After the competition ends the teams demonstrate their titles at Dare ProtoPlay, formerly held at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival until 2010 but now at the Caird Hall in Dundee.
With industry and government support, the contest opened parallel host centres across the UK as of 2007, in Belfast and Electronic Arts office in Guildford.
2014 Winner of Develop Talent Investment Award [3] 2011 Livingstone-Hope Review of Video Games and Visual Effects Next Gen. (2011) Dare to be Digital was singled out and cited in one of the 20 recommendations as a template for the UK education: Develop a template for introducing workshop simulation into industry-accredited video games and visual effects courses, based on Abertay University’s Dare to be Digital competition.
This initiative, sponsored by the University of Abertay in Dundee, provides talented students with the opportunity to showcase their creativity and skills in front of prospective employers.
The resulting games are then judged by a panel of industry specialists and small cash prizes are given based on a range of awards from ‘most commercially viable’ to ‘best use of technology’.
The resulting games, their excellence and their creator’s employability have shown the industry the creativity and ingenuity of the new talent emerging from the handful of UK universities so far involved.
25 out of 46 current courses have contributed entrants to date, and 80 per cent of Dare’s participants win jobs in the industry after competing.
The competition went more international with students coming from Canada, England, India, China, Northern Ireland, The Irish Republic, Norway, Scotland and Wales.
15 teams took part in 2010, coming from China, England, India, Ireland, Sweden, Scotland, USA and Wales.
[13] Dare 2012 had 15 participating teams from England, Scotland, Ireland, India, Finland, Israel, Spain and China.