Features// The British Academy Video Game Awards 2011

It became clear, as winners were rapidly being announced, that the night would be something of a triumph for British and European talent. Rare’s Kinect Sports took the prize for Family Game, while Quantic Dreams’ Heavy Rain managed to grab the most awards of the evening, earning Technical Innovation, Story and Original Music. Swedish studio DICE was acknowledged for Use of Audio in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Codemasters took home the Sports title with F1 2010.

The big (and happy) surprise was the winner of Handheld Game - that went to iOS favourite Cut the Rope, developed by Russian outfit ZeptoLab. Receiving the award on behalf of creators Efim and Semyon Voinov, Chillingo’s director Chris Byatte said with the biggest grin on his face, “This is our first ever transitional moment in the gaming industry. The golden age [of development] has come back.

"Innovation is winning, and it’s incredible that an iOS game was able to win. This is testament to the fact that a developer based in Russia can break through the market and make the best game ever on iPhone. We’re totally lost for words.”

Industry legend Jon Hare was present to honour DICE with its Best Use of Audio award, and told me that Chillingo’s win is but the tip of the iceberg for the industry. “We have an opportunity to take advantage of smaller platforms that are growing in power… you can make a highly influential game on a small budget. The power’s going back into the hands of the creative guys.

"It’ll be up to the younger generation to keep the ball rolling with new ideas and genres like my generation did in the 1980s. It’s a brave new world for game developers and publishers. Some of them will win, and whoever does will deserve it.”

It was also a big night for the blockbuster games as well, with Mass Effect 2 taking the Game of the Year award after its powerful win at the last year’s Golden Joystick awards. God of War III proved itself in the Artistic Achievement category and Super Mario Galaxy 2 was honoured with the Gameplay title. The Call of Duty brand still holds a lot of mainstream appeal, with Black Ops winning the public vote for GAME Award of 2010.

It’s a broad mixture of honours and nominations that was not lost on BAFTA show host Dara O’Briain. “I do enjoy the adrenaline run of Black Ops, but this year has been an interesting one for the awards, because we have such diversity. I just finished Heavy Rain and Limbo, and they’re completely different experiences.

"Limbo - beautiful art and sound direction, and the developers did the sound of a child dying on a rotating blade better than anything else this year. If BAFTA could just loosen those stiff collars and allow for an award for that…”

The night was rounded off with an incredibly emotional address to new BAFTA Fellow Peter Molyneux by Sir Ben Kingsley, followed by a celebration of the past work of the Lionhead chief.

Speaking to me after he received his award, “I had this kind of out-of-body experience - I was sitting there with my wife, my mum and the Lionhead team and seeing all my past games fly in front of me… it was like drowning. My life literally flashed before me and then when I walked up on stage and looked out, I felt incredibly humbled by the whole thing.

“Just to walk up to that microphone was incredible. My first reaction was to say ‘thank you’ to everybody and - I know this sounds like an incredibly crass thing to say - that I’m just standing on the shoulders of some infinitely brilliant people. I’m just the guy that has the stupid idea. It might seem like I’m being humble, but that’s the actual truth.”

Overall, the British games industry won in general on Wednesday night, in hosting an event that equally celebrated popular mainstream products and yet understood the real creative force in more original games. Let’s hope that this marks a real turning point for the acceptance of the medium in our society, and that we further embrace it into our culture rather than sensationalise it.