Awards are for losers anyway
Mobile games were nowhere to be seen at the BAFTA Games Awards, and that's completely fine. Really.
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The BAFTA Games Awards happened last night, and besides a nomination for Genshin Impact, mobile games were completely ignored. And frankly, that’s probably about right.
Cultural impact is a peculiar thing – you can have millions of eyeballs looking at something, but still fail to truly cut through.
One of the most popular TV shows on the BBC in the early 2010s was Mrs Brown’s Boys, a dated sitcom built on offensive jokes starring a craggy Irishman in a dress.
Critics hated it, but it was incredibly popular – its Christmas special was the most-watched TV show of 2012. It ran for multiple series and even spawned a film, all utterly panned by critics, but still watched by millions. And then it just disappeared from cultural life entirely. It had ran its course.
The popular example of this in film is the Avatar movies, a pair of dazzling technical showcases with huge box office earnings. Yet they do not inspire any meaningful fan culture, ongoing conversation or critical enthusiasm.
A lot – not all, but a lot – of mobile games are like this, and that’s ok. It’s hard to argue that Monopoly Go’s rampant commercial success should translate to a gong at the BAFTAs – Milburn Pennybags was never in the running for Best Performer in a Leading Role, was he? (I’m sure Scopely is content with the several billion dollars in the bank, anyway.)
So should we be concerned that the mobile games industry was not really invited to the BAFTAs this year? Not really. In amongst the flood of new games launched across all formats in the last year, relatively few games can claim to have had real cultural impact, critical adoration and commercial success. Besides, in a business as unforgiving as mobile, there’s very little room for whimsy.
Just let games be games, I say. If people are playing and enjoying your work, that’s enough, isn’t it? And if it turns out to be as successful as even Mrs Brown’s Boys or Avatar, then good for you.
All of this week’s stories are below, as ever, including not one but two King interviews. And remember, if you like the site and want to support my work directly, the simplest way to do that is to upgrade to a paid sub.
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