BAFTA Announce New Category, New Chairman of Games Committee

Big news over at BAFTA today, with two huge announcements.

BAFTA today announced Harvey Elliott as the new Chairman of its Games Committee.  Harvey replaces Ray Maguire whose term as Chairman ended in July, but remains on the Committee as an elected member.  Harvey is the Managing Director and COO of Marmalade, a leading cross-platform software technology business, and oversees the Ideaworks Game Studio under the same company group.

Today also sees the British Academy Games Awards in 2013 open for entries. The Awards include one new category, Best British Game, that celebrates the best game across all platforms created by a British development studio. Given the amount of killer software produced on these shores, I have to say this award is long overdue.

For the first time this year, studios and developers will qualify for one complimentary game entry if they enter their games into the Awards before Monday 22 October 2012, helping the Awards to be as inclusive as possible.
Campaigning has also been introduced, which brings the Awards into line with BAFTA’s other annual Awards ceremonies. More information on this and the entry process, rules and guidelines can be found at www.bafta.org/games.

The BAFTA Awards Ceremony will take place on Tuesday 5th March 2013 at the London Hilton, with genial Irishman Dara O’Brien hosting for the fifth year in a row.