Big announcement for you independent studios or game design students – Activision has announced an Independent Game Development Completion with a grand prize of $500,000. I need to dust of my OpenGL book.

This is the first independent game competition from a major third-party publisher and will be open to either individuals or teams with completed or in-development games (including game concepts and proposals). "This competition underscores our commitment to supporting the creative spirit and innovation of developers," said Dave Stohl, Executive Vice President of Studios at Activision. "I started my career as a software developer, so this opportunity is something I'm personally very proud to offer to the industry's young visionaries."

The competition will be conducted in two phases with round taking place until October with a first and second prize winner chosen, with a prize of $175,000 and $75,000 respectively. Details of the second round will be announced later. This is the biggest prize for an independent game completion that I have ever heard of and hopefully this will be the first step for third-parties to be involved. This sounds like a great opportunity for an small game studio, but especially game design students. For more details you can go to http://www.activision.com/IndependentGamesCompetition.