Get Noticed Early On
Game Design students have the opportunity to participate in both local and national competitions. The Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) holds an annual opportunity for mobile games (see more details below), and students are submitted to national competitions like the Intel University Games Showcase and the E3 College Game Competition through their work in their Capstone classes, usually in their senior year.
VSGI Mobile Game Competition
Have the next big idea in Mobile Games? Are you looking to make the next Coin Master, Pokemon Go, or Mario Kart Tour? Whatever your idea, if you have a solid plan on how it would appeal to users, we want to help you make your ideas come to fruition. Winners of the competition will receive paid development time to help them breathe life into their idea. So you don’t need to know how to code it, just have a plan and idea that you believe in and if you win, the VSGI will help you build it.
How to Enter
About the Competition
The annual VSGI Mobile Game Competition provides students and recent alumni the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge in bringing their game design ideas to life. The competition is open to students and recent alumni of all Mason schools and colleges and consists of two rounds with the final taking place during the Senior Game Expo at the end of the school year.
Leading educators, entrepreneurs, and members of gaming industry serve as judges, providing participants direct feedback and first-hand experience in producing mobile games and applications. The final round is open to be viewed by the general public.
Prizes
$15,000 of paid development time will be available to competitors in the finals; being split amongst the First place and Runner-up pitches ($10k to 1st place and $5k to 2nd place).
Winners will work with development teams that will be coordinated and formed via the Virginia Serious Games Institute. The winner will work with the team to develop the scope of work and the award will be used to pay for the development team’s efforts in creating a prototype, vertical slice, or visualization of the winning idea. The scope of resulting work will be dependent on the amount won in the contest, but the VSGI will work with the winner and development team to ensure that they are able to best realize the idea of the winner.
For details on how the paid development time can be used, contact Professor James Casey at the VSGI.
Eligibility and Requirements
The following are guidelines for eligibility:
- Mason Affiliation. Your “Idea” must be 50% or more controlled by a Mason “participant.” Your team may be organized as a solo enterprise, a small team with an idea, an organized project, or a larger organized company, partnership, corporation, etc.
- A Mason “participant” is defined as:
- A currently enrolled (full or part-time) student in any Mason degree program , or
- An alumni of any Mason degree program who graduated after May 1st 2016 (within the past 4 years).
Submissions
As part of the first round application, each submission will include a pitch document, which should include the following:
- A 150 word summary of your idea.
- What are the Unique Selling Points of your idea?
- How big is your addressable market?
- Who are your competitors and why is your idea better?
- How will you make money (what is your business model)? What is/are your revenue stream(s)?
- Who is involved in this idea? Background and relevant skills of any participants.
- How does your Mason participant (student or alumni) control the idea?
Those entering will have the option of submitting a 60- to 90-second video pitch. These pitches may be shared with the public on Facebook.
For More Information
Please contact James Casey at the Virginia Serious Games Institute.
E3 College Game Competition
E3 (Electronic Entertainment Experience), organized and presented by Entertainment Software Association, is a yearly conference where hardware manufacturers, software developers, and publishers from the video game industry present new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily retailers and members of the video game press.
E3 College Game Competition is where teams from hundreds of colleges and universities create and submit video games. The winning five get the opportunity to showcase their games on the E3 show floor, alongside publishers like Capcom, Bethesda, and Ubisoft. If a Mason team is selected as a finalist, the Computer Game Design Program will support two of the students to go to the E3 College Game Competition. In 2018, two Mason students, Ryan Kennedy and Noah Bowden, were sent to E3 as finalists, in Los Angeles, CA. The pair went on to participate in the Kinda Funny Games Showcase in 2018 and later MAGFest in 2019.
Watch a video trailer introducing the game they entered called Turbolance.
Download a demo copy of Turbolance.