Global Game Jam 4 Change

I spent the last weekend developing a game at the Global Game Jam 2014 site in Tel-Aviv. The 2nd largest site in the world this year, I can proudly say. It was the 5th GGJ I participated in. It was the also 5th for my son, now 16. Though for him, it was the first time he joined a team (not mine) from start to end. I think that’s a great mother-son experience to share. We are both pretty proud of each other.

The Global Game Jam event is taking place during the same weekend at dozens of sites across the world. Not going into the whole history, the participants are presented with the Jam’s challenge or topic of the year and that starts a fantastic brain storming session – everybody’s trying to come up with an idea for a game. Eventually most attractive ideas get teams formed around them and within 48-72 hours those games take form and can perform.

There were interesting takes from this year’s event.

One is looking at the number of kids who participated: they are programmers, artists, graphic designers, story tellers, musicians, science enthusiasts and not all of them are gamers. The majority is still boys, not enough girls come in.

But, and here’s the next take, the number of grown up females who took part also grew immensely compared with previous years.

So if I am taking these two random statistics from the 2nd largest GGJ site of 2014, it’s a good projection for the games industry. The more inclusive the industry is, the wider and wilder it gets.
The other take was the growing number of serious games presented. The basic idea of a game is to play it for fun. But Serious Games groups and organizations like Games For Change harness the fun element to achieve serious goals. It’s a relatively new use for games. But I like the fact it is evolving. I admit I am a fan of comedies, but can’t imagine life without some drama, action or documentary, right?
So here’s to the worldwide games industry: may you grow and flourish and surprise us every year.