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BAFTA is to honour League of Legends’ Riot Games with a Special Award at an event at The London West Hollywood on Monday June 12th over E3.
The event is part of BAFTA’s growing global games strand in the USA and the award will be presented to Riot’s co-CEOs and co-founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill on behalf of the studio in recognition of its creative contribution to the games industry.
Previous recipients of BAFTA’s Special Award include Brenda Romero, Amy Hennig and Markus Persson.
Nick Button-Brown, chair of BAFTA’s games committee, said: Riot Games has had a major influence on our industry, from the way they work as a company, to the way they have constantly improved and evolved League of Legends, through to their approach in esports and the way they create wonderful must-see events.
"Their worldwide events, their stadium-filling matches and the generation of stars that they have created have changed the way we and many other industries look at games. At BAFTA we aim to champion innovation and creativity. We are therefore delighted to recognise Riot Games with this BAFTA Special Award.”
Originally launched in 2009, League of Legends has since gone on to become the most-played PC game in the world, and has been a key factor in the growth of eSports. The title previously won a BAFTA for best persistent game in 2015, and was nominated for the AMD eSports audience award in both 2016 and 2017 at the British Academy Games Awards.
