Widescreen Gaming Forum

This year was a big year for game releases, with major titles such as Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all released, along with loads of other excellent titles in all genres. But how did the games stack up when it came to widescreen and multi-monitor support? Which developers are supporting the WSGF community?

Four separate awards are being presented: Three "Field of Vision" awards for excellence in widescreen and surround gaming support, and one "Narrow Minded Award" for shunning our community.

View the full article for a look at the physical awards the WSGF had made, the site Founder/Editor-In-Chief featured on NewEgg TV, and the press release the WSGF sent out...

Coverage on NewEgg TV

The WSGF attended the January AMD/HardOCP FX GamExperience in Dallas, TX. We showed off the 2011 awards, and were fortunate enough to be interviewed by NewEgg TV regarding the awards. Below is site Founder/Editor-In-Chief, talking about the awards.

Awards

The WSGF had awards made (engraved glass), along with mugs for the three Field of Vision winners. These were all shipped to the winners, along with a cover letter and a copy of the press release. Click for a larger view.

Narrow Minded Award - Bethesda

This year saw Bethesda go head-to-head with Infinity Ward for the title. Infinity Ward have refused to acknowledge multi-monitor gaming long term, with Modern Warfare games needing hacks to run in surround, including their latest release.

However, while they attracted a third of the votes, they were no match for the misery that Bethesda put multi-monitor gamers through. Constantly breaking every community effort to fix Skyrim through their forced updates, plus their continued lack of support in games such as the Fallout series, Bethesda were voted as the developer that least supported multi-monitor gamers for 2011, and as such, win our Narrow Minded Award. Thanks for nothing, Bethesda!

Mainstream Developer of the Year - Codemasters

The Mainstream Developer of the Year award is for a larger developer that shows on-going support to widescreen and multimonitor gamers, and whose 2011 releases demonstrate this. The candidates were Codemasters, Obsidian Entertainment, Ubisoft, Crytek, Croteam, Volition, and Day 1 Studios.

There was a clear winner this year, but first we should make mention of some developers who did well but didn't take out the title. Croteam have an excellent track record of widescreen and multi-monitor support with their Serious Sam efforts, and Ubisoft's Assassins Creed series earned them the support of many. These two developers tied for third place, while Crytek came in second for their consistent improvements in widescreen and multi-monitor support to produce the certified Crysis 2. To be nominated is recognition of doing a great job supporting our community this year. All the developers nominated deserve your support for their efforts, and we encourage them to keep up the good work.

However, there was a standout in the voting this year. With 45% of the votes, the title went to the developer of the much-loved DiRT racing game series: Codemasters.

Codemasters does racing games, and does racing games in widescreen and multi-monitor very well. This year, Codemasters released the third DiRT title, which featured the same perfect widescreen and surround implementation that has become the benchmark for all racing games to achieve. Every DiRT game has been WSGF certified, but they all go beyond the minimal certification requirements, offering centered and correctly-sized HUDs natively. Similarly, the F1 series of games also offer the same outstanding widescreen and surround support seen in the DiRT series.

Codemaster announced in September of this year that they are re-aligning themselves to focus on racing titles, and with their track record of looking after the widescreen and multi-monitor community, the future of racing games is bright.

Indie Developer of the Year - Mojang

The Indie Developer of the Year award is for smaller independent developers who, despite smaller budgets and teams, manage to implement widescreen and multi-monitor support that any good developer should try to achieve. The candidates were Mojang, 11 Bit Studios, and Flying Wild Hog.

Third place was taken out by 11 Bit Studios. Their unique tower defense game Anomaly: Warzone Earth is one of the standouts from this year's certified releases, and their twist on the gameplay is popular with many, who voted accordingly. Coming in second place is Flying Wild Hog, whose game Hard Reset has earned itself a healthy following with it's widescreen and surround support, immersive environments, and gameplay.

However, the winner attracted a massive 60% of the votes. This developer's first game has been a huge success, and it's for their widescreen and surround support in their game Minecraft that the community awards Mojang as Indie Developer of the Year.

Mojang AB, an indie developer from Sweden, spent a year in alpha and a year in beta with their runaway hit Minecraft, which was officially released in November. It was worthwhile, as the Mojang team implemented outstanding widescreen and surround support in their first release, and are now working on their second game, Scrolls.

WSGF Game of the Year - DiRT 3

The Game of the Year award generated much discussion this year. Although some games suggested for this award offered compelling stories and immserive experiences, games that did not offer native multi-monitor support or centered HUDs were excluded from contention. Only games that offered the very best widescreen and multi-monitor implementation were nominated, to be an example that we would like to see all games live up to. The candidates were Minecraft, Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed, DiRT 3, Saints Row: The Third, Serious Sam: BFE, Need for Speed: The Run, Dungeone Siege III, and FEAR 3.

There was not alot that separated the games nominated for the award this year. They all feature the very best widescreen and surround implementation, all have fantastic graphics and gameplay, and all are popular.

To the results, and in third place is Saints Row: The Third, a fantastic new title from Volition. Second place was taken by Minecraft, the runaway hit by Mojang AB.

And the winner of the WSGF Game of the Year, as voted by the community, is DiRT3 by Codemasters. Fantastic gameplay, stunning visuals, and perfect widescreen and surround implementation make this game a worthy winner for 2011.

Press Release

The WSGF released a press release through Business Wire to announce the 2011 WSGF Gaming Awards. You can view the PDF of the press release by clicking the image below.

Responses

When originally contacted, the folks at Mojang responded to emails from Aussie about the impending awards.



Upon receiving the award, Notch posted a picture of their award to Twitter as well.

Rich Eddy (Director of Communications at Codemasters) tweeted a picture of the awards and coffee mugs in their reception area. They also sent back a care package of stuff from the Dirt3 team.

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