GAME teams up with BAFTA to host awards (From Basingstoke Gazette)

GAME teams up with BAFTA to host awards

9:16am Thursday 25th February 2010 in

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BASINGSTOKE-headquartered GAME Group will be adding to the glamour of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards.

For the second year running, the computer game retailer has teamed up with BAFTA to host the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards which will recognise the best of the video games industry.

Taking place at the London Hilton on Park Lane, on Friday, March 19, Mock The Week comedi an Dara O’Briain, who is an avid game player, will be hosting the awards.

Neil Ashurst, head of UK PR for GAME, based at the company’s offices at Unity House, Telford Road, on the Houndmills Estate, said: “It’s our way of supporting the gaming industry and essen tially thanking them for the great games they produce year-on-year.

“The video games BAFTAs have taken on greater importance and awareness in the last couple of years. We sponsored the awards last year and it got a huge reac tion from staff and customers, and that’s why we are sponsoring them again this year.”

More than 40 different games have been nominated for 14 video game awards, which are being judged by a panel of industry experts, with categories ranging from action, artistic achieve ment, best game, strategy and use of audio.

In addition, 10 games are up for the prestigious GAME Award of 2009, which is the only prize on the night that is voted for by the public.

Among those shortlisted for the award include The Beatles: Rock Band, FIFA 10, Assassin’s Creed II, and Wii Sports Resort.

Explaining how the shortlist was compiled, Neil said: “We took the top 50 games that we sold last year, and then a panel of journal ists and gaming enthusiasts were involved in a lot of heated discus sion and passionate discord on which games should and should not be on the shortlist.”

Last year, more than 60,000 peo ple voted for the GAME Award with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare winning the accolade.

“I’d expect to exceed that figure this year,” said Neil, who believes the shortlist of contenders reflects the wide range of games available and the different types of people who play them.

He said: “If you were looking at it five years ago, I think a lot of awards would have been for action games – first person shoot ers as they are called.

“But here we have a Wii game and the Beatles Rock Band, show ing that there is mass market appeal. And we’ve got the big games from last year as well, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Unchartered 2: Among Thieves, which are criti cally changing barriers and are very exciting. So the shortlist has a whole range of games on it that will appeal to different people.”

Neil is encouraging everyone to vote for their favourite game by visiting baftagameaward.com.

Voting for the GAME BAFTAs closes at midday on Tuesday, March 16.