Two of the bigger names in the business of gaming are coming together for a great cause, and one that should be easy for everybody to get behind.
The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley and PlayStation’s lead architect Mark Cerny are coming together to create Nova Games Foundation, a fellowship program officially partnering with universities to offer six figure grants for 20 student game designers each year.
“I’m nearing the end of my career,” Cerny said to Stephen Totilo for GameFile. “I’m not done yet, but paying it forward—in the best way possible—is very much on my mind these days.”
Cerny and Keighley plan to pay it forward with $100,000 per recipient to help them shape the future of games, and it begins with applications being taken in December from students in the class of 2026 and 2027.
“Today, more than ever, we need to bet on human talent to create great games,” Keighley said on social media today to celebrate the group partnering with a number of game dev schools around the world. Those 13 schools include include NYU and USC in the U.S., Abertay University in Scotland, Cnam-Enjmin in France, TH Köln in Germany, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, according to Totilo.
The $100,000 is just the beginning, potentially, as additional payments up to $500,000 “for projects that are shaping up particularly well” could follow, and those “will be delivered based on development milestones, and recipients will own their games.” Nova Games Foundation will also help promote the work.
“I’ve always wanted to give back, but given my role in the industry, I’ve never felt it appropriate to commercially invest in games,” Keighley said to Totilo. “I’ve never owned stock in a game company or taken a financial stake in a game. Nova is philanthropy: we aren’t taking equity or looking to recoup the grants. The return we’re hoping for is creative—helping new voices make games and find their footing. Mark and I have each made multi-million-dollar donations to establish the foundation, and we intend to keep contributing. We hope others will join us.”
Keighley followed up in saying that Hazelight Studios founder Josef Fares (It Takes Two, Split Fiction) has also joined as a “founding donor and mentor,” so the hopes are that other big names in the industry will follow suit to help build out the industry’s next stars.
