From Jam to Start-up: A framework to support entrepreneurship at game jams and production oriented workshops

Production workshops such as game jams are popular ways
of letting participants acquire hands-on knowledge and experience
in producing an artifact or game prototype in a
very limited timespan. Some of the games made at these
production workshops are later published with great success,
and create the foundation for new start-up companies.
There are, however, an even larger group of very creative
and innovative games and artifacts with great potential
that go unpublished. This potentially leads to a loss of
entrepreneurial opportunities and ultimately the jobs and
careers such games could have fostered. The authors of
this paper have founded, co-organized, and participated in
numerous production workshops where great productions
were presented as functional prototypes only to be discontinued
at the end of the game jam. There is still a lack
of a comprehensive framework that concretely describes the
activities and conditions at production workshops and game
jams, which can spark the interest of becoming an entrepreneur.
In this study, we explore how intense development
and production-oriented workshops may impact entrepreneurial
intent and the subsequent conversion into entrepreneurial
behavior, with the aim of proposing an entrepreneurial
framework of activities and conditions at which entrepreneurial
intent can thrive and grow within the connes of such
workshops. An exploratory research case study approach
was employed, focusing on entrepreneurial potential at game
jams. An online survey with a sample consisting of 56 participants
from several game jams was performed to investigate
the mindset behind the numerous developers never pursuing
their entrepreneurial opportunity. Furthermore, obser-
vations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with
game company owners in order to explore the factors and
mindset of those that pursued the entrepreneurial path, and
to investigate ndings of the survey in more depth. The survey
and interviews concentrated on the further development
process of the game jam projects as entrepreneurial kicko
s, and the exploration focused particularly on identifying
activities and conditions at game jams which may aid in
heightening the entrepreneurial intent. Moreover, the study
highlights barriers for publishing game jam games.