The first year students did a public play test of their first playable prototypes recently! You can click through and follow our Instagram to keep track of the games in development! (#GGConf18 is where it’s at)
Announcing the HEVGA European Symposium (7-8 June)
Are you a game educator with an interest in connecting with other educators across the globe? Are you willing to share your experience and insights to improve the field? Join us on Gotland this summer!
- Register for the symposium, and…
- … optionally, submit a presentation!
- See all details on the symposium page.
Last year, as part of the Gotland Game Conference, we hosted our first Game Educators Summit in conjunction with the Higher Education Videogame Alliance (HEVGA). This was an attempt to bring educators together specifically to discuss Game Educations in Europe, our unique needs within and across borders, and how to best expand HEVGA in Europe.
This year, HEVGA is continuing to grow their efforts in Europe by holding their first annual European Symposium on our beautiful island of Gotland, Sweden. Uppsala University has been chosen by HEVGA as the first school to host the symposium and will co-locate it with the Gotland Game Conference to maximize cross-pollination.
The two day symposium will take place on June 7 & 8. The first day will feature presentations across a wide variety of areas such as research, game educations, pedagogy, game design, games, institutional barriers and successes, within and across borders, and other programs or initiatives unique to Europe. Presentation slots are available in 15 – 45 minute increments.
The second day will be a working meeting designed to bring together diverse institutions and individual backgrounds to take stock of where games and game educations in Europe are at now. The working meeting will explore how to create a platform that can further establish a European games community in higher education across borders. Specific topics include: how to secure funding, creating a network that connects educations, amplifying local achievements globally, and avenues for unified advocacy.
To join us for the first European Symposium of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance hosted by Uppsala University;
- Register for the symposium, and…
- … optionally, submit a presentation!
- Details will be added to the symposium page.
The Jury (so far)
Update: the full Jury for GGC 2018 is listed here.
The jury represents the most hard-working participants at the Gotland Game Conference (save for our students, natch). Jurors travel from around the globe to hear our students’ presentations a day before the conference even starts, and to spend the better part of a week playing all of the student productions on the show floor.
Each member brings their own set of experience and expertise, and share that insight directly with the students at the GGC. We have academia and graphics solidly represented now, so the next bunch of seats are reserved primarily for programmers, HR and the nebulous “production“-people. There’s is of course always room, too, for people with investment or recruitment needs!
Feel like that’s you? Fill in the application and maybe we’ll see you in Visby in June!
So without further ado, here is the 2018 Jury list, so far:
- Doris Rusch, Game designer and Researcher, DePaul University
- Elizabeth Sampat, Game Designer, Author and Activist
- Malena Klaus, Game Programmer and Inventor
- Henrik Jonsson, Executive Producer, Goodbye Kansas Game Invest
- Josefin Westborg, Founder and Game designer, Lekreativ/Lajvbyrån
- Anton Albiin, Association of Swedish Game Developers
- James Newnorth, CEO, Spelkollektivet Sweden
- Joshua Juvrud, Developmental Psychologist, Uppsala University
- Mårten Jonsson, Freelance developer, JMJ Interactive
- Martine Pedersen, LudicIndspark
- James Newnorth, CEO, Spelkollektivet Sweden
- Nicodemus Mattison, Art Director, Virtuos
- Martin Greip, CEO, Eat Create Sleep
- Niklas Eneqvist, Art Team Manager, Fatshark
- Rabi Afram, Dev Manager, King
- Teddy Sjöström, Programmer, Pixel Ferrets
- Emelie Rodin, Developer, BetterBuilt Studio
- Fred Ström, Animator, Pixel Ferrets
- Jens Berglind, Lead Programmer, Might and Delight
- Kalle Henningsson, QA & Submission Manager, Playdead
- Kim Aava, 3D Artist, Fast Travel Games
- Vilya Svensson, 2D Artist, Pixel Ferrets
Names in bold are alumni from this education – welcome back! 😀
Thanks in advance to everyone for taking the time – and putting up the effort – to help improve our students, our education, and our medium!
Help us create a “Woke award”
The Gotland Game Conference is looking over its award categories this year. There will be many changes, but one of higher priority than most is the addition of a… “diversity award”, for lack of a better term.
We work hard in the education and with the conference to engage thoughtfully with issues like representation, gender, intersectionality and the perspectives and lived experiences of the non-[white hetero cis male]. We need an award to highlight and celebrate student projects that exhibit an especially conscientious or nuanced understanding of these issues.
But we need help:
- What should we call this award?
- What are reasonable evaluation criterias for such an award?
- Who (plural) should we look to invite for play testing and evaluation of the games? (the local RFSL and Pride chapters, for sure. But who’s an expert on, say, race in Sweden?)
Specifically: the department faculty, being very much mostly white and edumacated types, do not feel at all like a reasonable authority. I mean that both in terms of appropriation and in terms of perceived validity of the award. While the fight is ours to take, it is not on us to declare any sort of victory. And in terms of validity of the award – it risks being seen as self congratulatory.
So. I am currently looking for any sort of input, really. If you don’t want to discuss publicly, feel free to grab me over e-mail!
If you would like to be part of the Gotland Game Conference jury, read these instructions and submit an application. Leave a comment in the last field if you are particularly interested or suited for the diversity-perspective.
Thank you!
//Ulf Benjaminsson