Dare to be Digital Announces £1m Expansion For 2008

UK computer game design competition Dare to be Digital has announced its supporters, Abertay University, have committed to increase the organization's financial support for 2008. The decision means that Dare to be Digital’s full-time organizing team can now begin to source external contributions to a total budget of £1 million ($2.02 million) over the next two years. The organizers plan to almost double the number of student teams in 2008, while also increasing the number of host centers across the UK and possibly overseas as well. In 2007, a total of 12 teams containing 60 students competed in Dare to be Digital at host centers in Dundee, Belfast and Guildford. Abertay University also announced that Dare ProtoPlay, the highly successful public showcase included for the first in the 2007 competition, will be presented again next year. The organizing team is already looking for potential venues for an expanded ProtoPlay in 2008. Paul Durrant, Dare to be Digital Director highlighted key developments in the competition's recent history: First, Dare to be Digital's partnership with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to make winners eligible for the BAFTA Ones to Watch Award. Second, Durrant noted the commission of indie documentary production company Wantok by BBC Radio 4 to track the competition from start to finish. Wantok's documentary, Game Academy, will be broadcast in December. Lastly, Dare to be Digital is also featured as a best practice example in the UKTI / BERR / TIGA report Playing for Keeps. Said Durrant, “That so many individuals are winning exciting jobs in the industry within days or weeks of the end of the competition speaks volumes for the caliber of the students and the value that employers place on the Dare experience. We now working on transferring the model into other sectors of the creative industries, and we are poised to scale up not only the contest itself but also Dare ProtoPlay into the definitive independent IP and talent showcase to consumers and industry as we reach critical mass over the next couple of years.”