It’s been a tough couple of years for the games industry, so combined with rising costs and the low level of support for entry-level hiring it’s become increasingly difficult to operate Grads In Games. We’ve run GiG in its current form for a decade now and it’s always been about developing long-term industry benefits rather than making any money. In the present climate it’s impossible to continue that way without a big chunk of support which just doesn’t exist.

After a lot of deliberation and exploring possible options, we’ve made the tough decision to put Grads in Games and all activities on hiatus for this academic year. Unfortunately this will mean no Get In The Game university careers talks this year and no Search For A Star gamedev challenges.

All existing GiG resources, comms channels & mailing lists will be managed by the Aardvark Swift Recruitment team.

This isn’t a decision we’ve taken lightly. We know how impactful the activities are, how many people’s lives we’ve positively impacted and how important it is for the future health of the industry.

The Aardvark team will revisit the situation for the 2025/26 academic year, but for now I’d like to thank all of the studios, devs, universities and academics who have supported us, thank you to all the previous GiG team members who have helped keep the initiative going, and of course thank you to the tens of thousands of students who have been the whole reason for this over the past 10 years.

Dan Dudley, September 2024