And The Award Goes To...

Changing Times

Even so, the event in 2007 certainly suffered from being so close in time to the UK industry's other big games awards, The Golden Joysticks (which took place in the same week), so moving the date of the Awards seemed like a good step forward - although that meant going 18 months without a ceremony.

But, as Kelly Smith, awards officer for the television and videogames events at BAFTA explained there was another good reason for the change.

"When we first made Games the third pillar of the Academy, we positioned the Awards themselves around the newly-launched London Games Festival because that made sense and we hoped that it would also enable publishers to be able to sticker their BAFTA-nominated or BAFTA-winning games in the peak sales period in the run-up to Christmas," she told GamesIndustry.biz. "Unfortunately, this timing meant that some of the biggest games of the year were not released in time to be eligible. The change to March has meant that we can include nearly all of the releases in 2008.

"The only reason that March was selected is a practical one - once we had given the jurors sufficient time to play the games, they then have to come into BAFTA for the actual jury sessions and with 13 categories, this takes some time. Then, once the nominations have been announced we have to contact all the nominees personally, get the clips in, etc. At BAFTA, for all our ceremonies, we always allow about a month between nominations and the event itself."

It's difficult to argue with the logic behind the decision, especially given that moving out of the LGF event window was unlikely to make much difference to the Awards, while moving away from the Golden Joysticks would.

However, it did throw up one tricky question in the process, and result in a nominations headline that doesn't necessarily do BAFTA any favours: "Call of Duty 4 leads BAFTA 09 nominations list" - unfortunate given that the game in question was released in 2007, so how was that possible?

"It wasn't released in time for the 2007 Awards and because it was our decision to reposition the 2008 Awards to March 2009, we felt it would be unfair to exclude it," explains Smith.

Fair enough - there was no awards ceremony in 2008, so the risk would have been that some titles undeniably crucial in the industry's history, which CoD4 undoubtedly is, would miss out on a spot in the BAFTA hall of fame.

Even so, for an organisation striving to move forward in the sector it's something that, if those nominations convert into gongs, will throw up more question marks over its relevance to the industry - although Smith disagrees.

"BAFTA is there to reward creative excellence and if it wins, it will be because the experts have deemed it the rightful winner in that category. No game should be penalised because we have chosen to move our Awards into 2009," she said.

"As things stand at the moment, any game released after the entry deadline of this year's Awards and within the deadline for the next, will be eligible. But we haven't even begun to think about next year yet! We will want to have a thorough review of this year's Awards with the committee before any decisions are made for the next one."

That last point is actually a very important one - the concept of reviews following on from feedback is something that BAFTA has always taken very seriously. The judging process in particular is something that's been worked and reworked over the past three years following advice from those taking part as to how it could be improved.

The result this time around is something that's both rigorous and effective, allowing judges the time to evaluate the titles while enforcing a strict policy to make sure that those involved are all well-versed in the games themselves. But who, exactly, are the judges?

"For Games, until we build up our own BAFTA games membership to a critical mass, we invite qualified industry developers and some publishers and games reviewers to complement our games voters and take part in the initial voting stage," explained Smith. "All the entries were put into their relevant categories and the votes were cast.

"We then took the top ten games which received the most votes through to the jury. The change in the timing of the Awards enabled each juror to have at least six weeks to play the games (previously, jurors had to come into the Academy to judge games on preview code rather than having longer to interrogate the final retail versions at their leisure).

"After playing the games at home, the jury then sits. After the discussions, the jurors place their votes in writing on the voting ballot forms and the chair collects them. They are tallied up by the chair and checked by a BAFTA staff member. The jury is told what the nominations are but no juror, other than the chair of the jury, knows who the winner is until the night when the envelope is opened."

It's certainly a more effective process than in the past, and one which the jurors themselves seemed far happier with as well - usually a good indication that the system is working.

"An additional benefit of this new timing is that the public feels more engaged in the whole process too, because the games have all been released and so the winners will resonate more when the results are announced," Smith pointed out. "Last time, people could not understand how games which had not yet been released could be judged."