The most emotional moments of the night came with the presentation of the First Penguin award to Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov and the Lifetime Achievement Award to legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Both men inspired raucous standing ovations before speaking a word. "Thank you very, very much," said Pajitnov humbly, before also collectively thanking all of the publishers who have released versions of Tetris over the years.

"I think it's great that I've been able to do this so long, and I've done a lot of embarrassing things over the years," said Miyamoto after seeing a photo montage of himself on the hall's large screens. "I personally feel very young, and I expect to keep doing this for a very long time." The gaming icon also had a surprising cameo in a video produced by sketch group Mega64, featuring Miyamoto giving a sternly skeptical look to some Mario and Luigi impersonators.

Continue on for the full list of developer nominees and recipients, including additional acceptance speech quotes from developers such as CliffyB, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Greg Costikyan, as well as numerous quips from Tim Schafer.