Thousands of Game Developers Will Be Building Games Around The Same Theme At 52 Sites In 22 Different Countries Across 14 Time Zones
Rochester, NY January 21, 2009 – From 5:00pm Friday January 30th through 5:00 pm Sunday, February 1 (all times local to each participating site). Over a thousand college students, faculty and industry members will join together for a 48 hour game building marathon popularly known as a Game Jam. Participants will be given the details of the game design theme, 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. While individual and regional Game Jams have been held wherever gamers congregate in the last few years, never has there been one of such size and scope as the Global Game Jam (GGJ).
GGJ is taking advantage of Internet Video Streaming to provide a single Keynote Speaker for the event, Indie Developer of the popular game “World of Goo,” Kyle Gabler who said, “The next big transformation in gaming won't come from a large game studio with million dollar teams and marketing budgets, it will come from some kid in their bedroom with a few pieces of free software and a never ending supply of caffeine and motivation. I can't wait to see the scraggly, brilliantly hacked together, beginnings of some of the next great games crawl out of these 48 hours.” GGJ is excited about being able to share the keynote with everyone around the world on YouTube before the start of the 1st Global Game Jams starting in New Zealand.
But the web will transmit much more GGJ content than Gabler’s speech, it will stream many of the jam locations via their webcams. In an arrangement with ustream.tv GGJ participants will be able to share their jam experience with everyone during the event. "This is a great event, where video game developers are coming together from around the world to showcase their talents. Ustream is happy to be able to bring this great content to the world LIVE!" -
Brad Hunstable, Ustream.tv President
GGJ was the brainstorm of Susan Gold, director of Game Program Review and chair of the Education Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association. “It is all about the games and the ideas that form them. I was looking for a project that explored the incredible innovative collaborative nature of video games,” says Gold. "I wanted to create the Global Game Jam as a unique idea space and an amazing experiment in creativity. There is tremendous enthusiasm for the event, demonstrated by the number of locations willing to host it. It really shows the strength and the commitment of the game development community – 48 hours isn’t a lot of time to make a game and they are going to do it without much rest.”
Never having been to game jam before, Gold looked to the team that runs the successful annual Nordic Game Jam to help her design and deploy the GGJ. "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."
Like the GGJ itself, its sponsors cover the spectrum of the game industry from pro to indie. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., worldwide publisher of 2K and Rockstar Games, Independent game and social software developer, Mekensleep Studios, maker of Soul Bubbles and Unity Technologies, maker of Unity3D -- a multiplatform game development tool are all sponsoring GGJ.
"Unity has always been about enabling creativity - we started as just three guys in a room and are still to this day in love with the crazy creative energies that game jams foster; hence we are thrilled to be part of the Global Game Jam, and we are offering anyone participating in it access to a beta of Unity 2.5 Pro for Windows or Mac platforms to build the game" says Nicholas Francis, Unity CCO.
"We felt that the Global Game Jam was such a fantastic way to encourage people to make and understand games and so much in line with our spirit of tinkering and having fun that Mekensleep just had to be part of it" says Olivier Lejade, founder of Mekensleep Studios.
After the actual Game Jam – the GGJ website will host all of the games for free download and play with the ability to rate each other’s games. It will also allow people to look at the source code of the games and learn from one another. All intellectual property created during the GGJ will be protected under a Create Commons license. During the upcoming Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco the GGJ will share the most innovative games during the education summit.
Jason Della Rocca, Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) says, "Wow! Just wow! This is a monumental undertaking for the IGDA's Education SIG, and truly demonstrates the global and collaborative nature of game creation."
Legendary developer Don Daglow once told Gold it took him 15 seconds to come with the innovative approach that led to the first video baseball game in the ‘70’s. “With 61 hours and 52 sites around the world, imagine how many great game ideas will emerge.” Says Gold
Want to be part of this major event? Dutch Game Garden and the NLGD Foundation organize the Dutch version at the Utrecht School of the Arts, Hilversum location. To register, go to www.globalgamejam.nl .
For more information on the international Global Game Jam, including a list of locations, a sample schedule for the three days at each site and more, visit at http://globalgamejam.org .
Dutch version
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