Geoff Keighley and Mark Cerny create a fellowship program to fund and help young

Most of us here know Geoff Keighley as “The Game Awards Guy” and perhaps are familiar with Mark Cerny for his 45 years of game design work and help in creating the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Apparently, we can now add “game dev-minded philanthropists” to their respective resumes, as the two have formed the Nova Games Foundation, a grant program built to fund and fuel up-and-coming video game designers.

The foundation is working with 13 different game design programs at different universities around the globe to put financial backing behind fledgling game designers, with $100K initially offered to each of the 20 selected recipients and up to $500K more for projects that appear to be shaping up particularly well and based on certain development milestones. The foundation will also offer mentorship from leading game developers and help introduce fellows to publishers, all with no strings attached; those who are creating the games will own their work and are free to pursue the publishers and platforms of their choice, and the foundation will not be looking for a financial cut.

In an interview with Game File, Cerny and Keighley both call the program a way to give back to the industry and to help those who are facing an almost vertical wall of challenges, particularly in terms of funding. “Nova is philanthropy: we aren’t taking equity or looking to recoup the grants. The return we’re hoping for is creative,” Keighley explains. “Mark and I have each made multi-million-dollar donations to establish the foundation, and we intend to keep contributing. We hope others will join us.”

“These graduates have talent, training and tools that outclass what we had back in the day by an astonishing amount. But they face a tough road ahead getting traction in the industry, and many could benefit from our support,” Cerny adds. “We want to be there to give it to them.”

The ultimate hope is that the Nova Games Foundation will become a lasting endowment that’s backed by companies, creators, and industry professionals over the course of generations, and has already secured donations and pledges to aid the foundation in its goals. Applications for the fellowship will open this December, while the first wave of fellows will be announced in March 2027.

source: Game File