It’s been hinted at a few times over the past couple of weeks and you may have noticed the news sneaking out into a few places, but we’re incredibly pleased to officially announce that Grads In Games is now operating as an independent not-for-profit company!

This move has been in the works for quite some time and has long been considered as the next logical step in the evolution of GiG. The work that we’ve done over the past several years as a part of Aardvark Swift has been invaluable, and we’re incredibly grateful to be retaining them as a partner going forward.

Becoming independent gives us the freedom and flexibility to expand the type of work we do and how we can do it, the first example of which is the upcoming national Games Careers Week that we are co-organising. Day-to-day, there won’t be any immediate changes to the services we provide, but there are already significant plans in place for next academic year that we’re very much looking forward to sharing with you 💚

The full press release for the news can be read below:

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Over the past 11 years we’ve grown a small collection of student-focused activities into Grads In Games, an award-winning initiative that has a significant impact on improving the links between the games industry and education. We’ve worked with hundreds of universities and games studios — alongside over 15000 students — all to help improve games industry employability, ensuring more young people have the skills and knowledge they need to get the best start in their game development careers.

We’re now very excited to announce that Grads In Games is an independent, not-for-profit organisation!

We’ve been working towards this next stage of our evolution for quite some time, and are proud to reveal that we have now formed FutureDev Initiatives, a Community Interest Company that will be operating Grads In Games. It’s the same team, but now with the flexibility and freedom of an independently operated company!

“This is a very proud achievement for us all here at Grads In Games. We originally founded the initiative as a department within Aardvark Swift, having spent time working with UK Universities and seeing first-hand the issues the industry and students faced. The efforts of many people in the team at Aardvark and many people from the wider games industry have helped hundreds of students find careers with games developers.

We’ve connected with many thousands of students and shown them what is required to succeed, and we’ve opened the eyes of many studios to the amount of talent that could be a valuable addition to their teams. We’ve changed the industry for the better and I’m really excited that we can now progress Grads In Games to continue doing this independently at an even larger scale.”

Ian Goodall, Founder of FutureDev Initiatives

What does this mean

These changes mean that we can now focus on developing a whole new range of improvements and upgrades to the services that Grads In Games provides. We have a multitude of exciting plans in the works, including new employability resources plus expansions to the activities we already operate. We’ll also be using our resources to bring a greater focus toward games internships and apprenticeships.

“We’re tremendously excited that we can now expand the ways we can improve games industry employability. We now have even more opportunity to welcome collaboration with studios from across the whole industry, including the widening of our growing internship placement scheme as well as opening up new conversations with studios about apprenticeships, training and education support.”

Andy Driver, Operations Manager FutureDev Initiatives

We’ve already begun this expansion as a founding partner of Games Careers Week, a celebration of games careers with nationwide events reaching millions of students, teachers and parents, backed by over 50 games organisations across the UK. It is dedicated to improving the knowledge and understanding of the games industry, inspiring people from every background to discover careers in videogames. Games Careers Week is already looking to become the largest careers event the games industry has ever seen.

What does Grads In Games do

“We set out with simple aims: to act as a bridge between the games industry and academia, and to help more students become professional game developers. We know there are many talented students capable of making games for a living but not making it into the industry — we help to change that and make an impact.”

Ian Goodall, Founder of FutureDev Initiatives

Through our extensive Get In The Game student careers talks, visiting universities across the UK and Europe, we’ve helped to educate students on exactly what studios are looking for from graduate applicants. In 2020 we spoke to over 4500 students from 142universities and colleges, bringing guest speakers from leading games studios to give direct insight into games industry roles.

Our flagship Search For A Star game development challenges have also grown year-on-year. Co-developed, assessed and overseen by the games industry, the challenges enable students to create and publish a game project set to an industry brief, receive professional feedback, significantly improving their chances of graduating into a games industry role. This year over 1200 programmers, 3D artists, animators and VFX artists registered for the challenges, with the results to be announced on the 1st April as part of Games Careers Week.

How can we support you

If you’re an academic or careers advisor for a university, then we’d love to tell you more about the services that this next evolution of Grads In Games can provide you. Whether it’s hosting careers seminars, providing guest lecturers, finding placement options, introducing studio contacts or advertising postgraduate courses, we work with universities extensively to support and improve their graduate employability options.
Contact andy@gradsingames.com for details.

For students, we’d love to see you take part in the activities we provide. This can be by coming along to one of our Get In The Game careers talks, taking part in our Search For A Star challenges, or visting gradsingames.com and browsing our huge video resource library. You can also speak to us directly about your career options, CV advice and portfolio reviews.
Contact careers@gradsingames.com for details.

For games studios and professional game developers that would like to support and/or get involved in our activities we have a range of options available for collaboration, including advertising and hiring resources, university careers talks, mentoring, internships and apprenticeship placement schemes. We also welcome partnerships and sponsorships from within the industry, as would be happy to discuss how any collaboration can work best for you.
Contact andy@gradsingames.com for details.