BAFTA Game Awards 2024 applications open early | Pocket Gamer.biz

This year’s BAFTA Game Awards took place in March with Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok and others claiming victory, mobile games included.

In fact, Best Game in the 2023 awards was won by Vampire Survivors, a game available on both PC and mobile. Best Narrative, meanwhile, was won by Immortality, a game available on Android and iOS through Netflix Games.

Changes afoot

Now, just over two months later, submissions have today opened for the 2024 awards. This is significantly earlier than usual, and the announcement also comes with details on entry processes for developers and publishers, information on how Best Game and British Game are judged, and a reveal that the longlist will be made public before the shortlist’s announcement.

BAFTA is encouraging entries to be submitted for consideration during their release month, filling out details within 30 days of release; in fact, a fee must be paid to enter games later than this. This is to give voting members “more time with games”, enabling them to play more varied titles than they otherwise would, giving indie devs a fair shot against the global publishers.

This time around, the decision on Best Game and British Game will be determined by a member vote rather than a jury, in order to reflect a recent increase in voting members. In fact, the number of voting memberships has grown to more than 1,000, a big jump made over the last couple of years.

The Original Property category is also changing, though in name only. While eligibility for the category remains the same, it is now known as New Intellectual Property.

The longlist announcement is expected to come this December as a chance for BAFTA to celebrate even more games from a range of genres.

The Mobile Game Awards recently highlighted 2023’s mobile standouts from Candy Crush to Marvel Snap.