New games chairman and award for BAFTAs

The organisers of the BAFTA British Academy Games Awards awards have welcomed a new chairman and revealed a new category.

Harvey Elliott now serves as chairman of BAFTA’s Games Committee, replacing Ray Maguire, who remains an elected member of the committee. Elliot maintains his existing role as Harvey is the managing director and COO of cross-platform games development technology outfit Marmalade.

The new British Academy Games Awards award, meanwhile, comes in the form of the Best of British Game category, which has been created to recognise the efforts of UK games developers working on any platform.

“I am looking forward to developing BAFTA’s games strategy during my new Chairmanship," said Elliott.

"As part of this, I am very excited to announce our new Best British Game category, giving us the opportunity to reward the great wealth of British talent in our industry.

"In addition, we are offering a complimentary entry to each company, making the Awards more accessible, particularly to those smaller developers, and hopefully seeing more games being put forward for consideration than ever before.”

As well as the introduction of complimentry submissions for developers, this year campaigning has also been introduced to the nominations and judging process, meaning the British Academy Games Awards awards process will now more closely parallel that of the main film and television awards.

The British Academy Games Awards 2013 is also now open for entries. More information is available at the official BAFTA Games website.

The next video games BAFTA award ceremony takes place on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 at the London Hilton, Park Lane, and will be presented by returning host and comedian Dara O’Briain.