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Educational game dev program cancelled because students were submitting games made entirely with AI
The Australian STEM Videogame Challenge will end after its 2026 event, concluding a programme that has run for more than a decade. The Australian Council for Educational Research says generative AI has made it increasingly difficult to judge which parts of students’ games they created themselves, shifting the competition away from its educational purpose.
The free national competition encouraged students to develop video games. Organisers say they have no plans to replace it with an AI-adapted version, though ACER says it will continue exploring other learning programmes with schools and the education sector. A judge had also suggested funding cuts might have contributed, but ACER cited AI as the reason for the cancellation.
In short
- The 2026 event will be the challenge’s last.
- ACER says AI made student contributions harder to assess.
- Organisers have no plans for an alternative version.
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The case for
Ending the challenge may protect its educational purpose: if judges cannot tell what students made themselves, awards may no longer recognise the skills the programme was designed to develop. A competition also needs credible, workable rules, and adapting them to rapidly changing AI tools could demand resources without restoring fair assessment.
The case against
Cancelling a free national programme after more than a decade may deprive students of a valuable way to learn game design, regardless of how AI complicates judging. Organisers could instead explore clearer disclosure rules, assess students’ process or understanding, or redesign the challenge so AI use is transparent and judged as part of the work.
Explained simply
The Australian STEM Videogame Challenge was a free national competition that invited students to design and build video games. It had run for more than a decade and was intended to support learning through making games.
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) organised the challenge. Generative artificial intelligence can produce text, images and computer code, making it harder for judges to tell which parts of a submitted game a student created.
The competition’s end matters to schools and students who used it as a way to explore game design and technology. ACER says it will continue looking at other learning programmes with schools, but has no plans to replace the challenge with a version adapted for AI.