Gotland Game Conference

Gotland Game Conference (GGC), originally Gotland Game Convention and later Gotland Game Awards, is a Swedish game development competition for students. The event is held annually and marks the end of the academic year for the students at the Department of Game Design at Campus Gotland, Uppsala University. Here they can showcase everything that they have learned during the year to a jury consisting of professionals from the game development industry, the gaming press and academia.^[1] Notable people who have been a part of the jury include game design guru Ernest W. Adams^[2] and the father of MUDs Richard Bartle.^[3][4]

Apart from getting feedback on their projects by professionals, the students also compete for prize money. The total prize pool in 2009 was over €40,000.^[5]

History

Gotland Game Conference was initiated by Don Geyer, Program Director at the Department of Game Design at the time, in 2006.^[6] The purpose was to train the students for real world situations with elements of teamwork and deadlines as well as learning to present their work in a convincing way. During the first year it was called Gotland Game Convention.^[7] At that time there were a few arcade machines, a Nintendo DS game and some titles for the PC.

Next year, in 2007, the name was changed to Gotland Game Awards, which it continued be known as until 2011 when the name was changed to Gotland Game Conference. Throughout the years the conference has increased in size. Prizes have included trips to the biggest game development conference in the world, Game Developers Conference in Cologne.^[8] Since 2008 there has also been special awards given out to students who create computer animated movies.

The event

The event is easily categorized into four distinct parts (spanning over multiple days);

• Presentations given to classmates and members of the jury
• The main event where all products are shown to inhabitants of Gotland as well as the jurors
• The Award ceremony
• The Grand GGC Party where personnel, students, jurors and VIPs end the end of academic year together

Thanks to GGC, many students get recruited before they finish their studies.

Game Awards

People's Choice Awards

Special Awards

Computer Animation Awards

Student Effort Awards

References

External links

• Gotland Game Conference - Gotland Game Conference official website
• GAME Department - GAME Department of Uppsala University official website
• Campus Gotland
• Facebook Page
• Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari blog about GGA
• Steven Milous blog
• Anders “Saint” Ekermo blog - Starbreeze Studios
• Dopefish blog - Starbreeze Studios