MAGIC Sponsors & Partners

1st Playable Productions, LLC is an independent game development studio with a focus on handheld games for kids. We're here to make fun and great looking games! Games that build, not exploit, the entertainment brands that they represent. We love finding ways to get more out of limited game platforms, and are a licensed developer for Nintendo 3DS and DS, iOS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, as well as other embedded game platforms. But it's not just what you do, but how you do it. We are a community-oriented game studio, modeled on the principles of social entrepreneurship. All of us volunteer time and energy to outreach to and build community and educational organizations. The company balances our passion for development of engaging and fun entertainment license-based games for kids, with new product research to create a new generation of educationally oriented games to inspire and engage kids of all ages.

Adobe is known the world over as a creative media company and creator of world-class tools for media creation and production. The Director of MAGIC, Andrew Phelps, is recognized as an Adobe Education Leader, as is Adam Smith, affiliated faculty from the School of Design in the College of Imaging Arts & Sciences at RIT. The associated academic programs in IGM/GCCIS are recognized through the Adobe Developer Partner program, while the New Media programs in CIAS are engaged through the Adobe Partners by Design initiative. Several other faculty engaged with MAGIC also have substantial ties and relationships with Adobe including Professor Nancy Doubleday, Professor Stephen Kurtz, and others.

Darkwind Media is a Game Development Studio and consultant agency offering contracting services for low level engine porting, game porting, and unique IP creation. We create our own games, help you with yours, and bring game technology to other industries. Darkwind's executive board is comprised of many RIT Alumni, including co-founder Colin Doody, an alum of the MS in Game Design & Development and BS New Media Interactive Development programs. MAGIC enjoys a wonderful working relationship with Darkwind on many initiatives.

Games+Learning+Society (GLS) is a research center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison made up of scholars and designers dedicated to doing more in these media environments. The center enjoys partners in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and Learning Games Network, and together GLS delves into how videogames capture our imaginations, how their power can be used to transform learning, and what this engaging medium means for society. Combining faculty, students, and academic staff from the Digital Media program in Curriculum & Instruction with industry-tested game designers, they have discovered that well-designed, compelling games can improve learning outcomes and make education fun. GLS is co-directed by Dr. Kurt Squire and Dr. Constance Steinkuehler. Dr. Steinkuehler also served as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, advising on issues pertaining to video games and learning. MAGIC and GLS have collaborated on numerous past projects and continue to partner on major efforts.

The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) is a first-of-its-kind, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional gaming research alliance that will provide the fundamental scientific evidence to support games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle school students. It is great example of how technology can play a role in changing how students learn and give teachers new tools to create dynamic and effective curriculum. The G4LI is funded in part by Microsoft Research and is comprised of members from a consortium of schools in the northeast region that are exploring games and their educational uses including: New York University, Columbia University, City University of New York, Dartmouth, Parsons, Polytechnic University @ NYU, RIT, and Teacher's College. Additional support is provided by Microsoft and others.

The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) at The Strong collects, studies, and interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography. ICHEG houses one of the largest and most comprehensive public collections of electronic games and game-related historical materials (more than 40,000 objects) anywhere. ICHEG is situated at The Strong, the only collections-based educational institution in the world devoted to the study and exploration of play.

Microsoft Research Connections supports those who dream the impossible—inventing a better world one idea at a time. They collaborate with the world’s top academic and scientific researchers, institutions, and computer scientists to shape the future of computing in fields such as parallel programming, software engineering, natural user interfaces, and data-intensive scientific research. MSR has graciously supported efforts such as Just Press Play, Reality and Programming Together (RAPT), the Multi-User Programming Pedagogy for Enhancing Traditional Study (MUPPETS), and our involvement with the Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) over the past decade, and we continue to partner with Microsoft on a wide variety of projects. The School of Interactive Games & Media, with which MAGIC is affiliated, is also an Microsoft XNA Games Studios Express innovation award winner.

IGM/RIT has joined the Academic Consortium on Games for Impact. This group has been conceived by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House to “create a multi-university group that can together share assets (engines, data, research expertise) and help solve some of the problems facing the field.” This will have lasting impact within MAGIC as ‘games for learning’ and ‘games for discovery’ are major parts of our overall research effort.

Red Hat is known the world over for their open source software work, and their flavors of Linux (among several projects.) Several ongoing projects in MAGIC are graciously funded through the generosity of Red Hat, Inc., including those in the FOSS Box. "Red Hat is proud to partner with RIT and the Center for MAGIC in exploring Open Source projects and methodologies across a broad range of disciplines and fields." - Tom Callaway, Engineering Manager, Red Hat

The MAGIC Center continues to make use of the advisory board originally established for the School of Interactive Games & Media, in addition to other partners and advisers as appropriate to its mission. The quality and caliber of the board is exceptional, and the depth of experience not only in the games and media industries, but also in the more general issues of media production and experience oriented design continue to provide an appropriate and valued resource for the MAGIC Center.

Founded by educators and gamers, Second Avenue Learning is a certified women-owned interactive media company in Rochester, NY that provides custom software development for interactive modules and serious games for education, managed services for learning management systems, training services and content authoring, in addition to proprietary products. RIT/IGM/MAGIC has engaged, and continues to engage, on several partnerships with Second Avenue, including work funded through the National Science Foundation and others that address a broad range of educational and gender issues through games and interactive media.

StormFrog is a full-service digital partner, a group of overachieving, pixel pushing, interactive hyperactivists with mad, mad skills. Our team roster is a best-of-the-best collective of design and programming talent. StormFrog is working directly with the MAGIC Lab for Technological Literacy and the Mobile Zone.

RIT promotes and enables entrepreneurial education through a three-pronged approach; cutting edge and interdisciplinary course curriculum, applied entrepreneurial experiences, and various entrepreneurship-related programs. The program integrates business education with RIT's world leading technical and creative programs. It creates broad partnerships with the business community and RIT's Business Incubator.