertainment Weekly and Spike VGA Best Game of the Decade.  From "Batman: Arkham City" to "Wii Sports" and "World of Warcraft," fans cast their ballots for their favorite game from the past ten years on EW.com/VGA and voted "Half-Life 2" the winner.  Additionally, fans determined the winner of the Character of the Year category by voting live on vga.spike.com, and awarded Claptrap from "Borderlands 2" with the honor.

The "VGAs" debuted never-before-seen world premieres of the most anticipated games of 2013 and beyond including two surprise world premieres of Moby Dick Studios' "The Phantom Pain,"  "From Software's "Dark Souls II," as well as Naughty Dog's "The Last of Us," Epic Games' "Gears of War: Judgment," Obsidian Entertainment's "South Park: The Stick of Truth," Konami's "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2," 2K Games' "BioShock Infinite," Square Enix's "Tomb Raider," Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington," and Microsoft Studios' "Halo 4: Spartan Ops."

"VGA" fans were treated to groundbreaking interactivity that let viewers "play" the show as it happened live in Los Angeles.  Polls and viewer responses affected how the show progressed such as which video, music, set environments, props and custom exclusive videos they wanted to see next.

This year's show included presenters and appearances by major stars from all over the entertainment world, including host Samuel L. Jackson, returning hosts Snoop Lion, Jack Black and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as Jessica Alba, Zachary Levi, Johnny Galecki, Adam Scott and "The Walking Dead's" Danai Gurira, Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun and Robert Kirkman.  The show also featured a show-stopping rendition of "Castle of Glass," by Grammy Award-winning recording artists Linkin Park.  Additionally, Tenacious D ended the show with a jaw-dropping performance of "Rize Of The Fenix."

The "VGAs" also featured an epic musical Game of the Year tribute scored by Grammy Award-winning film and video game composer Lorne Balfe.

A full list of winners is included below:

Game of the Year
The Walking Dead: The Game (Telltale Games)

Studio of the Year
Telltale Games

Best XBOX 360 Game
Halo 4 (Microsoft Studios/343 Industries)

Best PS3 Game
Journey (Sony Computer Entertainment/thatgamecompany)

Best Wii / Wii-U Game
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo)

Best PC Game
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2K Games/Firaxis Games)

Best Handheld / Mobile Game
Sound Shapes (Sony Computer Entertainment/Queasy Games)

Best Shooter
Borderlands 2 (2K Games/Gearbox Software)

Best Action Adventure Game
Dishonored (Bethesda Softworks/Arkane Studios)

Best RPG
Mass Effect 3 (Electronic Arts/BioWare)

Best Multi-Player Game
Borderlands 2 (2K Games/Gearbox Software)

Best Individual Sports Game
SSX (Electronic Arts/EA Canada)

Best Team Sports Game
NBA 2K13 (2K Sports/Visual Concepts)

Best Driving Game
Need For Speed Most Wanted (Electronic Arts/Criterion Games)

Best Fighting Game
Persona 4 Arena (Atlus/ARC System Works/Atlus)

Best Adapted Video Game
The Walking Dead: The Game (Telltale Games)

Best Independent Game
Journey (thatgamecompany)

Best Graphics
Halo 4 (Microsoft Studios/343 Industries)

Best Song in a Game
"Cities" by Beck (Sound Shapes)

Best Original Score
Journey (Sony Computer Entertainment/thatgamecompany)

Best Performance By a Human Male
Dameon Clarke as Handsome Jack (Borderlands 2)

Best Performance By a Human Female
Melissa Hutchison as Clementine (The Walking Dead: The Game)

Best Downloadable Game
The Walking Dead: The Game (Telltale Games)

Best Social Game
You Don't Know Jack (Jellyvision Games)

Best DLC
Dawnguard — The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks/Bethesda Game Studios)

Most Anticipated Game
Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games)

For additional information about other "VGA" world exclusives and announcements, fans can log onto VGA.spike.com and get updates via Twitter @SPIKETV as well as the hashtag #VGA. 

Nominees for Spike TV's "VGA TEN" were determined by the VGA Advisory Council, made up of a group of some of the most well-respected video game journalists from media outlets such as Entertainment Weekly, Game Informer, Joystiq, Kotaku, Polygon, IGN, GameTrailers, Gamespot, Wired.com, USA Today and Associated Press.

Mark Burnett, Casey Patterson and Carol Donovan served as executive producers of Spike TV's 2012 "VGAs."

The on-air sponsors for "VGA TEN" were Chevrolet, Dr Pepper TEN, GameStop, Toshiba Laptops and KFC, while Dr Pepper TEN, Turtle Beach, Paramount Pictures' "Jack Reacher," and Relativity Media's "Movie 43" will serve as the show's digital sponsors.

Spike TV is available in 98.7 million homes and is a division of Viacom Media Networks.  A unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), Viacom Media Networks is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms.  Spike TV's Internet address is www.spike.com and for up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs, visit Spike TV's press site at http://www.spike.com/press.  Follow us on Twitter @spiketvpr for the latest in breaking news updates, behind-the-scenes information and photos.

SOURCE Spike TV