Creative Scotland Awards 2012 – Decision Time

It emerged a few weeks ago that the 2012 Creative Scotland Awards had categories for film, TV, music, performing arts but games, interactive entertainment and digital media had been neglected.

We’ve since had several conversations with representatives from Creative Scotland who have gone some way to explaining why games didn’t appear in the awards.

Put simply, it was a mistake.  An oversight.  When the awards were being created and the partnership with the Daily Record agreed games were… missed.  That’s not great.  In fact, that’s downright disappointing.  However, it means that games were not deliberately excluded, or not considered creative.  It means there was an error.  That’s a lot easier to fix than a disinterest or dismissal of gaming as worthy of an award.

We’re too late to change the 2012 categories, or get an additional award included.  However, there are a couple of awards which we can get involved with and which, with a little organisation and effort, ensure that the games industry is not only included, but picks up a couple of the awards.

There are two main categories which games companies are eligible to enter:

Best New Talent Award

Whose creative star has blossomed this year? Who has made 2012 their year to be remembered by, announcing their arrival on the Scottish cultural scene and ensuring that their name is one our readers will know for many years to come? We pay tribute to the star of tomorrow today.

Creative Business Award

Arts and creative organisations work hard at balancing the creation of their work, with the needs to run as a business. This award is for artists and cultural organisations who have demonstrated innovation and creative thinking in their business approach.

Either we all agree to pick a couple of companies and nominate them in the awards, or we all agree enter a company of our own choice.  Either way, at least we’re getting some input into the process.

There’s also a category for the Creative Scotland Event of the year:

The 2012 Year of Creative Scotland Event (Sponsored by Event Scotland)

We honour an event, big or small, which has memorably and successfully showcased culture and the arts in a setting that is unmistakably Scottish.

While we will not suggest specific companies to nominate, we would like to recommend Dare ProtoPlay in the event category.  It celebrates new talent, creativity and business like no other event we’ve come across.

The nominations are open to anyone.  Between Facebook (700+ members), Twitter (1300+ users), the blog (500-600 readers), LinkedIn (250+) and daily e-mail update (400+) we can ensure that the games industry is represented in this year’s awards and make it far more likely that games will be an integral part of future awards.

(OK, if you really push us, there is also a Scottish Arts Ambassador Award, which asks “But which individual has truly excelled in championing Scotland both at home and around the world?”.  If you can think of anyone who’s knocked his/her guts out to champion a particular sector, locally and globally, then do please make a suggestion…)

Debate and discussion is now open on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Please contribute, please nominate.