The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Award winners have been announced at GDC. You can see a run down of who won what here. I grabbed the listing of the PC gaming winners since that's what most of the guys here play:

Deus Ex Action/Adventure Game of the Year Ion Storm/Eidos Interactive
Diablo II Role Playing Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment
MechWarrior Simulation Game of the Year 4 Microsoft
FIFA 2001 Sports Game of the Year (TIE) EA Canada/Electronic Arts
Motocross Madness Sports Game of the Year (TIE) Rainbow Studios/Microsoft
Age of Kings II: The Conquerors Strategy Game of the Year Ensemble Studios/Microsoft
Deus Ex Innovation in Computer Gaming Ion Storm/Eidos Interactive
Diablo II Computer Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo II Game of the Year Blizzard Entertainment/Blizzard Entertainment

There is also a write up of how the awards went down over at CGO (Thanks Blues) if you're wanting to read a bit more about it.

LucasArts and Ensemble Studios have announced a strategic alliance to create real time strategy games according to a press release on Multiplayer.it. The first product to come out of this partnership is the game Star Wars Battleground, set for a fall 2001 release. Star Wars MMORPG from Verant, Star Wars RPG from Bioware, and now a Star Wars RTS from Ensemble (of course famous for the Age of Empires series). But now, who's going to create the next Star Wars FPS for the PC?

GameSpot has an interview with Tony Goodman, the CEO of Ensemble as they unveil plans for their next RTS game, codenamed "RTSIII". Ooooohhh...

Word from the Ensemble Studios website (Thanks VE)is that they will probably be announcing their next game that has been in development for a while next week. Ensemble is of course responsible for Age of Empires which sold really damn well and sucked away quite a few of my evenings.

An interesting article over on RedHerring asks the simple question, How to design a blockbuster game? (Thanks BluesNews) Obviously Boobies and robots, uhduh!? But apparently these guys decided to consult gaming expert Thresh, Will Wright of Maxis (The Sims), and Bruce Shelley of Ensemble (AoE). Check it:

RH: Is it the same game that you make for hard-core gamers?
Bruce Shelley: No, I don't think so. I think you put different games in the same box. What we try to do with Age of Empires is cater to both the hard-core community and the large casual market within the same box, but by putting in different gaming options.

Even more developer origins at Gamespy where today they ask people from Valve, Interplay, SierraEnsemble Studios and others about how they got their name and logo.

Since RTS games have been getting some air time here lately, check out this interview with Sandy Peterson (if you are k-rad, you remember where he used to work) talking about the next 2 Ensemble games. Thanks Stomped

Just got word that Age of Empires2 has gone gold from the Ensemble Studios guys. Here is the full press release which also includes a link to some screenshots of the game if you're not sure what it looks like. Thanks Redwood for the initial heads up.