The Australian STEM Videogame Challenge, a 12-year-old student competition, will shut down this year due to an influx of AI-generated game submissions. Organizers found it increasingly difficult to distinguish between games created by students and those made with generative AI tools.
The competition invited elementary through high school students, working alone or in groups up to four, to submit games based on a theme along with design documents and trailers. Cathy Zemaitis, head of the Student Learning and Progress division at ACER, which runs the challenge, told PC Gamer, "The decision was driven by the rapid and complex rise of generative AI in game development, making it harder to judge what students made themselves, and moving the program away from its original purpose."
One parent whose teenage son participated for several years posted on Reddit about the impact. "My teenage son and his friends entered the competition for several years, meeting up regularly, discussing ideas, and working together on a shared passion project," the parent wrote. "It gave them something exciting to work on, and a common goal to strive towards outside of school. It also gave them confidence, and made them feel part of a wider community." The parent added that the son "was visibly gutted when I told him the news, and it genuinely felt like part of his identity had been destroyed."
One of the competition's stated purposes was to "enable students to develop real-world skills." The shutdown removes a structured opportunity for young developers to learn core game creation techniques before entering the industry.