The game-design legend behind Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park and the Fable series become the second Academy Fellow of 2011.
Peter Molyneux OBE, the creative force behind some of the world's most popular and enduring video games, received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ Fellowship at this year’s GAME British Academy Video Games Awards.
Molyneux is one of the best-known names in the international world of computer games. He co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and created a new genre of computer games known as “the God game”, with the release of Populous. Since then he has been responsible for a string of massive gaming titles including Powermonger, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper and the Fable series. Cumulative sales of his games are at approximately fifteen million worldwide.
"To be in the company of some of the greatest talents the entertainment industry has ever seen is truly humbling." Peter Molyneux
On being invited to receive the Fellowship, Peter Molyneux said: “I remember back in 1967 watching the first BAFTA awards on television with my family and seeing them being so excited about those accolades. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would be possible for me to accept one of the greatest honours the entertainment industry has to offer. My first thought on learning that I was awarded an Academy Fellowship was that to be in the company of some of the greatest talents the entertainment industry has ever seen is truly humbling and secondly that this is an award not just for myself, but for all the people I’ve ever worked with”.
BAFTA / Jamie Simonds Amanda Berry OBE, Chief Executive of BAFTA, said: “We are delighted to be honouring Peter at this point in his long and successful career in video games. He is one of the leading figures in the development of video games as an art form and an inspiration to the next generation of creative minds".
In October 2009 Molyneux delivered BAFTA’s annual Video Games Lecture. The lecture in which he discusses his career inspiration and the great games which have influenced his work, is available to watch in BAFTA Access All Areas. Watch Peter Molyneux deliver the 2009 annual video games lecture.
The Academy Fellowship is awarded in recognition of outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image. Last year the fellowship for the video games industry was awarded to Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. View the full list of Academy Fellows