The International Game Developers Association and Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, both organizations dedicated to furthering the video game industry, revealed today that they have partnered for the annual Interactive Achievement Awards.

AIAS president Joseph Olin claims that the partnership "basically makes the IAAs the awards of the games industry," with any IGDA member now able to vote in the Game of the Year categories. Traditionally awarded at the AIAS' yearly D.I.C.E. summit, the Interactive Achievement Awards have been running since 1998.

"We're pledging the support of the IGDA in the interest of including the voices of our more than 14,000 international members in the IAAs," noted IGDA executive director Jason Della Rocca. "This partnership also opens the door for more collaboration between the Academy and the IGDA."

This year's IAA awards saw Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare take 2007 Game of the Year, with Valve's The Orange Box honored as Computer Game of the Year and Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy netting Adventure Game of the Year.

Addressing complaints that former Mythic employees were not credited for their work in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the studio has instituted a new policy that will see it maintaining an online database of everyone who contributed to a project.

According to the latest International Game Developers Association newsletter:

The Mythic team is also taking the following steps to address credit policies:

• In-game and manual credits will be reserved for the launch team.
• Mythic will create an online database listing the name and title of everyone who contributed to a project, regardless of current employment status. Additionally, the studio will make best efforts to provide this information for its previous online games

"I applaud Mythic for taking steps to address this issue," stated IGDA chairperson Jen MacLean. "Fair and accurate credits and transparent standards for crediting remain a pervasive problem in the industry."

In addition, Mythic will work alongside the IGDA to "promote fair and... Read more

Not crediting the entirety of a game's development staff is "disrespectful of the effort of the game developers who worked on the game, and misleads both consumers and game industry peers," according to IGDA chairperson Jen MacLean.

The statement comes in response to word that Mythic will only credit current staff members for its upcoming PC MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, a move that excludes ex-staffers, such as one that worked on the game for three years.

"Everyone who is currently at Mythic who's worked on Warhammer is going to be in the credits," studio VP Mark Jacobs said of the policy. " And that's good enough for me."

While Mythic's policy is the latest example of improper accreditation, the IGDA affirmed that incomplete credits "are not unusual." In a recent IGDA study, 35% of respondents claimed they "don't ever" or "only sometimes" receive a mention in a game's credits.

The current lack of an industry-wide crediting policy and the abundance of accreditation issues was the impetus behind the International Game Developer... Read more