Why game jams are so important: Cipher Prime’s Will Stallwood

Why does the Philly Game Forge hold game jams? (That is, events where game developers build a game in a short amount of time, much like a hackathon for civic hackers.)
Because experimentation is key to getting better at what you do, wrote Cipher Prime’s Will Stallwood in a recent blog post.

Holding back on experimentation helps me finish my goals faster most of the time. But, experimentation in my craft is what makes me better and sharpens my skills. Game Jams are not just something I want to do, they’re a thing I need to do. If I want to get better, I need to take risks and I need to work under pressure.

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To show how he’s grown as a game designer in the last ten years, Stallwood posted a screenshot of his first game. It eventually turned into Cipher Prime’s “Intake.”
It’s a sentiment that many in the tech world have expressed — that’s why hackathons are so prevalent. They’re essentially mini R&D labs.
It’s a strategy that big corporations have adopted (like telco Singtel, which sparked the launch of recent DreamIt Ventures grad IglooHome, and Booz Allen Hamilton, which hosts an internal accelerator that Philly-based tech consultant Bill Hargengrader was part of, with his cybersecurity app) and startups, too (RJMetrics, DuckDuckGo and Monetate, just to name a few).