Game Educators Summit

When? Thursday October 23
Where? Kulturhuset, Trädgårdsgatan 9, Skövde
Theme? Revising the IGDA Educational Framework

Games and game development are changing as fast as ever and the academy needs to monitor the changes and adapt the curricula in various ways, whether it is about our pedagogy or the content of our courses. These are the main concerns of the annual Game Educators Summit at Sweden Game Conference. This year we focus on curriculum development in association with the International Game Developers Association.

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a nonprofit membership organization serving all individuals who create games (https://igda.org/). The IGDA Game Education Special Interest Group focuses on developing a community of game educators, promoting game education, and providing resources to game educators. For the 2025 Game Educators Summit, we are happy to welcome Heather Cole from the IGDA Game Education SIG. Heather will present IGDA and especially the ongoing work with updating the Education Curriculum Framework, originally published in 2008. This initiative aims to refresh and refine the guidelines for game development education, ensuring they align with today’s industry needs This site provides more information and the draft framework:https://fourscore.site/.

The 2025 Summit will be an opportunity to learn more about IGDA and to contribute to the ongoing curriculum development.

In her talk titled Revising the IGDA Educational Framework- An Overview, Heather Cole (Co-leader of the IGDA Game Education SIG) will provide the history of the IGDA Educational Framework, its need for an update and why this is important. Following the talk there will be a workshop and open discussion on the topic, including generating suggestions for new content and updates.

Council of Swedish Games Researchers

Swedish games research springs from a broad multidisciplinary flora that covers everything from technology, ethics, media, design, entrepreneurship and more.

The Council of Swedish Games Researchers, (Svenska Spelforskarrådet, SSFR) is an interest organization that works to strengthen shed light on Swedish games research. The organization is an association of game researchers active in Sweden.The first SSFR symposium was held at the Sweden Game Conference 2022 and has since been a permanent feature during the conference.

Per Backlund, Professor at the University of Skövde, is chairman of the Council of Swedish Games Researchers. An important focus for SSFR is, according to Per, to strengthen both education and research on games and game development.

“This means getting the games industry to understand the importance of academic education, as well as the universities' need for collaboration. We also need to inform research funders about the special conditions that prevail around a new and multidisciplinary research area such as games.”