CESA held its CEDEC Awards 2010 event yesterday in Yokohama as one leg of the annual CESA Developers Conference event. The creators of such games as Demon's Souls and Modern Warfare were recognized for their development efforts.

Started in 2008, the CEDEC Awards are given out in five categories: programming, visual arts, game design, sound, and network. The focus of the awards is on technology, with the goal being to promote the spread and education of game technology and the development of the game industry.

The winners this year were:

Programming/Development Environment Category

"MyCom Basic Magazine" editorial staff and program submitters. This magazine, which was published from 1982 to 2003, was recognized for having served as a valuable resource for programmers and helping to build the industry. Wikipedia has a lengthy Japanese article about the magazine. Other groups nominated for this award included the Love Plus team (Konami), the Killzone 2 team (Sony) and the Vocaloid development team (at Yamaha).

Visual Arts Category

Infinity Ward development team because of the recreation of the battle field in Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. Other groups nominated for this award included the Love Plus team (Konami), the Yakuza team (Sega), the Bayonetta team and the 428 team (Chunsoft)

Game Design Category

Demon's Souls development team (From Software) for their work in creating a challenging game where communication is essential while making available a variety of stress-free asynchronous communication methods. The game attempted a new game design which was highly praised overseas. Other groups nominated for this award included the Mushi King and Oshare Majo teams (Sega), the Dragon Quest IX team (Square Enix), and the Friend Collection team (Nintendo).

Sound Category

DS-10 series development staff (AQ Interactive). Other groups nominated for this category included the Final Fantasy XIII sound team (Square Enix), the Ar Tonelico 3 team (Namco Bandai), Capcom's sound production staff, and the LittleBigPlanet team (Sony)

Network Category

Sekai Camera development team. You can read about Sekai Camera here. Other groups nominated for this category included the Browser Sangokushi team (AQ Interactive), the Online production team at Konami, the torne development team (Sony) and the Demon's Soul team (From Software).

CESA also gave out a couple of special awards. This year, Namco founder (and current Namco Bandai chairman) Masaya Nakamura received the "Special Award." Bom Digital and Hiroyuki Kawanishi were given the "Literary Award" for their publication of the Japanese language version of Game Programming Gems.

Visit Famitsu.com for a look at the awards ceremony.

For previous award years, see these stories:

• CEDEC Awards 2009, where Shadow of the Colossus, Okami and Monster Hunter were recognized.
• CEDEC Awards 2008, where Shigeru Miyamoto, ICO, Super Mario Bros. and Zelda were recognized.

CESA also holds a more game-oriented awards ceremony in the Japan Game Awards. These will be announced throughout the course of the Tokyo Game Show in mid September.