Rockstar Games to receive BAFTA Fellowship award

Rockstar Games, the developer behind the Grand Theft Auto series, will receive the Fellowship award March 12 at the British Academy Games Awards, organizers announced today.

The annual Fellowship award is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' highest honor, reserved "in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, television or games."

In its announcement, BAFTA highlights the developer's achievements with Bully, the GTA series, L.A. Noire and Red Dead Redemption for "creating intricately layered interactive worlds that have kept the company at the forefront of the gaming industry for over a decade, both critically and commercially."

Rockstar founders Sam Houser and Dan Houser, Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies and GTA art director Aaron Garbut will accept the award at the ceremony.

"We have long believed in the potential for video games to become a new form of cultural expression and worked to show that in our games, so for us accepting the BAFTA Fellowship is incredibly humbling," Sam Houser said. "This honor reflects the creative vision and dedication of a huge number of people over many years, and we look forward to accepting the Fellowship on their behalf."

This year's Game Awards will also include a pre-show event with hands-on access to upcoming games. Tickets for the ceremony, which will take place at London's Tobacco Dock, are available online.

Previous BAFTA Fellowship honorees include Gabe Newell, Peter Molyneux, Shigeru Miyamoto and Will Wright.

Earlier this month, BAFTA organizers announced the video game nominees for the 2014 ceremony. Those included games like Naughty Dog's The Last of Us, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 and Starbreeze Studios' Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. At last year's ceremony, awards went to Arkane Studios' Dishonored, Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, thatgamecompany's Journey and many others.

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