Alexey Pajitnov will be this year's First Penguin honoree, for the creation of the enormously important and influential Tetris. The First Penguin award is given to developers who are first to explore new and untried paths in the games industry, laying the groundwork for others to follow. This week's press release notes that Pajitnov "gave birth to the casual game industry and set the bar which every puzzle game to follow would aim to match." Currently, Pajitnov is employed at Microsoft's MSN Games.

Composer and sound designer George "The Fat Man" Sanger will receive the Community Contribution award for his work on tools that have benefited the game audio community and industry at large. In his more than two decades in game music and audio, the not particularly portly Sanger has worked on hundreds of games, including Loom, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Pools of Darkness, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, The 7th Guest and its sequel The 11th Hour, and many others.

This year's Maverick Award will be presented to the famously outspoken Greg Costikyan, for his co-founding of independent publisher and online distributor Manifesto Games alongside Dr. Johnny Wilson. Costikyan, who has worked in both the paper and pencil games as well as video games industries, is a frequent speaker and presenter at industry events. He is also known for his tendency to discuss industry problems forwardly and with great zeal, such as during his controversial rant during the 2005 GDC session Burning Down the House.

Finally, the Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Shigeru Miyamoto, legendary Nintendo designer and creator of franchises such as Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Pikmin. Most recently, Miyamoto was instrumental in the design of the Wii, and has been involved in much of its first party software. He is credited on over 100 games and was responsible for some of the industry's best selling and most influential titles of all time. 2007 marks Miyamoto's thirtieth year with Nintendo. Previously, the Lifetime Achievement Award has been granted to figures such as SimCity designer Will Wright, Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka, Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi (awarded posthumously), Marble Madness designer Mark Cerny, Robotron: 2084 designer Eugene Jarvis, and Ultima creator Richard Garriott.

"The IGDA applauds our special honorees. These awards are only a small token of the industry's enormous appreciation for what they have done for us," said International Game Developers Association executive director Jason Della Rocca. The Game Developers Choice Awards will be hosted by Double Fine Productions founder Tim Schafer, on Wednesday, March 7 in San Francisco's Moscone Center.