Minecraft has won the first ever GameCity Prize. The Nottingham-based video game festival announced the decision at a ceremony on Saturday night.
The world creation game was up against the likes of Portal 2, LIMBO and Pokemon Black in a competition judged by a diverse panel including MP Tom Watson, writer and comedian Charlie Higson, and South Bank Centre Artistic Director Jude Kelly.
"The GameCity Prize, like the GameCity festival, is about exploring and celebrating video games as being at the vanguard of inclusive, contemporary creative arts," said festival director Iain Simons.
He and his team devised the awards to be a video game equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize or literature's Man Booker prize.
Minecraft is the creation of Swedish indie developer Markus Persson, also known as Notch.
The sandbox-style PC title allows gamers to construct elaborate buildings and objects on procedurally generated landscapes. It was originally released as a beta version in 2009, and now smartphone and Xbox 360 versions are in development.
"We're very excited to have won the first GameCity Prize," said Persson, "especially since the nominees contain some of our favourite games recently. It's a great honour to be compared to those games."
Much-respected for its emphasis on user creativity, Minecraft has around 15 million subscribers, who have between them uploaded around 3m videos to YouTube showing off their creations.
