IGDA Education SIG Spawns First Global Game Jam

42 Sites In 15 Different Countries Already Signed On And The List Is Growing

Toronto November 4, 2008 – From 5:00pm Friday January 30th through 5:00 pm Sunday, February 2 thousands of college students, faculty and industry members and the general public will join together for a round the clock video game building experience often referred to as a Game Jam. Participants will be given the details of the game design theme and the constraints and mechanics allowed when the clock hits 5:00 in their local time zone. As the time zones change, so will those constraints, to mitigate any advantage global location might give one team over the other.

Global Game Jam (GGJ) was the brainstorm of Susan Gold, faculty and international development manager for the Master’s of Digital Media Program in Vancouver and chair of the Education Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association.

“I wanted to find a project that explored the incredible creative collaborative nature of video games,” says Gold. "I thought a global experience would really show the strength of the game development community by having a project that crossed all cultural boundaries and everyone could participate simultaneously.”

Inexperienced in the ways of the game jams in general, Gold got in touch with the team that runs the successful annual Nordic Game Jam. "The Nordic Game Jam is proud to be a part of the Global Game Jam", says Gorm Lai, founding member of the Nordic Game Jam. "Game jams are all about coming together to develop creative new game ideas in an environment of cooperation. It is great to see that idea elevated to a global level, and into a tool that brings us all closer together."

The GGJ is being sponsored by Mekensleep Studios and Take 2 Interactive.

For more information on participating in the Global Game Jam, visit
http://www.globalgamejam.org