Biography | Todd Howard — Moscone Center, the Night Peers Gave Him a Lifetime Award

On 16 March 2016 the Game Developers Choice Awards were held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, during that year's Game Developers Conference.

The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Todd Howard.

IGN, Game Developer, PC Gamer, and Digital Trends all reported the honor in February, citing the GDC announcement.

The ceremony was set for 6:30 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday the 16th. Robin Hunicke hosted.

Contemporary coverage named Pete Hines of Bethesda as the presenter of the lifetime award.

The citation was specific. Howard and the Rockville team were credited with early 3D mouselook on The Terminator: Future Shock in 1995, with player-facing world tools on Morrowind in 2002, and with three consecutive games that swept Game of the Year lists: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim.

GDC general manager Meggan Scavio's statement, carried in those reports, tied the award to the Elder Scrolls and Fallout worlds and to the craft of the team around him.

Moscone South stands at 747 Howard Street. GDC has used this complex as its San Francisco home for years.

This is a public hall and a dated ceremony, not a workplace.

The record lives in the award announcement, not on a wall on Piccard Drive.

By 2016 Howard had already directed Fallout 4. The lifetime label arrived while he was still making games, which is how this industry often times the honor.

A visitor to Moscone will find a convention complex, not a shrine. On that March night the room was full of working developers.

Photo: Moscone Center, San Francisco, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons