This sounds grim. Speakers at the upcoming London Games Conference are forecasting that in three years' time, retail would have been outstripped by digital distribution. Not only that, but 40% of the companies in the games industry will be caught unprepared for this shift in consumer choice.

The London Games Festival is set to return for its fourth consecutive run this year beginning on October 24th, 2009. Lead organizer ELSPA has revealed the details of the event, promising "something for everyone." And by everyone, they do mean EVERYONE. Even your parents.

Games may often get a bad rap in the court room, what with guys like Jack Thompson running around, but  this time it got some positive recognition from the UK House of Commons.

Details in the full article.

Mario games have always been popular in the UK, and Super Mario Galaxy proves it by beating out the likes of Fallout 3, Fable II, and even GTA IV for BAFTA's Best Game Award. The GAME Award this year goes to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, as voted on by gamers.

Full list of winners after the link.

Voting for the 2008 BAFTA awards is underway! And which of the games released last year made it to their shortlist of candidates for the awards? LittleBigPlanet? Professor Layton? WoW Wrath? GoW2? GoW Chains? GoWdanggit! There's a lot! Check out the full article for a list of the nominees!

While it won't be another year before we see the judges of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) weigh in their votes for the best video games of 2009, the group has already confirmed a place and date for the upcoming event - the London Park Lane Hilton on March 10, 2009. More in the full article.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Video Games Awards has recently announced that it will hold off its annual awards ceremony and will continue in 2009 instead. The reason why the yearly prestigious event was called off wasn't on account of any bad weather though. You can find out the reason behind this in our full article after the jump.

In general - sad as it may be - movies based on video games don't live up to their original counterparts. But why do we watch these movies anyway, even if we know they'd never live up to the game? Only one answer came to mind: because we love the game.

Thus the idea for this QuickList came about: what are the movies that we'd watch simply for love of the game? Read the five movies you might consider watching (even if they sucked) in the full article.

IO Interactive has just revealed who will be behind the musical score of their upcoming title Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and the PC. It's none other than British Academy Award-winning composer Jesper Kyd who has etched his reputation on the cacophonous atmosphere of the Hitman franchise.

Kyd's work on Hitman Contracts won Best Original Music at the BAFTA Games Awards and his stylish symphonic hybrid score for Hitman: Blood Money was awarded Best Original Score by IGN. He was also nominated for Best Original Video Game Score at the MTV Video Music Awards and has received Special Achievements awards from other major game publications such as Gamespot.

Kyd's work on Kane & Lynch: Dead Men's musical score is described by IO Interactive as "dark and foreboding", but at the same time "graphic and unforgiving," as the game's theme would suggest.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men's storyline revolves around an unlikely partnership between two very different game protagonists. Together, Kane and Lynch must use their unique skill sets to form a cohesive tandem in a fight that leads them to a path of redemption and revenge. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is set for release in November of 2007.



Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PC)]
Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox 360)]
Buy: [Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PS3)]

The father of all things Simlish will now be "up there" among the likes of Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Charlie Chaplin. The Sims creator Will Wright is to be inducted into the BAFTA Fellowship - it's an award given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to certain icons in the industry for their creative work.

What's more is that Mr. Wright is the first ever in the video games industry to be given this accolade. With games likeSpore (which is going multiplatform, BTW) in his developer's resumé, we're not surprised. Will Wright getting the Fellowship establishes the fact that BAFTA now recognizes video games as a substantial part of popular culture.

And who begs to disagree? We're sure most of you believe that videos games really do have a lot of impact and contribute a lot to the greater concept of art and moving pictures. Academy Chariman Hilary Bevan Jones states:

Will's immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour.

The awards ceremonies are to take place in London on the 23rd of October.