Many college students play video games, but few ever create them.

An upcoming competition will give students that opportunity.

Students will have the opportunity to attend the kick off to the 2010-2011 Iowa State University Game Development Competition at 7:00 p.m. Sept. 8 in 2245 Coover Hall.

With a grant from the Motorola Foundation, Anson Call, Associate Professor of Art and Design, and Christopher Johnson, Lecturer in Computer Science, are leading and setting up the competition to all students with a few rules.

Teams must be of at least three students, with one member each having experience in design, business or computer science. The competition also offers prize money with $10,000 for first place, $2,500 for second place and $1,000 for third place.

With three different categories to choose from when making the video game, participants can choose to make their game in the serious, pc/console or mobile games.

Call said those attending the kick-off to the competition Wednesday will be lead in a presentation by gaming developers 8monkey Labs.

“People can just go and enjoy and not have to sign up by that time,” Call said. “It’s really open for everybody to just go and listen.”

With a deadline to sign up by Dec. 31, Call hopes those interested will sign up before and start assembling their teams and thinking about their game.

“Students on campus are doing this in their free time, and there is not a good academic way to harness it in a creative way and they’ll be able to make games in the labs and think about it,” Call said.

“This is a way to show us what it is they’re doing, win prize money and let the judge see that creativity and have some context be made there. It’s important for other academic institutions on campus to see how serious the games are by the students. It’s really a win for everybody.”

Call encourages those interested in the competition to visit the competition’s website at http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cjohnson/gamecomp/ or come to the kickoff event Sept. 8.