Brenda Romero, Jade Raymond and Fumito Ueda to be honoured at Fun & Serious Festival 2018
Bilbao event will also host two days of talks from Rare, Ubisoft, Tencent, Women in Games, and more
Brenda Romero, Jade Raymond and Fumito Ueda will each receive an honorary award at the Fun & Serious Game Festival in Bilbao, Spain next week.
In addition to receiving their awards, each of the three will draw upon their experience in the industry to deliver a talk as part the Fun & Serious VIT Talks programme: Romero as an award-winning designer whose career includes roles at major publishers and the creation of experimental solo projects; Ueda as the creative force behind the classic games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus; and Raymond as a veteran of AAA development at Ubisoft and EA.
Other speakers on the VIT Talks programme include the prominent writer Rhianna Pratchett, Sea of Thieves executive producer Joe Neate, Starlink creative director Lauren Malville, and Marie-Claire Isaaman, executive director of Women in Games.
More industry figures will speak in the Games Industry Forum, the part of Fun & Serious aimed at the independent development community. Here, leading lights from the indie scene will offer their insight and advice, including Failbetter Games CEO Adam Myers, The Weather Factory's Lottie Bevan and Alexis Kennedy, and the director of Miniclip at Tencent Publishing, Marcelo Careaga.
The event also hosts the annual Titanium Awards, which honour the best releases of the year across 13 different categories. The nominees for Game of the Year 2018 are Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Dragon Quest XI, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Return of the Obra Dinn and Red Dead Redemption 2.
The winners will be revealed at a closing ceremony on December 10, where Romero, Raymond and Ueda will also collect their awards.
There will also be two special awards for emerging talent, each of which carries a cash prize: the €7,000 FSPlay award, which any international game can win, and a €5,000 award for Best Basque Game, which is specifically for projects made in Spain's Basque region. Overall, more than 240 applications were received from 44 different countries - you can see all of the finalists here.
Fun & Serious is now in its eighth year, and in 2017 it attracted around 25,000 visitors. You can find more information on the official website.
GamesIndustry.biz will attend the Fun & Serious Game Festival as a guest of the organiser.