IGN and Rogue Games are partnering to produce Rogue Jam, a brand-new game jam that’s offering exclusive development deals along with US$800,000 in total prizes to competing indie game developers.
Galaxy Racer (GXR) was founded in 2019 and is the largest esports, gaming and lifestyle organizations in the world, with over 100 content creators across Middle East North Africa (MENA) and Southeast Asia (SEA), amassing over 500 million followers and generating over 2.5 billion monthly views.
Founder and CEO of Galaxy Racer, Paul Roy, said: “We’re delighted to support Rogue Jam, an awesome initiative by Rogue Games to uncover the next generation of indie game developers. Galaxy Racer believes in supporting the gaming community and Rogue Games are certainly on point with this competition and are making waves in the industry, including their recent ground-breaking partnership developing games for Netflix.”
Founder and CEO of Rogue Games, Matt Casamassina, said: “We’re thrilled to have Galaxy Racer come onboard as our gold sponsor for Rogue Jam. They are the first esports organization to enter gaming by having skin in the game. With their growing presence in the esports and gaming ecosystem, we are confident their support will have a positive impact to our community.”
Submissions will be accepted between November 29 and December 31 at Rogue Jam’s homepage roguejam.com , with finalists being showcased in a show produced by IGN in early 2022. The grand prize winner will win US$500,000 to develop their game as well as an exclusive Rogue Games publishing deal.
The competition will feature several other categories, including a “WTF” prize for Rogue Jam’s weirdest and wildest game, and an “Eye-Poppingly Beautiful” award for the most attractive game of the competition.
Both categories will offer prizes of US$100,000 along with a publishing deal with Rogue. Smaller prizes of US$50,000 plus a Rogue right of first refusal deal will be offered for “Huge Potential” and “Audience Choice” winners.
Judges for the event will include several well-known figures from across the games industry, including IGN Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer Peer Schneider and former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé. Complete list of judges below:
- Kimberly Pointer Corbett, Warner Bros. Games Senior Vice President of Digital Publishing
- Reggie Fils-Aimé, former Nintendo of America President, Board Advisor at Rogue Games
- Peer Schneider, IGN Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer
- Chris Lee, Netflix Head of Game Sourcing and Interactive Games
- Matt Casamassina, Rogue Games CEO
- Chris Archer, Rogue Games Chief Strategy Officer
Rogue Games was founded by Casamassina, who served at IGN until his departure in 2010. Earlier this year, Rogue Games raised US$2.5 million in funding to publish “batsh*t insane” indie games for PC, consoles, and mobile games.
The list of games Rogue currently has in development includes Super Impossible Road, a spiritual sequel to Impossible Road released on Nintendo Switch on December 9, to be followed by a first quarter launch on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Rogue is also publishing Arcanium, an “open-world single-player strategy card adventures,” and Sprawl, a retro FPS. In addition, Rogue Games recently announced that it is partnering with Bloober Team on an unannounced project.
The Rogue Jam submission portal opened November 29, and submissions will be accepted until December 31. Submissions must be playable in order to be considered.
