February 2017

2017/02/26 - Sun2018/02/15 - Thu - Comments Off
Blog, GGC Updates
swedish game awards

Swedish Game Awards in Visby

The Swedish Game Awards is the nation’s largest video game development competition, pitting all Swedish game educations against each other. It has been held annually since 2002 and is organized by a student-driven, non-profit association. They just announced that the 2017 finale will be held in Visby – just a few days after the Gotland Game Conference!

Ergo, you might want to adjust your travel schedule to allow for a few more days in this medieval town of ours. 🙂

The Wikipedia page is a good source of information for the SGA, including the competition categories and winners from previous years. We will of course shamelessly point out that our students generally fare very well; last year Gotland took home Best Diversity Effort, Best Execution in Design, Best Technical Execution and Best Execution in Narrative. Head on over at our less-official department blog for a full list of all SGA-awards earned by our students.

2017/02/21 - Tue2018/02/15 - Thu - Comments Off
Blog, GGC Updates

Earn a free conference pass!

So your crowdfunding missed its target, your company can’t send you, or you want to scout talent before anyone else gets the chance. Whatever the reason, you may earn yourself a free Conference Pass and front row seats to meet our students by serving on the GGC Jury!

The jury arrive a day early (28/5) to attend student presentations (2-4 hours, with breaks) and then play their games on the show floor and provide thoughtful and constructive feedback throughout the conference. Jury duty requires no work prior to the event, but once here you will have to prioritize and make time to play all games – enough to provide fair criticism and advice.

So; if you are interested in going to Visby to meet our students, provide them with thoughtful feedback, and participate in a uniquely wide-eyed games conference, simply fill in the application!

Thank you!

2017/02/20 - Mon2019/07/07 - Sun - Comments Off
Blog, GGC Updates
HEVGA

Educators Summit update

The Game Educators Summit is a 2-day meeting hosted by the Department of Game Design, during the GGC. We aim to bring together all higher game educations (internationally) to discuss our common concerns and set up a network of support.

So; two days, broken up by the Gotland Game Conference. The first day (28/5) is filled with short presentations and an evening meet-and-greet on the show floor among the student games.

The second day (31/5) takes place after the GGC, when everyone is warmed up and inspired. We’ll meet the Higher Education Videogame Alliance, and then split into groups to discuss our specific areas of interest.

Please check the summit page for all details and to submit presentations!

2017/02/17 - Fri2018/02/15 - Thu - 1 Comment
Blog, GGC Updates

Conference sessions so far

So far, we have a one-two punch of Chris Franklin and Doris Rusch: Chris will lay the foundation of a platform study, arguing that computational devices funnels us towards spatial simulation and conflict – partially explaining the early decades of simplistic violence in our video games.

Then Doris will follow up and show how we might resist this technological determinism, bringing metaphor and nuance into our digital systems.

There have a big-picture talk from the father of MMO’s – Richard Bartle – about the surprising interweaving of human rights and the virtual worlds we create.

We contrast Bartle’s massive scope with a deeply personal and intimate design lecture by Sabine Harrer – using lessons learned from developing Jocoi, a game about pregnancy loss, to teach us about the power of grief in games.

So that’s the first four in place! There’s four more slots to fill in the coming weeks – stay tuned. 🙂

UPDATE 2017-04-12: slot 5 is in place!