Cross-cultural Online Game Jams: Fostering cultural competencies through jams in game education setting

Abstract

This paper discusses cross-cultural online game jams in a game educational setting, drawing on the experience gained from the project "Games Now! Online Jam" (henceforth "GNOJ") conducted by Aalto University in Finland during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021-2022. Each GNOJ lasted a week, and jammers utilized various online tools, cloud services, communication platforms, and open-source software. Ninety jammers from Finland, Sweden, South Korea, and Japan participated virtually from their home countries. Through post-survey and observation data, we found that jammers highly valued the cultural learning experience offered by jamming. Notably, they encountered unexpected surprises stemming from the diverse local game development practices and different conceptual and terminological connotations across countries during the jam. But jammers displayed proactive engagement in overcoming such cultural differences, with a heightened motivation to learn other languages, cultures, and local game development practices across the world. These findings highlight the pedagogical benefits that cross-cultural online jams can bring to game education. By fostering cultural awareness and competencies in understanding local nuances in game development and communication styles, such initiatives can help future (and current) game developers to effectively prepare multinational work environments and cooperative workflow with remote teams spanning multiple time zones.