'GTA V'-Makers Rockstar Games To Be Honoured With BAFTA Fellowship

'GTA V' Developers To Be Honoured With BAFTA Fellowship

The makers of Grand Theft Auto are to be honoured with a BAFTA fellowship at a ceremony in London next week.

The British Academy Games Awards will take place at Tobacco Dock in London on 12 March.

Alongside the other awards for video game design, writing and music, Rockstar Games' Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut will accept the award on behalf of the company.

Previous winners of the Games Fellowship include Valve's Gabe Newell and Peter Molyneux, who created Theme Park and Populous.

Rockstar Games rose to fame with Grand Theft Auto III, the first fully-3D sequel to the original GTA, developed by the British games studio DMA design which was sold and eventually reformed in large part into Rockstar North.

The many big-budget GTA sequels have since become a cornerstone of the modern games industry - and one of its most famous franchises. But Rockstar is also known for several other games, from its thoughtful take on detective pulp fiction in LA Noire, the expansive western Red Dead Redemption and Bully - a GTA-like game set in a boarding school.

BAFTA said that Rockstar had "raised the bar for game-making" .

Harvey Elliott, Chair of BAFTA’s Games Committee, said:

"It is hugely exciting to be able to recognise the amazing contribution made by Rockstar to the games industry over the past 16 years. The creativity and passion exhibited by the Rockstar teams have inspired a generation of game developers to raise the bar in every aspect of game development.

From design and mechanics, through to storytelling, cinematics and audio immersion, and in the process creating games that compete so profoundly on a global stage across all entertainment media. Rockstar, this Fellowship is wholly deserved."

"We have long believed in the potential for videogames 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," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar.

"This honour 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."

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