The Gotland Game Conference is a two-day long public exhibition taking place in Visby on the 27-28th of May. The event was previously known as Gotland Game Awards and is produced by Gotland University for the 5th consecutive year.

The 300 students of the Game and Animation programmes will put more than 60 titles on display! In addition to a proper cinema (with fresh popcorns!) for animated short films, you’ll find massive arcade machines, games on the Xbox 360, iPhone, PC, Web, and even board games!

Everyone is invited to try out the latest games, watch animated movies, meet our current students, staff and the elite of the movie- and game industries.

The university invites an expert jury of roughly 30 people from the international industry, gaming press and academia to test- and give students feedback on their projects. This year’s jury consists of representatives from Blizzard, Paradox, Playdom, Might and Delight, ZigZag Animation, Berkely University and many others. Note that almost half of the jury – 42% – is female! The industry is finally catching up. 🙂

In addition some jurors will be giving public talks; Bonnie Ruberg (Berkely) talks about how games can be read and analyzed with the same rigour that we apply to works of literature and film. Brian Schwab (Blizzard) will be presenting a talk on believable Artificial Intelligence. Scott Jon Siegel (Playdom) presents his well received call to arms from the Game Developers Conference; where he prodded indie game developers to get on board the social gaming scene.

There will also be a panel discussion about the game industry on Gotland. The game education continuously produce promising student start ups – but what is being done to keep this talent on the island once they graduate? We’ve invited some of these companies and other parties interested in an industrious Gotland to talk about how we can make Gotland a game developers Mecca. Johannes Wadin – GAME alumni, industry veteran and recent co-founder of Tapeduck, will moderate the discussion.

The event is open to the public Friday 27th, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m and Saturday the 28th, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wisby Strand, Strandv 4.

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