The Golden Joystick Awards are the UK's longest running and most popular video game awards, and in this 25th anniversary year, saw nearly 750,000 votes cast by readers of Future Publishing's leading video game magazines and websites. The prestigious event took place at the Hilton Hotel on London's Park Lane last Friday, October 26th.

In being crowned 'UK Developer of the Year 2007', Codemasters is the first to receive the honor. The category, introduced just this year, praises and recognizes the best home-grown creative talent and saw 51 companies competing for nomination.

Codemasters, whose Warwickshire-based central studios are responsible for award-winning titles including DiRT™ and the Race Driver™ series, beat out other competitors, including Rockstar North, Lionhead, Rare, and Bizarre Creations. Codemasters was also the only 3rd Party game publisher in the final nominations announced during the event for the 'Publisher of the Year' award, alongside Microsoft and Nintendo.

"To be recognized and rewarded as a creative team is a great achievement and the fact that this award was voted for by hundreds of thousands of gamers has made everyone at Codemasters immensely proud," said Gavin Cheshire, Vice President, Codemasters Studios. "Game development has been a part of Codemasters for almost as long as the publishing arm has been operating and our titles have a quality and consistency that many other developers and publishers envy. We're overjoyed in winning the award for our achievements to date and, be assured, we have many exciting concepts for the future."