The winners of the prestigious special prizes at the GDC 2022 Game Developers Choice Awards have been unveiled. The Ambassador Award will be given to Steven Spohn, a driving advocate for accessibility in games and Senior Director of Development for the AbleGamers organisation.
For his decades of dedication to the craft of video game production, Yuji Horii, the creator of the iconic Dragon Quest series, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Steven Spohn, a streamer, award-winning author, and Senior Director of Development at the AbleGamers charity, will receive the Ambassador Award for his work campaigning for accessibility in video games.
Spohn, who has been featured on CNN, NBC, and other mainstream news channels as an assistive technology and game accessibility specialist, advocates for persons with disabilities to use video games to combat social isolation.
Spohn and the AbleGamers organisation have pushed the industry’s inclusive initiatives forward by training and coaching companies and linking them with gamers who can share their own personal stories.
Yuji Horii will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for his trailblazing work as the developer of the popular Dragon Quest series, which has influenced and inspired role-playing game design since its 1986 release.
Horii started his career as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines before winning a game programming contest sponsored by Enix (now Square Enix), which led to a long-term relationship with the publisher.
With the most recent game in the series, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, released in 2021, the seminal Dragon Quest series has spanned 35 years and sold over 76 million units.
This year’s Game Developers Choice Special Awards Jury, which includes game industry veterans Chandana Ekanayake, Greg Kasavin, Dana Nightingale, Siobhan Reddy, and Kiki Wolfkill, chose the Ambassador and Lifetime Achievement Award winners based on suggestions from the International Choice Awards Network (ICAN).
To read our blog on “These GDC 2022 Workshops highlight Storytelling and Game Design,” click here.
