The aim of GIGAGAMES was to address five distinct problems: 1. Improve the quality and level of innovation of games used in a classroom setting by giving students and teachers greater input into the creative process without requiring them to learn actual hard technical skills 2. Provide vocational students in the games industry a real-life authentic experience in developing a game that has a real audience 3. To improve the workflow of the game development process by providing a platform that allows developers and educators to coordinate and manage the ideation and development process, all the way from initial idea to final product. 4. Improve the communication and efficiency of the game development process for vocational students, by introducing a comprehensive project management platform that closely mirrors industry processes, but is not as complex as traditional industry approaches. Alack of such a tool was anticipated pre-project based on past experience hosting students on various projects by project partners and confirmed in the early stages of this project. Understanding and addressing these challenges of working in a distributed team dynamic with real-life customers would be of significant value to the profession
This Project came about as a result of previous distinct work between the partners.Taitotalo and Headstart Technology had been collaborating many years on providing work experiences to vocational game students. Headstart was also working with Maria Regina College and Danube University Krems on game-based learning and gamification in education. During these interactions, it became clear that there were strong areas of cooperation possible to address. Among gaming students interested in a gaming career, a common issue identified was that students lacked an exposure to real-life customer interactions beyond the training.This lack of authentic interactions meant that students engaged in work placements often found the experience challenging. At the same time organizations as Danube University Krems, when working with teachers, and Maria Regina College as a school often experienced resistance by educators when it came to employ games in the classroom, with one of the reasons being that many existing games do not match the requirements of pupils. At the same time,while schoolchildren generally have a positive attitude to the use of games, many games are not tailored to their needs, and are not designed with their voice as input.