GDC 2015 will honour David Braben, Brenda Romero

The organisers of GDC have announced the winners of two key prizes at this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards: David Braben and Brenda Romero.

Frontier founder and Elite co-creator Braben will receive the 2015 Pioneer award, which is given to industry luminaries who have produced ground-breaking technology and set new standards of games design, GamesIndustry reports.

Braben’s victory is not only down to the success of the Elite series, including the recently launch Elite: Dangerous, but also his work on credit card-sized microcomputer Raspberry Pi, which is designed to make programming accessible and affordable.

Meanwhile, Romero has won the Ambassador award, given to individuals who help the medium of video games "advance to a better place". With a career dating back to 1981, she is credited as "the longest continuously serving woman" in the industry.

She is a board member and co-chair of the IGDA’s Women in Games group and has been a strong advocate of women working in the industry.

Both Romero and Braben will receive their prizes at the Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco on Wednesday, March 4th.

Heading to GDC? Be sure to check out our Countdown to GDC 2015 series.