[game_edu] Qol, "crunch" and Education

[Mike Reddy]

Can I for one, express my frustration on hearing the fact that the GGJ was being considered in different form, rather than the previous 46 hour over-nighter, which has always started at 5pm on the Friday night. I am too old for this, but nevertheless get (got) a real kick out of providing the chance for students to use the restricted time as a liberating, creative constraint. What annoyed me this year was the accidental discovery that at least one site had not been conforming to a standard that had major QoL consequences for me as a host; and a reason why few others in the UK are prepared to organise hosting. Ok, this is NOT intended to be judgemental of hosts that didn't conform to the 5pm Friday to 3pm Sunday template, or the organisers for letting them. However, given that our University charged us £1500 - which was at least lower than the £2300 they tried to charge! - I was really rather disappointed to find one site had started/finished early. We were charged for overnight security for two night shifts, because the new building isn't 24 hour access. This financially crippled our school, requiring pulled favours, loss of goodwill and face on my part to get funding at the last minute. It was also a shocking waste of limited funding, but I'm sure that other institutions are similarly infected with an "internal economy".

What annoyed me was that a site had for all of the jams not stuck to the timetable. It never would have occurred to me to ask such a thing.

Now this genii is