PR Nordic

San Luis Obispo, California, USA –  Global Game Jam® (GGJ) announces the next edition of its annual jam, Global Game Jam 2026, the world’s largest collaborative game development event. The jam will take place from 26 January to 1 February 2026, bringing together game developers, students, educators, and creatives from around the world.

The Global Game Jam® (GGJ) is an annual, worldwide event where participants form small teams to create games over a short, intensive period, inspired by a shared global theme. Blending creativity, experimentation, and learning-by-doing, GGJ empowers people of all backgrounds and skill levels to explore game development in a collaborative and inclusive environment.

Key Dates for Global Game Jam 2026

• 19–23 January 2026 – GGJ Prep Week
• 24–25 January 2026 – Global Theme Reveal Event (YouTube & Twitch)
• 26 January 2026 – Global Game Jam begins worldwide
• 1 February 2026 – Jam concludes

For full details, schedules, and updates, please visit the official Global Game Jam website.

A Truly Global Event at Unprecedented Scale

Global Game Jam is a worldwide phenomenon, hosted simultaneously across hundreds of local jam sites in dozens of countries. Each year, tens of thousands of participants come together to create, collaborate, and learn through play.

In 2026, GGJ will surpass a major milestone, reaching over 500,000 lifetime participants worldwide. In 2025, GGJ surpassed 100,000 total games created from the jam, highlighting the scale, creativity, and sustained global impact of the event.

Annually, the event attracts around 40,000 participants across 800 sites in 100 countries.

At its core, Global Game Jam exists to foster innovation, collaboration, and experimentation through game development. The event emphasizes learning-by-doing, rapid prototyping, and community building, encouraging participants to share ideas, skills, and perspectives across disciplines and cultures.

Who Should Participate

Global Game Jam is open to a broad and diverse audience, including:

• Game developers and aspiring developers
• Students and educators
• Artists, designers, musicians, and writers
• Technologists and creative professionals
• First-time jammers with no prior game development experience

Educational, Cultural, and Professional Impact

Global Game Jam demonstrates a strong and measurable impact across education, culture, and industry. Through hands-on collaboration, participants acquire practical skills including teamwork, problem-solving, creative thinking, and rapid iteration, all of which are essential across creative and technology-driven sectors.

From a cultural standpoint, GGJ positions games as a meaningful creative and educational medium, supporting the expression of local identities, social issues, and experimental approaches. From a professional perspective, the jam frequently acts as an entry point into the games industry and adjacent creative fields, with numerous long-term projects and career paths originating from jam-based collaborations.

“The Global Game Jam is a celebration of creativity, innovation and community,” GGJ Executive Director Maria Burns Ortiz said. “As we head into 2026 and the 17th edition of the Global Game Jam, amid ongoing uncertainty not only in our industry but around the world, seeing tens of thousands of creators from over 100 countries come together to make games around a shared theme speaks to the power of games to connect us.”

How to Take Part

Whether you want to run a jam site, participate as a jammer, learn more about the Global Game Jam theme, or explore other important dates and deadlines, additional information is available in the Global Game Jam FAQ

Partners

Global Game Jam runs the annual event at no-cost to jam participants. GGJ 2026 is made possible by the financial support of industry partners. The 2026 Global Game Jam Headline Sponsors are Epic Games, Games for Change and Xsolla. 

San Luis Obispo, California, USA  – Global Game Jam® (GGJ) and Games for Change (G4C) are entering a new phase of their multi-year partnership to inspire creativity, critical thinking, and social impact among young game creators. Together, the organizations are launching two aligned initiatives for the 2025–2026 cycle: GGJ Next (for ages 10–18) and the G4C–GGJ Next Gen Expert Jam (for ages 18–25).

While the collaboration is already underway, the jam window is open until March 2026, giving participants around the world the opportunity to create digital games, tabletop games, character designs or game trailers addressing real-world challenges. Both programs support participants in developing games for the G4C Student Challenge, the world’s largest social-impact game design competition for youth.

“Collaboration is a core tenet of Global Game Jam,” GGJ executive director Maria Burns Ortiz said. “Partnering with Games for Change allows us both to bring our youth jams to a wider international audience in support of our shared mission to empower the next generation of game creators.”

• Jam window: November 15, 2025 – March 15, 2026
• Games created during the jam may be submitted to the G4C Student Challenge, where the Game of the Year winner receives a USD $10,000 scholarship shared among the team.
• New for 2026: Global Game Jam will introduce country-level awards, recognizing standout GGJ Next submissions from each participating nation.

To Host a GGJ Next Site:

Those interested in hosting their own GGJ Next jam can begin by completing the GGJ Next Interest Form and registering their site at globalgamejam.org. Hosts should select “Host a Jam Site” and choose “GGJ Next” as their audience. After registration, a regional organizer will schedule a short interview to guide them through the process.

The jam structure is designed to align with school and after-school schedules, making participation more accessible for students worldwide.

To Join as a Jammer:

Young creators can participate through any registered local site. If no jam is available in their area, they can join virtually via the GGJ Next itch.io page.

Themes

The themes for GGJ Next 2026 are directly aligned with the G4C Student Challenge themes.

• Outgrow Hunger – Design a game where players care for a natural space that nourishes and supports a community. Inspire players to explore, protect, and grow their world. (more info)
• Own the Road – Create a game that promotes safer behavior in and around vehicles, reducing the risks associated with road environments. Games should educate, engage, and empower players to make smart, life-saving decisions on the road. (more info)
• All in for Nature: Reefs & Rainforests – Draw inspiration from the natural world. Focus on a reef or rainforest near your home, one you dream of visiting, or a fictional ecosystem of your own creation. Design a game that tells the story of a reef or rainforest under threat, and how communities come together to protect it. (more info)

1. Join as a Virtual Jammer

itch.io jam page will serve as the central hub for all the information and event schedule.
Note: Uploading to itch.io does not equal a G4C submission – participants must also submit through the G4C Portal.

2. Participate during Global Game Jam 2026 (January 26 – February 1)

Jammers can take part by selecting one of the three G4C Diversifiers during GGJ.
After uploading their GGJ project, participants receive instructions on submitting to the G4C Portal.

Participants may:

• Submit their GGJ game as-is

• Continue development until the March deadline

Post-GGJ, jammers will have access to feedback, mentors, and expert guidance.

3. Host an in-person jam at a college or university

G4C Student Challenge Requirements (Ages 18–25)

• Games must be browser-playable via URL
• Must use a free/open development platform (Scratch, Unity, Construct, Co-Spaces, Twine, Godot, etc.)
• Must address one of the three themes:
  • Outgrow Hunger
  • Own the Road
  • All in for Nature: Reefs & Rainforests
• Original work from teams of 1–4 creators
• Eligible formats: digital games, tabletop games, game trailers, character design
• Learn more: G4C Student Challenge Handbook

Awards

• G4C Game of the Year: USD $10,000 scholarship (shared among team members).
• Category recognitions:
  • Best theme-based game (3 categories)
  • Best tabletop game
  • Best international game
  • Best gameplay
  • Best trailer
  • Best Unity game
• New for 2026: GGJ will recognize one outstanding game from each participating GGJ country.
  Participants must select “Attended a Student Challenge Game Jam” and “Yes, It was a Global Game Jam Event.” when submitting via the G4C Portal.

About Global Game Jam
Global Game Jam is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower people around the world to learn, experiment, and create together through the medium of games. In addition to organizing the largest game jam in the world, GGJ works year-round to support, promote, and grow the global game development community.

About Games for Change
Since 2004, Games for Change (G4C) has empowered game creators, students, educators, and social innovators to drive real-world impact through games and immersive media.

The G4C Student Challenge is an international game design competition inviting youth to create digital games inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The program uses youth interest in video games to develop their skills in coding, digital design, and other essential future-ready competencies. The Student Challenge amplifies student voices, empowers young people to imagine creative solutions to social problems, and enables them to see themselves as engaged citizens and changemakers.

Helsinki, Finland – The Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA), a global non-profit cooperative of game developers, universities and associations, today announced the launch of the Sustainable Games Standard, the first global emissions reporting framework created specifically for the games industry.

Established in 2024, SGA set out to bring studios, publishers, associations, and partners together around a common goal: making gaming the most sustainable form of entertainment. Just a year later, that goal has moved from vision to reality. With more than 30 members and partners already involved, the Sustainable Games Standard gives the industry a freely available, practical tool to measure, benchmark, and reduce emissions across development, publishing, distribution, and infrastructure.

“With the Sustainable Games Standard, the industry finally has a framework that reflects how games are actually made, turning ambition into actionable impact. It is a commitment of the industry uniting companies, associations, and researchers under one standard to drive change at scale. Our ambition is to make gaming the most sustainable entertainment medium, and industry wide strategic action based on easily accessible and comparable data is the only way we’ll get there.” said Maria Wagner, Managing Director of the Sustainable Games Alliance.

A Framework Designed for Games

Unlike generic reporting tools, the Sustainable Games Standard has been built around the unique needs of the games sector and its value chain. Covering everything from game design and server infrastructure to marketing and hardware, the framework enables companies to:

• Track emissions with accuracy specific to games

• Benchmark performance across titles and companies

• Identify improvements that cut costs and reduce environmental impact

• Comply with new regulations in Europe and beyond

• Optimize energy consumption and extend battery life

• Reduce hardware load and optimize performance

• Enhance the player experience

Importantly, the framework is freely available, ensuring studios of all sizes, from AAA to indie, can take part.

Global Industry Support

The Sustainable Games Alliance already unites a broad coalition of studios, publishers, service providers, and associations. Together, these organizations represent every corner of the industry, from pioneering indie developers and global studios to trade associations and research initiatives, reflecting a growing momentum for systemic, industry-wide action on sustainability.

“The SGA Standard paves the way for greater transparency and streamlined collaboration between game developers, manufacturers, and service providers to more effectively contribute to emissions reduction,” said Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of SYBO. “An industry standard for measurement and reporting is the critical next step in making the gaming landscape’s sustainability efforts more efficient and impactful.”

“To accurately measure our company’s full carbon footprint, we need transparent data from our partners. While we get detailed emissions reporting for some services like business travel, there are major data gaps when it comes to digital service infrastructure. This prevents us from truly understanding our impact. Standardized reporting for services is essential—it would empower customers and providers alike to make meaningful climate progress. That’s why I’m excited to see what we can achieve with the SGA Standard,” said Tommi Lappalainen, Senior Sustainability Manager at Rovio Entertainment.

“Energy efficiency is not just a technical detail, it’s a competitive advantage. Longer battery life keeps players engaged on the go, while lower energy demand contributes to a more sustainable game industry. To make real progress, we need reliable ways to measure and compare performance across the industry, and it is exciting to see SGA being a leader of that transformation”, said Laurent Gibert, Principal Product Strategy Architect & Co-Lead Unity Montreal.

From Launch to Action
The launch of the Sustainable Games Standard marks the beginning of a new chapter for the industry, one where environmental responsibility becomes part of how games are made. It is paving the way for more strategic and systemic reporting and emissions reduction by enabling integration into game engines, platforms, and by service providers, saving developers time and money by delivering better data, faster and with greater transparency freeing up capacities for studios to focus on creating more sustainable, just better games.

Throughout 2025 and 2026, the Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA) will support adoption of the standard and will host workshops, case studies, and presentations that showcase results from early members and demonstrate real-world impact.

SGA is calling on developers, publishers, platforms, investors, and associations worldwide to join the initiative and help position gaming as a global leader in sustainable entertainment.

For more information about the Standard for Sustainable Gaming
https://sustainablegamesalliance.org/standard/

About the Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA) 

The Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA) is a non-profit cooperative founded by the world’s leading game entrepreneurs and environmental researchers with one goal: to make the games industry the leader in sustainability by setting ambitious and achievable standards for environmental and social responsibility.  https://sustainablegamesalliance.org/

SGA already has 33 members from 11 different countries including PC, console & mobile game developers, research groups, and local as well as pan-European trade associations. Its members are:

Arctic Game, Black Soup, Bold Beetle Games, Charged Monkey, Clean Play, Colossal Order Ltd, EGDF, Ever Curious Entertainment Inc., Expa Game Business Cooperative, Fingersoft, Game Only, Games Denmark, Horizon Europe STRATEGIES, IGDA Climate SIG, INSTINCT3 GmbH, Lockwood Publishing, London Games, MOOD ApS / MOOD Holding ApS, Neogames Finland ry, Nitro Games Plc, Psyon Games, Remedy, Second Stage GmbH, Secret Exit Oy, SGDA, Spielfabrique, Sports Interactive, Starbreeze, Super Evil Megacorp, SYBO, Tactile Games ApS, and WLove Games.

• The Future Entertainment Company

An independent game development studio creates action-focused games with heart and vision. The team blends creative ambition with a love for gameplay, unique design, and intensity. The company aims to entertain and challenge players.

• Frogwares

Founded in 2000, Frogwares is an independent studio based in Ukraine and Ireland, known for the Sherlock Holmes series and the Lovecraftian detective-horror game The Sinking City. With over 8 million units sold across both franchises, we have been self-publishing since 2019 and delivering titles on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We are now working on our most ambitious project yet — The Sinking City 2, a heart-pounding survival horror that blends detective work with cosmic dread and relentless psychological tension.