Can video games help us better understand quantum mechanics?
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- Laura Piispanen at Aalto University estimates close to 400 quantum games now exist, many developed during weekend-long Quantum Game Jam events that have been running since 2014.
- Moth Quantum released Quantum Backrooms earlier in 2025, a horror game with levels generated by an IBM quantum computer during development, with each room corresponding to the quantum state of a different part of the device.
- Chris Cantwell at Quantum Native says all his games still run on their own simulators because quantum hardware isn't ready, and when one of Google's quantum computers ran a few rounds of his Quantum Chess in 2020, he had to completely recode the original program.
- Evert van Nieuwenburg at Leiden University, who developed Quantum TiqTaqToe, argues games could eventually serve as benchmarks of a quantum computer's performance if quantum functions are incorporated into gameplay.
- Spiros Michalakis at Caltech, who worked on Quantris and Quantum Chess, began his quantum-gaming work in 2014 with a quantum modification for Minecraft and has spent 12-plus years trying to build games with mechanics that feel strategically novel rather than just quantum-flavored.
- Julian Togelius at NYU, who studies creativity and games, is skeptical quantum computing will be the next big thing in games, noting that clever quantum solutions often go unnoticed by players — similar to how enemies reciting Shakespeare doesn't make a shooter better.
- James Wootton at Moth Quantum coded a quantum version of rock-paper-scissors on one of the earliest IBM quantum computers in 2017, demonstrating direct quantum gameplay that has not yet become practical for commercial releases.
Why it matters: Quantum video games function as a low-stakes proving ground for quantum computing: van Nieuwenburg's benchmark idea means a hit quantum game could double as a public stress test, while developers like Cantwell report that today's hardware still forces a full rewrite just to run simple games on real quantum machines.
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