Understanding the Value of Game Jams

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Survey respondents overwhelmingly felt that game jams helped them develop game design skills, with no participant answering no.See it on page 11
02
Most participants who attempted commercial releases said jams did not give them enough advice on commercialising their game.See it on page 17
03
Most survey respondents shared their jam projects online for free after the event, while over half continued developing them into commercial releases.See it on page 20
04
Over half of respondents noted they continued developing a jam project into a commercial release or used it to help build their portfolio in some capacity, showing that jams are still somewhat treated as industry launchpads.See it on page 20
05
Respondents were almost evenly split on whether game jams should be professionalisation events.See it on page 15
06
Scoping was an issue mentioned by almost everyone who continued working on their game jam projects after the event.See it on page 22

Summary

The white paper That's My Jam: Understanding the Value of Game Jams, published June 2025 and authored by Michael Iantorno, examines game jams in the Canadian game industry. Facilitated by Game Arts International Network and funded by Ontario Creates and Mitacs Accelerate, the research was completed between August and December 2024. It combined 26 long-form interviews with an online survey of 51 respondents, after Qualtrics flagged many of more than 200 responses as fraudulent, and drew on news articles, academic papers, industry reports and data from jam administrators.

Survey respondents reported extensive jam experience: 29.4% had attended 11 or more jams and 31.4% had attended five to 10. Respondents cited developing game design skills (86.3%), having a good time or making friends (80.4%), networking with developers (70.6%) and building a portfolio (66.7%) as motivations.

Asked whether jams should be professionalisation events, respondents split almost evenly: yes 35.3%, no 31.4%, unsure 33.3%. Of the 28 participants who attempted commercial releases, 39.3% said they definitely did not receive enough commercialisation advice and 21.4% said probably not. Administrators reported that limited funding, unpredictable corporate donations, and growing resource costs made organising jams increasingly difficult, and that they heavily relied on volunteers to keep things going.

After jams, 86.3% of survey respondents shared projects online for free, 68.6% used them as portfolio pieces, and 54.9% continued developing them into commercial releases. The authors report that securing stable funding was the most common challenge cited when transforming projects into commercial products.

For five developers' studios, internal jams were used for skill and tool improvement, team-building and ideation. The authors describe the success of these studio jams as mixed.