The winners of the MCV/DEVELOP Awards 2024!

Last Thursday 600 games industry professionals came together to attend the 2024 MCV/DEVELOP Awards, which took place at a packed Royal Lancaster Hotel overlooking London’s Hyde Park. (You can check out all the pics from event right here.)

Arguably the biggest winner of the evening was Larian Studios, which won Narrative Innovation and Audio Innovation for Baldur’s Gate 3, plus the award for Major Studio of the Year. Sad Owl Studios won two awards for Viewfinder, Gameplay Innovation and Visual Innovation.

Of the new awards, Rare’s Sea of Thieves won Ongoing Innovation, Sumo Digital won Co-Development Studio of the Year and Heaven Media won Strategic Partner of the Year.

It was a good night for accessibility efforts. As well as Soft Leaf Studios winning an award for Stories of Blossom (and giving the most heartfelt acceptance speech), Sony won the Hardware Innovation award for its Access Controller.

The final awards of the evening, for Newcomer and Better World, went to Maverick Games and GamesAid respectively, with Jagex securing a place in MCV Valhalla alongside previous Legend winners Rare, Sports Interactive and Rebellion.

Congratulations to the finalists, thanks to everyone that came along to support the awards, not least sponsors Bespoke Arcades, Disobey, Diva, Game Studio Training, Lexip, Liquid Crimson, Overload PR, Portal, PressEngine, Raptor PR,  RSM and UberStrategist. Without their support, the 2024 MCV/DEVELOP Awards would simply not have been possible.

Here are the winners in full:

• Recruitment Agency of the Year – Amiqus
• Creative (Content) Partner of the Year – Liquid Crimson
• Service Partner of the Year – PressEngine
• Strategic Partner of the Year – Heaven Media
• Hardware Innovation of the Year – Access Controller for PlayStation 5 (Sony)
• Visual Innovation of the Year – Viewfinder (Sad Owl Studios/Thunderful)
• Audio Innovation of the Year – Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios/Pitstop Productions)
• Accessibility Innovation of the Year – Stories of Blossom (Soft Leaf Studios)
• Narrative Innovation of the Year – Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
• Gameplay Innovation of the Year – Viewfinder (Sad Owl Studios/Thunderful)
• Ongoing Innovation of the Year – Sea of Thieves (Rare/Microsoft Studios)
• Major Studio of the Year – Larian Studios
• Indie Studio of the Year – FuturLab
• Major Publisher of the Year – Nintendo
• Indie Publisher of the Year – Wired Productions
• Co-development Studio of the Year – Sumo Digital
• Media Brand of the Year – Eurogamer
• PR Agency of the Year – Bastion
• Campaign of the Year – TAKEOFF (Alan Wake 2 ARG Influencer Campaign)
• Event of the Year – Women in Games Careers, Development & Networking Expo
• Distributor of the Year – PLAION
• Retailer of the Year – Green Man Gaming
• Newcomer of the Year – Maverick Games
• Better World – GamesAid
• Legend – Jagex

The MCV/DEVELOP Awards will return in 2025. Our next event is the Women In Games Awards in September.