The German Booth at this year's PAX East was a huge success. Eight Indie Studios from Germany displayed their games and had a great time. Meet them here.
A MAZE. / Berlin Festival art games - an international game jam network meets in Berlin
Mexico City, Seoul, Boston, Jakarta, São Paulo, Novosibirsk, Athens, and Bangkok: for eight game jams all over the world, ART GAMES united programmers and game developers as well as artists and creatives. Drawing from their diversity, they developed (digital) games which renegotiate the boundaries between art, politics, and games. How can artistic strategies expand the scope of games or transcend the limits of game designs? What are the underlying politics of the gaming industry? And how can game practices be used to challenge and advance political processes?
A selection of games from each location, chosen by a jury, will be exhibited at the international A MAZE. / Berlin Festival from April 25 to 29, 2018. Participants and partners from eight countries will travel to Germany to metamorphose the global virtual network of ART GAMES into an analogue one.
The game selected from Boston is Struggling Dreams created by Jeff Campbell, Aslanta Chen, Joe Marchuk and Dan Williams.
German Booth at PAX East in Boston
After last year’s huge success, German Indie-Developers again got the chance to present their games at PAX East 2018, one of the largest Games Festivals in the US. About 60 German Studios and Developers applied for a grant to attend PAX East from April 5-8, 2018. The booth had room for nine. Not an easy choice for our jury, made up of leading experts of the German gaming scene: Thorsten Hamdorf (Director of Marketing, BIU), Sebastian Bulas (Founder, Art Director and Producer at Threaks), Björn Bartholdy (Director Cologne Games Lab). The following studios participated – chosen to represent a cross section through Germany’s budding gaming scene:
The game was chosen from the three best games created during the 48-hour Game Jam on May 19-21 at the Goethe-Institut Boston by a jury of German game developers: Struggling Dreams will represent Boston at the finals in Germany in 2018 and will receive mentoring in preparation. Congratulations!
The ‘’gaming phenomenon’’ plays a significant role in the academic center of Boston: top universities such as MIT, Northeastern University or Dartmouth College have been integrating gaming modules into their academic teaching programs for years. Meanwhile, gaming is also a prominent economic competitor to, for instance, the movie industry. Likewise, impressive gaming centers have been established at Germany universities (Cologne Game Lab, Berlin, Kassel, Stuttgart….).
Our project focuses on the exchange of important players in the German and US gaming scene. We’d like to introduce German game designers to their US counterparts and foster connections between them. We’d like to establish a transatlantic network of leading players, primarily in the Indie Game Scene. An exchange of ideas and products and cooperation across borders is our goal. Building on the academic potential in the Boston/Cambridge area, we are especially reaching out to academic counterparts in Germany. Together with our partners we are exploring the following questions:
How can the limits of games be expanded?
How can you bridge the divide between academia and the real world?
How do you market new, playable ideas?
