Gaming firm scoops digital design prize

Online gaming company NC Soft scooped the award for Outstanding Digital Design for www.discoverlineage2.com, the accompanying interactive website to its Lineage 2 game.

‘It’s an old-style book which reflects the game,’ says Mirko Gozzo, marketing director at NC Soft.

Phil Jones, managing director of Wired Sussex, which organised the awards, says, ‘It’s difficult to design for and satisfy a core audience and appeal to a new one. [NC Soft] engaged well and it had a great look and feel.’

Brightwave took the Best in E-learning award for its Virgin Atlantic health and safety training production addressing back injury and lifting.

Lars Hyland, director of learning services at Brightwave, says, ‘The subject can be a bit dull, so we’ve produced a solution that’s less dictatorial.’ Back on Track uses storytelling and interactive learning.

Jones says the awards ‘cover the breadth of the digital industry’ to ‘reflect how it is beginning to shift’. He sees games and animation as having broader digital applications.

Other judges joining Jones on the panel included Peter Cowley, managing director of digital media at Endemol; Matt Locke, commissioning editor of new media at Channel Four; and Kirk Woolford, senior lecturer in media at the University of Sussex.