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The D.I.C.E. Award for Action Game of the Year is an award presented annually by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the D.I.C.E. Awards. This award recognizes titles that "follow the gameplay from the prospective of the character that the player is controlling. These games feature heavy weapons use and/or involve characters engaged in combat while moving through a linear or open environment. The opponent can either be controlled by another player or by the game".[1] All active creative/technical, business, and affiliate members of the Academy are qualified to vote for this category.[2] The award initially had separate awards for console games and computer games at the 1st Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 1998, with the first winners being GoldenEye 007 for console and Quake II for computer. There have been numerous mergers and additions of action-related games throughout the awards ceremony's history. The current version was officially introduced at the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2008, which was awarded to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
| D.I.C.E. Award for Action Game of the Year | |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences |
| First awarded | 1998 |
| Currently held by | Marvel's Spider-Man 2 |
| Website | www |
The most recent winner of the award is Marvel's Spider-Man 2, developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Initially, the Interactive Achievement Awards had separate awards for Console Action Game of the Year and Computer Action Game of the Year.[3] The 1999 awards featured genre-specific Online awards, including Online Action/Strategy Game of the Year.[4] There was only one Online Game of the Year in 2000.[5] In 2001, the awards for action games and adventure games were consolidated to Action/Adventure awards, recognizing titles in which players are challenged with real-time action activities and combat where possibly skill, accuracy and puzzle-solving are required.[6][7][8] Additional categories for console and computer first person action games were added for the 6th awards ceremony.[9] This was probably because both winners for console and PC Action/Adventure in 2002 were first-person shooters, being Halo: Combat Evolved for console and Return to Castle Wolfenstein for PC.[10][11] A category for Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year was also introduced in 2003.[9] Starting in 2006, genre-specific awards would no longer have separate awards for console and computer games, so there would be just one Action/Adventure Game of the Year award, which included platform games going forward, and one First-Person Action Game of the Year award.[12] These would ultimately be replaced by Action Game of the Year and Adventure Game of the Year in 2008.[1][13]
- Console Action Game of the Year (1998–2000)
- Computer Action Game of the Year (1998–2000)
- Online Action/Strategy Game of the Year (1999)
- Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year (2001–2005)
- Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year (2001–2005)
- Console First-Person Action Game of the Year (2003–2005)
- Computer First-Person Action Game of the Year (2003–2005)
- Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year (2003–2005)
- Action/Adventure Game of the Year (2006–2007)
- First-Person Action Game of the Year (2006–2007)
- Action Game of the Year (2008–present)
1990s
| Indicates the winner |
2000s
2010s
2020s
Developers and publishers
Electronic Arts has published the most nominees for action-related Game of the Year awards. Activision and Ubisoft are tied for publishing the most winners for action-related Game of the Year awards. Ubisoft Montreal has developed the most nominees and award winners. Ubisoft Montreal is the only developer to win more than one award for the same game in the same year with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, winning for Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year and Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004.
Rockstar North and Rockstar Games have also won multiple awards in the same year, but for different games in 2003:
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City won Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
- Grand Theft Auto III won Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
Sierra On-Line has published the winners for multiple awards with different developers in the same year:
- Valve developed Half-Life which won PC Action Game of the Year.
- Dynamix developed Starsiege: Tribes which won Online Action/Strategy Game of the Year.
There are two publishers with back-to-back wins with different developers:
- Sierra On-Line for PC Action Game of the Year:
- Valve developed Half-Life (1999)
- Gearbox Software developed Half-Life: Opposing Force (2000)
- 2K Games:
- Gearbox Software developed Borderlands 2 (2013).
- Irrational Games developed BioShock Infinite (2014).
There have also been two back-to-back developer-and-publisher winners of the same award:
- Rare and Nintendo won Console Action Game of the Year with GoldenEye 007 in 1998, and Banjo-Kazooie in 1999.
- Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft won Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in 2004, and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within in 2005.
| Developer | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Ubisoft Montreal | 14 | 6 |
| Infinity Ward | 6 | 4 |
| Bungie | 8 | 3 |
| DICE | 7 | 3 |
| Rockstar North/DMA Design | 7 | 3 |
| Insomniac Games | 8 | 2 |
| Valve | 6 | 2 |
| Rare | 4 | 2 |
| Ubisoft Milan | 4 | 2 |
| Gearbox Software | 3 | 2 |
| Epic Games | 6 | 1 |
| Nintendo EAD | 6 | 1 |
| id Software | 5 | 1 |
| Red Storm Entertainment | 4 | 1 |
| EA Redwood Shores/Visceral Games | 3 | 1 |
| Remedy Entertainment | 3 | 1 |
| Ubisoft Shanghai | 3 | 1 |
| 343 Industries | 2 | 1 |
| Dynamix | 2 | 1 |
| Ion Storm | 2 | 1 |
| Irrational Games/2K Boston | 2 | 1 |
| Retro Studios | 2 | 1 |
| Santa Monica Studio | 2 | 1 |
| Monolith Productions | 6 | 0 |
| EA Los Angeles | 4 | 0 |
| Naughty Dog | 4 | 0 |
| Treyarch | 4 | 0 |
| Capcom | 3 | 0 |
| Digital Extremes | 3 | 0 |
| Radical Entertainment | 3 | 0 |
| Volition | 3 | 0 |
| The Coalition | 2 | 0 |
| FromSoftware | 2 | 0 |
| Housemarque | 2 | 0 |
| IO Interactive | 2 | 0 |
| Japan Studio | 2 | 0 |
| Konami | 2 | 0 |
| LucasArts | 2 | 0 |
| MachineGames | 2 | 0 |
| Midway Games | 2 | 0 |
| Pandemic Studios | 2 | 0 |
| Raven Software | 2 | 0 |
| Respawn Entertainment | 2 | 0 |
| Sledgehammer Games | 2 | 0 |
| SquareSoft | 2 | 0 |
| Publisher | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Activision | 22 | 6 |
| Ubisoft | 20 | 6 |
| Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios | 16 | 5 |
| Electronic Arts | 25 | 4 |
| Nintendo | 14 | 4 |
| Rockstar Games | 10 | 4 |
| Sony Computer/Interactive Entertainment | 23 | 3 |
| Sierra On-Line/Entertainment | 6 | 3 |
| 2K Games | 4 | 2 |
| Eidos Interactive/Square Enix Europe | 8 | 1 |
| Vivendi Universal Games | 6 | 1 |
| Sega | 4 | 1 |
| SquareSoft/Square Enix | 6 | 0 |
| Bethesda Softworks | 6 | 0 |
| THQ | 5 | 0 |
| Capcom | 4 | 0 |
| Midway Games | 4 | 0 |
| Valve | 4 | 0 |
| GT Interactive | 3 | 0 |
| Interplay Productions | 3 | 0 |
| LucasArts | 3 | 0 |
| 989 Studios | 2 | 0 |
| Konami | 2 | 0 |
| Red Storm Entertainment | 2 | 0 |
Franchises
The Call of Duty franchise has received the most nominations and won the most awards. The Tom Clancy's franchise is second in nominations and tied for second-most wins with the Grand Theft Auto, Half-Life, Halo, and Prince of Persia franchises. In the early years of the Interactive Achievement Awards when there were multiple awards for action-related genres, some franchises has had multiple nominations in the same year. The 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2003 have had three franchises receiving multiple nominations/awards with more than one game in action-related categories:
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell was nominated for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon was nominated for Console First-Person Action Game of the Year.
- Medal of Honor: Frontline was nominated for Console First-Person Action Game of the Year, and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault won Computer First-Person Action Game of the Year.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City won Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year, and Grand Theft Auto III won Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
Some games have received more than one nomination in the same year for action-related awards:
- Starsiege: Tribes (1999): Nominated for PC Action Game of the Year, and won Online Action/Strategy Game of the Year.
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2004): Won Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year and Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
- Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2004): Nominated for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year and Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
- Full Spectrum Warrior (2005): Nominated for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year and Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year.
Some games have received multiple nominations spread across multiple years, mostly for expansion packs.
- Half-Life won Computer Action Game of the Year in 1999, and the expansion pack Opposing Force won the same award in 2000.
- Grand Theft Auto III was nominated for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2002, and won Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2003.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City won Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2003, and was nominated for Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004.
- Half-Life 2 won Computer First-Person Action Game of the Year in 2005, the Episode One expansion was nominated for First-Person Action Game of the Year in 2007, and the Episode Two expansion, as part of The Orange Box compilation, was nominated for Action Game of the Year in 2008.
- Destiny won in 2015, and the expansion pack The Taken King was nominated in 2016.
- Destiny 2 was nominated in 2018, and the expansion pack Forsaken was nominated in 2019.
There are only two franchises that have back-to-back wins for the same action-related award. The first is Half-Life for Computer Action Game of the Year in 1999 and 2000, and the second is Prince of Persia for Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004 and 2005. Both the original Dead Space and the 2023 remake have been named as a finalist, with the former winning the award outright.
| Franchise | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Call of Duty | 11 | 4 |
| Tom Clancy's | 9 | 3 |
| Grand Theft Auto | 6 | 3 |
| Half-Life[a] | 6 | 3 |
| Halo | 6 | 3 |
| Prince of Persia | 4 | 3 |
| Battlefield | 6 | 1 |
| Gears of War | 5 | 1 |
| Destiny | 4 | 1 |
| Dead Space | 3 | 1 |
| James Bond 007 | 3 | 1 |
| Medal of Honor | 3 | 1 |
| Metroid | 3 | 1 |
| Ratchet & Clank | 3 | 1 |
| Star Wars | 3 | 1 |
| The Legend of Zelda | 3 | 1 |
| Wolfenstein | 3 | 1 |
| Banjo-Kazooie | 2 | 1 |
| BioShock | 2 | 1 |
| Crimson Skies | 2 | 1 |
| Deus Ex | 2 | 1 |
| God of War | 2 | 1 |
| Marvel's Spider-Man | 2 | 1 |
| Quake | 2 | 1 |
| Tribes | 2 | 1 |
| Far Cry | 4 | 0 |
| Doom | 3 | 0 |
| Jak & Daxter | 3 | 0 |
| Myst | 3 | 0 |
| Unreal | 3 | 0 |
| Devil May Cry | 2 | 0 |
| Full Spectrum Warrior | 2 | 0 |
| Hitman | 2 | 0 |
| Max Payne | 2 | 0 |
| Metal Gear | 2 | 0 |
| No One Lives Forever | 2 | 0 |
| Saints Row | 2 | 0 |
| Spyro | 2 | 0 |
| Titanfall | 2 | 0 |
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two is included in The Orange Box.
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