NOMINEES ANNOUNCED FOR THE EE MOBILE GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD AHEAD OF THE 2019 BAFTA GAMES AWARDS

• EE partners with BAFTA Games Awards for the first time to introduce brand new award category, the EE Mobile Game of The Year
• Games fans can now have their say in the awards by voting for the EE Mobile Game of The Year at ee.co.uk/BAFTAgames
• The 2019 nominees are: Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, Fortnite Mobile, Old School Runescape, Pokémon Go and Roblox
• The winner will be announced on Thursday 4th April 2019 at the British Academy Games Awards ceremony, which will take place at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Tuesday 12^th March 2019: Today, the six nominees for the inaugural EE Mobile Game of The Year Award are announced ahead of the British Academy Games Awards on Thursday 4^th April 2019.

In its first year, the new award recognises the mobile game that offers the best experience over a network, as voted for by the public. This includes both online competitive titles and those that use online functionality in an innovative way. The first-ever nominees consist of six games that have each created a standout impression upon the public and games industry alike.

Dr Jo Twist OBE, Chair of Games Committee at BAFTA, said: “We are thrilled to have been able to work alongside EE to launch our first ever publicly voted mobile games category in the British Academy Games Awards, focussing on the best games played over a network. The EE Mobile Game of The Year celebrates an important and ever-growing part of the games industry, and this year’s nominees are all at the top of their game, so we’re excited to see who will take home the award.”

Pete Jeavons, Director of Brand Marketing at EE, said: “The rise in popularity of mobile games in the UK has meant that networks play an important role in offering the best experience possible – from high-speed play to reliable mobile coverage in more places. Our network needs to continually offer the best service to keep up with the demands of innovative new games entering the market and it is these pioneering games that we want to celebrate with this new award category. Opening up the BAFTA Games Awards to the public vote with the introduction of the EE Mobile Game of The Year is a natural way for us to champion the mobile games scene and connect our customers to the things they love the most.”

The EE Mobile Game of The Year nominees for 2019 are:

Brawl stars is a fast-paced multiplayer team shooter available for iOS and Android devices. In Brawl Stars, players round up their friends for real-time 3v3 battles and winner-take-all solo or duo showdowns, across a variety of three-minute game modes including Gem Grab, Showdown, Bounty, Heist, and Brawl Ball.

CLASH ROYALE From the creators of Clash of Clans comes a real-time multiplayer game starring the Royales, your favourite Clash characters and much, much more. Collect and upgrade dozens of cards featuring the Clash of Clans troops, spells and defenses you know and love, as well as the Royales: Princes, Knights, Baby Dragons and more. Knock the enemy King and Princesses from their towers to defeat your opponents and win Trophies, Crowns and glory in the Arena. Form a Clan to share cards and build your very own battle community. Lead the Clash Royale Family to victory!

FORTNITE MOBILE is the completely free multiplayer game where you and your friends collaborate to create your dream Fortnite world or battle to be the last one standing. Fortnite is the action building game from Epic Games that lets you drop into a massive 100-player PvP Battle Royale or create your dream Fortnite in Creative. Fortnite for mobile is available for free on iOS and Android.

OLD SCHOOL RUNESCAPE is part of the $1 billion RuneScape franchise and is based on the iconic MMORPG as it was in 2007. Featuring adventures for solo play through to 100-player strong raids and delivering new lands and new adventures that take it far beyond a purely nostalgic vanilla experience, Old School RuneScape’s popularity has continued to grow in its six years as a living game. The expansion of Old School RuneScape onto mobile delivers interoperable cross-platform play, enabling players to jump from PC to mobile platforms and back again.

POKÉMON GO Part of the world-renowned Pokémon franchise, Pokémon GO is a free-to-play mobile game developed and published by Niantic, available on iOS and Android. Using AR (augmented reality) and GPS, Pokémon GO allows the appearance, capture, and battles of Pokémon within the same game location as the player’s up-to-date real-life location, blending the game experience together with the real world.

ROBLOX is a multiplayer online and game creation system platform that allows users to design their own games and play a wide variety of different types of games created by other users, now available on mobile. Roblox allows players to buy, sell, and create virtual items, with players holding a Builders Club membership being able to sell certain items compared to other players. Only Roblox administrators can sell accessories, body parts, gear, and packages under the official Roblox user account.

This year, the very first EE Mobile Game of The Year jury panel were tasked with selecting the six nominees from an extensive list of outstanding games. This included jury chair and BAFTA Game Committee representative, Carolin Krenzer; Will Luton, Mobile Games consultant; Geoffrey de Bie, Partnerships Manager, Twitch; Alex Benson, Community Manager at ESL, Carl Hagberg, Head of Team Operations at Fnatic and other leading industry specialists and gaming journalists.

For the first time, the BAFTA Games Awards ceremony will be held at Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank and hosted by comedian Dara O’Briain. This will be the comedian’s ninth time hosting the ceremony, which celebrates the very best in the games industry.

The other category nominations for the BAFTA Games Awards, now in its 15^th year, will be announced at 11am Thursday 14^th March and will be available to watch live on BAFTA social channels, across Twitter (@BAFTAGames), Twitch (@BAFTA) and Facebook (@BAFTA).

2019 celebrates the first year of the EE Mobile Game of The Year Award, the only award at the BAFTA Games Awards voted for by the British public. Voting is now open at ee.co.uk/BAFTAgames and the winner will be announced at the BAFTA Games Awards on Thursday 4^th April 2019.

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Media accreditation is now open and closes on the 29th March, the link for the accreditation form is here: https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/accreditation

For more information, please contact M&C Saatchi PR on [email protected]

Source: EE Newsroom
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