Mark Cerny and Geoff Keighley have launched the Nova Games Foundation, a new university-affiliated fellowship program designed to fund young game designers as they move from education into professional development. According to original reporting from Game File’s Stephen Totilo, the program plans to support 20 designers each year with six-figure grants, industry mentorship and no requirement to give up ownership or equity in their games. Applications are scheduled to open in December, with the first group of fellows expected to be announced in March 2027.
Each selected fellow will initially receive $100,000, distributed according to development milestones. Around a quarter of recipients may later qualify for up to an additional $500,000 if their projects are progressing particularly well. The funding is described as philanthropic rather than an investment, meaning Nova will not take equity, seek repayment or claim a share of future revenue from the games it supports.
Recipients will also retain ownership of their projects and remain free to work with whichever publisher or platform they choose. Nova can introduce fellows to publishers and other industry contacts, but it will not take a percentage from resulting deals. Cerny and Keighley told Game File that the goal is to give emerging designers enough financial freedom to focus on making ambitious games without immediately being constrained by commercial expectations.
The program will initially work with 13 game-development programs across universities in eight countries. Participating institutions include New York University and the University of Southern California in the United States, Abertay University in Scotland, Cnam-Enjmin in France, TH Köln in Germany and RMIT University in Australia. Applications will first be open to students from the classes of 2026 and 2027 at affiliated programs, with the complete list of participating schools and application requirements still to be published.
Cerny and Keighley have each contributed multi-million-dollar donations to establish the foundation and say they plan to continue funding it. Their longer-term aim is to build an endowment supported by other people and companies across the games industry, allowing the program to continue well beyond its founders. Cerny said he believes Nova could develop over the next 10 or 20 years, while Keighley described success as reaching a point where the wider industry feels some ownership of the initiative.
Mentorship is intended to be the other major part of the fellowship. Keighley said dozens of established game directors have already expressed interest in contributing their time, while Hazelight founder and It Takes Two director Josef Fares has already made a donation and agreed to participate. Nova has also hired executive director John Maconga and Ashley Corrigan, the former Game Developers Conference director, as its head of grants.
The foundation’s stated focus is not simply on commercially promising projects. Cerny said Nova is looking for games with “artistic, literary and societal value,” pointing to smaller and more distinctive titles as the kind of work he personally wants to encourage. At the same time, the program will look for designers capable of leading a small project through development rather than selecting candidates solely on the strength of an idea.
Keighley said the concept grew from conversations with Cerny about how to help the next generation of game directors establish themselves. The two have known each other for decades and began discussing the idea more seriously through regular meetings over the past ten years. Keighley cited fellowship programs such as the Rhodes Scholarship and MacArthur Foundation grants as inspirations for giving talented creators both financial backing and freedom.
Nova is separate from both PlayStation and The Game Awards despite the two founders’ respective ties to those organizations. Cerny is the lead architect behind PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, while Keighley runs The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest and Gamescom Opening Night Live. Both describe the foundation as an independent philanthropic project rather than an extension of their existing commercial roles.
Applications for the first Nova Games Foundation fellowships are due to open in December 2026. The inaugural 20 fellows are scheduled to be announced in March 2027, with further details on participating universities, eligibility and the application process expected before submissions begin.
