Fritz 9 wins German Game Developer Award

The German Game Developer Award was given in the Lichtburg Theatre in Essen, Germany. The prizes are for PC or console games that were released in the period between October 2004 and 2005. The commercial success was not a decisive factor. More important for the jury, consisting of recognised experts, were mainly looking for technical innovation, an excellent user interface and gaming qualities. There were prizes in 23 categories to be won.

For the first time a chess program was the winner of an award (the others were given mainly to action-packed games). Fritz 9 got second place in the category "Innovative technology". This was given for two reasons:

1. the algorithmically generated music in real time – Fritz 9 gives users on the server special musical themes, which are composed on the fly and are unique to each visitor;

2. the algorithmically generated realtime animation of the Chess Turk, which calculates and executes moves, taking into account all spatial and physical conditions.

   

The Lichtburg is one of Germany's oldes movie theatres. It was built in 1928 and stages numerous national and international film premieres.

There were 750 visitors at the German Game Developer Award ceremony, which was sponsored by Microsoft, which presented it latest XBox 360 during the show.

• German Game Developer Award homepage