Mark Cerny and Geoff Keighley have launched the Nova Games Foundation, a philanthropic fellowship program aimed at funding young game designers.
According to Game File, the program – which is unaffiliated with The Game Awards or PlayStation – plans to offer $100,000 grants to 20 designers per year, with roughly a quarter of recipients eligible for up to $500,000 more for projects that show particular promise.
Funding comes with mentorship from industry veterans. Recipients will retain ownership of their games and can pursue publishers and platforms of their choice, with Nova able to help make introductions.
Applications open in December to 2026 and 2027 graduates from 13 affiliated university programs spanning eight countries, among them TH Köln in Germany, RMIT in Australia, Cnam-Enjmin in France, Abertay University in Scotland, and the US pairing of NYU and USC.
Cerny, lead architect of the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and Keighley, host of The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest, and Opening Night Live, are personally funding the foundation with multi-million-dollar contributions of their own, and expect to keep putting money in as it grows.
“Nova is philanthropy: we aren’t taking equity or looking to recoup the grants,” Keighley told Game File. “The return we’re hoping for is creative – helping new voices make games and find their footing.”
The foundation has hired John Maconga as executive director and former Game Developers Conference director Ashley Corrigan as head of grants. It Takes Two and Split Fiction director Josef Fares has also pledged a donation and support.
“I’m proud to support Nova because it gives the next generation of creators the freedom to explore their creativity and hopefully bring their unique visions to life,” Fares said.
Cerny said the program aims to support games as “an artistic medium,” citing titles including Neva, Abzu, Gorogoa, Stray, and Outer Wilds as examples of the kind of work Nova hopes to enable.
Keighley said the fellowship concept was partly inspired by his own unsuccessful application for a Rhodes Scholarship, the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius grants,” and Jenova Chen, the USC game design graduate behind Flower and Journey.