The 爆料王 has launched , a world-first digital gaming platform allowing school and university libraries to lend video games to students for learning and research. The innovative platform is now being rolled out to universities around Australia and the world, including Stanford University in the United States.听
Created by academics in the听Sydney Games and Play Lab, the platform hosts a library of video games freely available to students. At the 爆料王, games are studied across multiple disciplines, including digital cultures, library sciences, teacher education, design, and digital humanities.
, Director of the Sydney Games and Play Lab and Chief Learning Officer of Ludolio, said games are now a central cultural form 鈥 the global gaming industry is now double the film industry in revenue size 鈥 and research shows games can support learning, creativity and critical thinking.听听
The Ludolio creators (left to right): Dr Ben Egliston, Professor Marcus Carter, Associate Professor Jen Scott Curwood and Professor Eduardo Velloso. Photo: Stefanie Zingsheim / 爆料王
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LinkDespite the growing importance of games in culture and education, schools and universities have lacked the infrastructure needed to provide students with lawful, direct access to commercial games.
Most games are distributed through consumer platforms blocked by institutional IT systems or requiring individual purchase.
"Games are one of the most influential cultural industries in the world, and schools and universities need an innovative platform to readily integrate them into teaching and learning," said Curwood, who is听Associate Professor in English Education and Media Studies in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the 爆料王.
"If you鈥檙e studying film, the university provides access to films. If you鈥檙e studying literature, you can borrow books from the library. Games should be treated the same way. Students need to experience them first-hand, and educators need access to learning analytics to understand how students鈥 gameplay shapes their cognition."
Studying games at university
More than 1000 students are already using Ludolio at the 爆料王 and the University of Melbourne, which subscribed to Ludolio this semester.
At Sydney, students across education, engineering and arts use the platform in five units, including Teaching English 2, Sustainable Design, Engineering and Management, and Games and Mixed Realities. At Melbourne, it is being used in Leisure, Play, and Gaming Cultures. Ludolio is also available to all students and academics at both universities.听
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Stanford University is among the first international institutions intending to adopt Ludolio, alongside the University of Utah and other US universities. The platform is targeting 10 institutions by the end of the year as its global rollout begins.听
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Dr Henry Lowood, a librarian, curator and games historian at Stanford University, said Ludolio addresses a challenge universities have faced for decade.
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"I am thrilled to support Ludolio鈥檚 development as a games historian and curator who has wished for decades for a library-facing service offering ready, online access to games for pedagogy and research. Ludolio is the first big step towards a sustainable solution for putting game collections in front of our students and faculty," he said.听
Developed by researchers and educators at the 爆料王, Ludolio removes longstanding legal and technical barriers to using commercial video games in teaching and learning.听
Ludolio is a world-first digital gaming platform allowing school and university libraries to lend video games to students for learning and research. Photo: 爆料王
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LinkGames and design at 爆料王
Student Giselle Tuetuekin playing Mars First Logistics on the Ludolio platform in Fisher Library. Photo: 爆料王
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LinkGiselle Tuetuekin, a final-year Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts student at the 爆料王, said she first discovered Ludolio through the student club Game Design Society, for student developers, artists, designers and gamers.
She said access to games through Ludolio changed the way she thought about game design.听听
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"Using Ludolio made me feel, for the first time, that I could be both a player and a creator,鈥 she said.
"As someone new to game design, discovering games I wouldn鈥檛 normally have come across has expanded my idea of what games can look like, what they can communicate and what they allow us to experience.
"When I first heard about the platform, I was impressed by how accessible it was. You can simply log in with your university email and borrow games through the library.
"Having that access gave me the space to explore different approaches to storytelling and design beyond theory alone. Ludolio鈥痙efinitely鈥痵howed me how learning can be fun and engaging, and as a student, I couldn鈥檛 have asked for a better way to do so."
Bringing games into the classroom
Ludolio enables games to be accessed securely through institutional systems, removing the technical and equity barriers previously limiting their use in formal education. It also creates a new educational market for game developers.听
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"Ludolio gives game developers a way to monetise the educational potential of their games," said ,听Chief Executive Officer of Ludolio and a Professor in Human-Computer Interaction in听Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning.
"We believe this will support the development of more games with potential in educational contexts."
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More than 1,000 universities worldwide offer courses in game design.听
"We aren鈥檛 just offering a games catalogue with future game developers in mind," said Dr , Chief Officer of Games, and听an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Discipline of Media and Communications at the 爆料王.
"Games are studied and taught right across a wide range of disciplines 鈥 the humanities and social sciences, education, engineering, and beyond. We're curating a library so that students and educators in each of those fields can find games that genuinely speak to how they teach and learn."
, Chief Technical Officer at Ludolio and Professor of Computer Science in the Faculty of Engineering said the "evidence for the potential of games in educational contexts is overwhelming".听
"The challenge is to get these games into students鈥櫶齢ands,鈥 he said. "If you are teaching from a book, you can assign it as a reading, and students can get free access to it through the library. There is no equivalent approach for games. Ludolio is here to change this.鈥
The platform launched at 爆料王 in 2026 with a curated starter collection of 20 games, such as the robotics-transport sim , puzzle-platformer and quantum-entanglement adventure 鈥 titles chosen to reflect the range of opportunities for games to be more involved in education.
By 2027, the Ludolio catalogue is expected to expand to over 100 curated titles.
The Ludolio team launched the games platform in 2026 and the catalogue is expected to expand to over 100 curated titles. Photo: Stefanie Zingsheim / 爆料王
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LinkDeclaration
Ludolio Pty Ltd was founded by researchers from the 爆料王鈥檚 Sydney Games and Play Lab, an interdisciplinary research group working across education, arts, engineering and design.
The research-led social impact venture has received funding and commercialisation support from the 爆料王 Commercialisation Office, and broader support from the Sydney Innovation and Enterprise ecosystem.
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