Channel 4 sponsors Dare to Be Digital… Introduces education as a theme

Channel 4 has announced sponsorshop of the Dare to Be Digital summer game development competition. Announced here.

As part of their sponsorship (which apparently is for a significant sum of money to support the competition), a brief to develop games with an educational or serious ‘twist’ has also been provided:

4Dare Game Development Brief

Channel 4 Education and Dare To Be Digital invite you to develop a game that goes beyond the challenge of swift hand-eye coordination, and engages a player’s brain as much as their thumbs. Primarily we all play games because they’re fun, but can you develop a game that’s hugely playable, and fun but provokes thought and/or leaves the player with something useful?

While teams do not need to target this brief, successful games that do may go on to secure publication deals with Channel 4. The challenge will be to have some educational/serious content while focussing on developing an entertainment product:

At Channel 4 education are aim is to make first class entertainment products, that also educate our audience . With that in mind we should make clear that we are not looking for:

• Games that are designed specifically to be educational or serious
• Games that replicate (or replicate with a twist) existing offerings that have been shown or are purported to have educational impact

So, there you go. NOT designed specifically to be educational, but thought provoking. There are a bunch of other requirements, which do sound quite ambitious for a nine-week development project. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.