Kotaku: bafta

BAFTA Video Game Awards Happening Now

Brian Crecente — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:20:00 MDT

The GAME British Academy Video Games Awards are starting to be handed out in the UK. So far the official BAFTA Twitter has named a few winners.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare picked up an award for gameplay, while Boom Blox landed one for casual and Race Driver: Grid won the sports category. The full list of nominees was announced in February.

Follow along on the official Twitter, or check back later for the full list of winners.

BAFTA Online [Twitter]

Nolan Bushnell To Be Awarded BAFTA Fellowship

Mike Fahey — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:20:00 MST

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts will bestow their highest honor at this years GAME British Academy Video Games Awards to the gather of Atari and pioneer of Pong, Nolan Bushnell.

Nolan Bushnell will be inducted into the BAFTA Fellowship at the 2009 award ceremony on March 10th in London, England. The Fellowship is the highest honor that BAFTA can bestow on an individual, and this year they're giving it to Bushnell for ushering in the era of the video game. Bushnell is understandably ecstatic.

“I am humbled to be selected for this honour from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The British people are not only great game players but have historically been some of the best game creators. The pub culture and country house drawing room environments have been instrumental in spawning games and game players through the centuries. I am very grateful to receive an award from the people with a history of creating and embracing this type of entertainment.”

In other words, they love him...they really love him. Good going, Bushie.

BAFTA Gallery

Mike Fahey — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:20:08 MDT

The 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards wrapped up yesterday, and while we've already brought you the list of winners and losers, we didn't bring you what is possibly the most important thing to come out of the gaming BAFTAs every year: pictures of people getting awards in England. Luckily for us they had some sort of staff photographer on hand who seems genuinely good at what he or she does, so the day is saved! At the top you'll see the legendary Will Wright getting his award from television producer Hilary Bevan Jones. More pictures of people I don't recognize follow!

Will Wright To Receive BAFTA Fellowship

Mike Fahey — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:40:11 MDT

For the first time in the history of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Fellowship - the Academy's highest accolade - will be bestowed upon a member of the video game industry. SimCity creator Will Wright is rightly receiving the honor at this year's British Academy Video Game Awards, taking place at London's Battersea Evolution on October 23rd.

Hilary Bevan Jones, Chairman of the Academy said "Will's immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour".

Past winners of the Fellowship include Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, and Steven Spielberg. Congratulations Mr. Wright. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bloke.

Sims Creator Wright inducted into BAFTA Fellowship Creator of The Sims, Will Wright, joins legends such as Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and Steven Spielberg as he is inducted into BAFTA's Fellowship at this year's Awards ceremony
Monday 15th October/... Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, the world's best selling PC gaming franchise with more than 90 million units sold, will shortly join an exclusive number of household names from TV and Film as he becomes the first recipient of the Fellowship from the video games industry at the British Academy Video Games Awards 2007. The Fellowship is the highest accolade the Academy can bestow on an individual for their creative work.

Until now, the much lauded Fellowship has remained an exclusive part of BAFTA's more established pillars, TV and Film. But today's British Academy recognises the massive impact of video games on popular culture and their huge contribution to the whole art form of the moving image.

Hilary Bevan Jones, Chairman of the Academy said "Will's immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour".

Wright, who is widely accepted as one of the world's leading visionaries in the field of video game design, has been passionately creating games for more than twenty years. Although he has worked on a number of hugely successful games, among them Raid On Bungling Bay (1984), SimCity (1989), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1989) and SimCity 4 (2003), he is best known for bringing to fruition one of the best-loved games franchises in history, The Sims - a game whose inspiration sprang from a combination of the aforementioned titles.

Other 'firsts' at this year's Awards include the BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare To Be Digital which recognises up-and-coming talent, and the PC World Gamers' Award, the only publicly-voted award of the night (www.obsessedwithgames.co.uk). This year's Awards will be held at London's Battersea Evolution on 23 October. Music acts will include the indie rock band Athlete with another act being confirmed this week. The show will be broadcast on E4 on November 4 at 11pm and repeated the following weekend on Channel 4.

Will Wright at BAFTA

Brian Crecente — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 19:00:02 MDT

Will Wright's speeches always leave me feeling equally exhilarated and confused. He manages to both tear down the walls of my current box and stir me to new ways of thinking.

It sounds like his latest speech, at BAFTA, was no different. In it he talks about programming for next generation systems, aka children.

As he points out, the thing developers should really be concerned with is the human experience and how it can be shaped by games.

Game developers are developing for two processors, and the human mind is the one we should be concerned with.

Basically what Wright is saying is that the kids who are growing up now virtually soaking in bandwidth and video games, are going to be much harder to create games for then my generation, which is still easily amused by the process, the idea of gaming.

I look at my 5-year-old son and see a person who finds video games as prevalent and mundane as I found radio and TV. Kinda frightening. Brian Crecente

Will Wright Talk @ BAFTA [Functional Autonomy]