Organizers of the 24th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards announced that iconic composer Yoko Shimomura is going to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for this year. She is know for her work in different video games that include Street Fighter II, Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts, and Super Maria.
This award is an excellent proof on how this respected Japanese composer and pianist has managed to make an impact on many players and video game fans around the world. Her foray into video game soundtracks started in 1988 at Capcom. It was here that she worked on the music for various titles like The King of Dragons, Final Fight, and Street Fighter II. This in 1993 she joined what would later become Square Enix and composed the soundtracks for titles that include Final Fantasy XV, Super Mario RPG, Live A Live, Legends of Man, and the Kingdom Hearts series. After leaving Square Enix she founded her very own music production company known as Midiplex.
Ambassador Award
The Ambassador Award is given to an individual, or individuals, who have helped the game industry move forward to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further the art. For this year, that honor goes to Fawzi Mesmar. This award-winning creative director has a career in the games industry running for more than two decades. He's also known as a game designer, author, public speaker and even mentor.
His career has taken him to different regions like the Middle East, New Zealand, Japan and Europe. It's in these regions that he worked for different game companies such as Ubisoft, EA, King (Activision Blizzard), Gameloft and Atlus. Overall, he managed to work on more than twenty titles and hand a hand in the development of a number of well-known franchises like Battlefield, Candy Crush, Mario Rabbids, Star Wars and Persona series.
In addition to the game industry, Fawzi authored the first-ever textbook about game design in Arabic which is Al-Khallab On The Art of Game Design. He also co-authored nine comic books under the Men of Honour series. In recent years, Fawzi has won the Game Dev Heroes award in 2020 within the Game Design category and in the same year, was also named one of the industry's top 100 game changers.
The 24th annual GDCA ceremony is set to take place during the 2024 Game Developers Conference on March 20. It's held in conjunction with the Independent Game Festival awards. Recipients of the Lifetime Achievement and Ambassador Awards were chosen by this year's Game Developers Choice Editorial Committee.
