PS5 architect Mark Cerny and Game Awards host Geoff Keighley launch $2M annual grant for game designers
Mark Cerny, the lead architect behind the PS4 and PS5, and Geoff Keighley, creator of The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest, have co-founded Nova Games Foundation — a nonprofit that will hand out at least $2 million in grants to young game designers every year. Each of 20 annual fellows receives a $100,000 base award, with the strongest projects eligible for an additional $500,000. Applications open in December 2026, with the first class of fellows announced in March 2027.
Mark Cerny (left) and Geoff Keighley co-founded Nova Games Foundation to support the next generation of game designers.
The setup
Both founders made multi-million-dollar personal donations to get Nova off the ground and say they plan to keep contributing. The fellowship is tied to a network of 13 universities across 8 countries, including USC and NYU in the US and Abertay in the UK. Josef Fares — director of It Takes Two and founder of Hazelight Studios — has also joined as a founding donor and mentor, signaling early buy-in from outside the PlayStation orbit.
Keighley has been upfront about his financial position, per Game File (Totillo): "I have never owned stock in gaming companies or had a financial stake in games. Nova is purely philanthropic — we are not taking equity and don't expect the grant money back." That transparency matters. Keighley's close ties to publishers through The Game Awards have attracted conflict-of-interest criticism in the past; Nova's no-equity structure is a direct answer to that.
Cerny told Game File he feels he is nearing the end of his career and wants to give back to the industry that made him. Kotaku notes the foundation is modeled on prestigious scholarship programs like the Rhodes and MacArthur fellowships — long-term, person-centered support rather than project-by-project grants.
Today, more than ever, we need to bet on human talent to create great games.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) September 8, 2026
I’m proud to co-found Nova Games Foundation with @cerny, a new fellowship program for graduating students at 13 global video game schools.
Read more here from @stephentotilo: https://t.co/NoASu4A0Eb
What it means in practice
Day-to-day operations are run by executive director John Maconga and grants director Ashley Corrigan, who previously led the Game Developers Conference (GDC). That's a credible, industry-neutral hire that keeps the foundation from looking like a PlayStation talent pipeline.
The wider context: AAA studio consolidation has shrunk entry-level opportunities, and layoffs across the industry over the past two years have hit junior designers hardest. Nova won't fix that structural problem, but $100,000 gives a recent graduate the runway to build something without immediately needing a publisher deal or a job at a studio that might not exist next year. No equivalent fund from Xbox, Nintendo, or major publishers has been announced.
