26/10/2010

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will recognise social gaming with its new Social Network Game category in the upcoming GAME British Academy Video Games Awards, presented in 2011.

Over half of the 500m registered Facebook users regularly play games on the network such as FarmVille, with over 60m monthly active users. Other social networks have popular gaming platforms too. The huge growth in downloaded games and games played over networks offers the opportunity for content owners to create original IP and deliver it to a global market via the Internet.

With its new category for Social Network Game, BAFTA is identifying and rewarding excellence and innovation in order to recognise and further encourage creativity in this area.

Ray Maguire, chairman of BAFTA’s Video Games Committee, said, “The rise in popularity and sophistication of social media gaming has been meteoric. It is only right to recognise the hard work, fantastic creativity and great success being demonstrated in this new area of the industry. As a result, BAFTA is very proud to announce the new category of Social Network Game as part of the upcoming Awards.”

The GAME British Academy Video Games Awards will take place on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at the London Hilton on Park Lane and, for the third year running, will be hosted by comedian and gamer Dara O’Briain. The nominations will be announced on Wednesday 16 February. The Awards will be streamed live for the first time on the Internet.