25th October 2022 saw the first ever Scottish Games week education symposium held at the lovely spaces at Codebase in Edinburgh. The event aimed to gather lecturers from colleges and universities who taught on games courses to get together and have a discussion on where we are in education with our respective courses and just to gain some insight.

We had lots of great chat, and one theme of the day was yes, we are all facing similar issues but now we know we are not alone. There’s also so much good stuff happening as well in courses, and we think that collectively we can work together to push this further.  However, we need our pipeline starting earlier than current S5/6 courses and we need to be doing more to raise awareness that games jobs are jobs (yes there are) while also being a valid career choice. Studying games gives a whole host of transferable skills that students can use whether they work in the games industry or beyond.

My action from the event was to launch Scottish Games Education Network on Discord for lecturers and students who are involved in games courses across Scotland, in order to keep the momentum going for us all and not make it one of those events you turn up at and then that’s it nothing happens. Yesterday was a call to action for all those teaching games lets make what we do better but together not alone. We can all help each other.