Dare to be Digital 2010

For immediate release: Thursday 1 April 2010

Entries have now closed for the 2010 Dare to be Digital competition, with over 100 teams from nearly 80 universities around the world applying to enter this year's competition – the highest number of entries in the competition’s 11-year history.

Dare to be Digital, organised and promoted by the University of Abertay Dundee, is the UK's premier video games design competition for students. The 2010 call for entries, which opened in January this year, closed on Sunday 28 March.

Over 100 teams from all over the world have applied. They come from almost 80 universities across the UK, the USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, China, India, Egypt and Poland.

The judging panel has now started the online process to determine which teams are invited to the interview stage. The judges come from members of the UK Dare Developer Accord which includes the BBC, Blitz Games Studios, Cohort Studios, Denki, Rare, Realtime Worlds, Rockstar North, SEGA, Sony and Ubisoft. A maximum of 15 teams will be selected to proceed to the next round of the competition.

"We are thrilled that Dare has received so much attention from so many aspiring students,” said Elaine Russell, Dare to be Digital project manager.

"The growing global reach proves that the UK's video games development community is in a very strong position to attract talent. We have a fantastic line-up of Developer Accord members who provide help with judging as well as mentors to advise and help the students during the competition, which this year will take place in Abertay University’s national centre for excellence in computer games education," she added.

Sponsorship from the Scottish Government and partnerships with the Norwegian School of Information Technology, NITH and the British Council will enable Dare to be Digital to hold selection events in India, China and Norway. Judges for these events will be provided by EA DICE (Sweden), Funcom (Norway), IO Interactive (Denmark), Virtual Information & Communications, Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics and Arena Animation.

Dare to be Digital is organised and run by Abertay University, with sponsorship from Turner Broadcasting, Intel, Wacom, NCR, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Dundee City Council. Technology support is provided by Adobe, Autodesk, Codesion, Crytek, Emergent, Hansoft and Sony.

The teams selected for the main phase will be announced in May. The main phase of Dare to be Digital 2010 will start on 7 June at Abertay University in Dundee. Teams selected for the competition will spend 10-weeks in an intensive 'hot-house' development environment, building fully-functioning prototypes for assessment by industry judges and a public vote at Dare ProtoPlay, scheduled for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

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NOTE FOR EDITORS

Just last month, the three winning teams from Dare to be Digital 2009 (all comprising Abertay University students) competed for the "Ones to Watch" Award at the BAFTA Videogames Awards in London, with The Butterflyers picking up the award for their game "Shrunk". The "Ones to Watch" Award is open only to the winning teams from Dare to be Digital.

In a unique double triumph for Abertay and Dare to be Digital, The Butterflyers also picked up the Best New Game prize at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards in Glasgow last month.

Media enquiries: Kevin Coe, tel 07850 904110, email k.coe@abertay.ac.uk