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Jamming into the Guinness World Records book…

Posted by Vicki Eltis on 28th September 2012

As a tech PR agency we love a bit of gaming at EML Wildfire, but we can’t claim to be as committed as the 299 students at Train2Game who broke a Guinness World Record this month for the largest game jam in a single location.

Students on the game courses travelled up to the University of Bedfordshire, in Luton, to stay awake for a gruelling 48 hours to make mobile game apps using Microsoft Windows 8.

Microsoft’s Scott Henson gave the students a theme to base their video games around – The Pride of London. Despite the lack of sleep, many colourful and mostly side-scroll-type games were made that included the London underground, pints of beer, the Olympic torch and zombies gamers had to stop from ruining famous landmarks in the capital.

The students smashed the previous record attempt held by 290 students in Denmark and more than 20 of the games were submitted for review to be available on the Window Store.

It’s not often we get to help make a world record, and while exciting for those involved, from a PR point of view, we know it’s a bit of a stunt. However, the real winners here are the students. Not only does it show that careers in gaming are coming of age, but gives students a fantastic experience and access to top Microsoft developers and gaming experts who can help them to fulfill their passion for a career in gaming.

And it’s also the students themselves that helped create the real success when it came to PR.  As well as obvious interest from the gaming press, the stories of the students helped to create widespread media success with the BBC, a number of regional BBC and local stations and more than 20 regional newspapers covering their record breaking event.

Vicki Eltis