White House hosts game developer event to better classroom interactions

While hyper-violent games might still be vilified at every turn for supposedly causing the increase in the number of teen-related gun crimes in America, it’s heartening to see the Obama administration has not completely written off the positive aspects to gaming. 

The White House played host to its first official game jam on September 6, a competition where developers compete against the clock, and each other, to create the best original game concept.

This particular event however, was based around the theme of educational games; an attempt to synergise entertaining games with classroom topics, in order to improve educational standards and reach out to today’s students.

Organised by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Educational Technology, the 48-hour White House Game Jam 2014 was attended by at least 100 developers in 23 teams. Attendees included major companies like Ubisoft’s Red Storm Entertainment, contributors behind Far Cry 4, Rovio, of Angry Birds fame, as well as a number of indie developers.  

Check out demo videos from 48hr #WHGameJam to build educational games, more coming soon! #ATLTechinEd @markdeloura https://t.co/SQ00VjBnyx

— Office of Ed Tech (@OfficeofEdTech) September 11, 2014

Gamer fuel. #WHGameJam pic.twitter.com/mIvFnd9pY3

— Phil Larson (@Phil44) September 6, 2014

While an official list of all the games conceived has not yet been released, you can find all posts and photos related to the event under the “WHGameJam” hashtag on Twitter.

The Office of Educational Technology has also released the promo videos of a few of the concepts from the game jam.