BAFTA - Exploring the Awards - Limey Lessons - Nerd Age

BAFTA has announced a new award for the best British game. BAFTA, for those who aren’t British such as me, is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Those of you who want to enter can enter early here. You can even get a complimentary invite before Monday, October 22nd.

Why BAFTA is important

While certainly not an indie game competition, it is important. You will not see smaller games winning here. But at the same time, you get to see how politics play out on a large scale. Competitions like this emphasize the big players. The ones with big budgets. The ones who get the huge reviews. Let us take a look at some games that have been part of it:

• Arkham City
• Portal 2
• Peggle HD
• BattleField 3
• Dead Space 2

As with anything, money talks. You will not be seriously considered for a BAFTA award if you are not with a big name. They do sometimes give slight shout-outs to lesser known games. However these obviously will not win. These major awards are similar to the Emmy Awards for gamers.

What if I want to win a BAFTA award someday?

It is entirely within your grasp as a developer. Unfortunately you need to be picked up by a studio. While Mojang may be tremendously popular, they are still too small for this. For many developers, they do not need prestigious awards such as this. However for your average developer, this is a big deal. For the guy who just wants to make a living this can help you for life.

BAFTA and the Mainstream Industry

In a parallel topic to this, as much harm as EA does they do give some developers a chance. Some famous developers such as Greg Kasavin of Bastion got their start there. So as you can see, as with anything in life, there are shades of grey in this. Few things are just black and white, good and bad.

In the same way, we may be a more honest site than others and give fair reviews, but we cannot promote people as heavily as the heavy hitters. Even Nerd Age falls within those same shades of grey.