USC Game Design Community

Inspired by independent and alternative games culture, the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center for Communication and the Interactive Media Division at the USC School of Cinema-Television are jointly forming the USC Game Design Community, a grassroots, student-governed organization that is dedicated to bringing likeminded students and faculty together to discuss game design history, explore the fundamental characteristics of play culture, and collectively create connections between games and other disciplines.

Monthly meetings will alternate between the IML and Interactive Media Division, and will include salon events, directed dialogues and a call for participation. Through these interactions, the IML and the Interactive Media Division hope to raise social consciousness and empower students to design play experiences that cultivate new freedoms of expression in the 21st Century.

In addition to bringing together talented students, faculty and staff from across the campus, this initial meeting will also unveil the details of the USC Game Innovation Lab Research Grant. The $20,000 award is issued in the fall, spring and summer semesters through the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab in the School of Cinema-Television's Interactive Media Division. It will be granted each semester, starting this spring, to multiple student design teams based on project submissions for innovative games. Winning teams will also receive a team office and equipment in the EA Game Innovation Lab for one semester; access to the lab’s usability testing facility; and support from a faculty advisor/executive producer.

The first meeting will take place Friday, Oct 22nd. For more information, visit our website!