Game Development Degrees
I’ve always wondered what game development programs are like at schools. There are full-fledged schools out there like Full Sail and DigiPen, as well as programs and courses at colleges like The Guildhall at SMU. What are the programs like? I have no idea, but I’d like to find out. If you have any experience with such programs, please feel free to comment. No, I’m not looking to go to one of these schools (because I’m already a game developer), but I’ve always been interested in game design programs at schools and am curious what they’re like.
If it’s anything like those terrible commercials I see on G4…*shudder*
This is like schools for creative writing — you either have it or you don’t. Sure, they could teach you all the “rules” of the craft, but who cares.
When it comes to game design, as well as creative writing or any other art, what you need is talent.
You can’t teach talent.
This is a fallacy… this is the sort of thinking that ruled music and art classes when I was in grade school. You either had it or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you couldn’t be taught. That’s not true, though, you can be taught to write, or to draw, or to play the trombone, or whatever is important to you.
It may come easier to some than to others, but talent sometimes need encouragement to grow.
I know off-hand how other college/university programs run their gaming programs. Info. researched and gleaned from website forums, former students, current faculty and trade publications. In most instances, the current set of game degrees are more about developing glorified demo reels and portfolios. In most cases, the best places had direct sponsor or contact with major game software companies and platforms. As a student, like with any qualified degree program, you will only make of it what you are willing to put into it. Sheer, raw talent will not always win out in the end neither will a degree and a certification in gaming.
We are currently looking into the feasibility of implementing such a program at our university, it’s ongoing and looks very promising. This is not something that we take lightly considering it will be a multidisciplinary approach and require the commitment, time and money from various faculty and departments throughout the campus – business, design and comm/lit. We’re focusing on the multifaceted aspects of gaming genre – game design, business of design, casual games, mobile games, serious games, games for learning, narrative structure and storyboarding, cognitive approaches to game theory. We’re looking at summer boot camps for preadmission, hopefully to weed out casual gamers from gamers with focus and intent.
Granted, I’m not actually in the gaming program at my university, but given that I feel I have a unique perspective I’ll leave my some-what unasked for commentary on the subject.
What makes my perspective unique? First, I am a visual arts major married to a computer science major. He happens to be in the gaming concentration of the comp sci program here at our university (so I apologize to him now, not that he hasn’t heard this rant already). Secondly, the gaming program here at the university involves requiring comp sci students to pass advanced visual arts classes, my classes.
While I do believe that those computer science students interested in video game development deserve their own program just as much as those CS students interested in computer engineering, I also believe that the method of execution to that end is a miserable failure.
Quite simply put, those in charge suddenly realized one day that they could attract more students (read: more money) by including a VGD program and decided that the most expedient and inexpensive way to do so was to simply plug a few higher photoshop and animation courses from the visual arts department into the elective slots at the end of the information technologies concentration.
While this approach has succeeded in bringing more students to the computer science department, it has also created a few problems I consider to be extremely serious.
The VGD students are entering classes for which they have not been prepared. The advanced VA courses required by the VGD program are normally preceded by three semesters of foundation courses in design, drawing, art history and humanities. During those three semesters, skills are developed and concepts learned that pave the way for the advanced concepts intended to be taught in those courses. Since the VGD students lack the foundations, course work is slowed or stalled while the instructor is forced to review basic concepts and skill sets.
The VGD students are graded for their coursework on a much lower scale than VA students. While this is to be anticipated to a certain extent, the scale on which their work is evaluated is so much lower that it is disproportionate for the credit they receive upon completion.
What it all adds up to is that neither VGD nor VA students are able to garner the education they deserve from the courses affected by the creation of the new program. VA students are slowed and are often unable to cover as much material in a semester as would be beneficial to them due to the VGD students in the classroom. VGD students are robbed of quality education in the concepts the coursework is meant to teach due to the lowered expectations placed upon them by the simple fact that they are not VA students.
I do truly believe that video game development has its place in the university curriculum as much as any other scientific or art-based program. However, I also believe that administrators need to find a way to ignore the siren call of tuition and grant income long enough to develop a quality program or else the programs they are offering will quickly become nothing more than a joke. The fast-approaching fortieth birthday of D&D is a testament to the fact that gaming is far from being a passing fad, and to dance so close to the edge of making fools of those who dare to continue to pursue the next greatest innovation since the Final Fantasy game engine is an injustice.
Game Development Degrees
This is so odd because I was just coming to this site to inquire about the same topic. I am almost finished with my associates degree, and the local community college offers an associates in game design, and since I love gaming I thought that maybe I would switch over to that program. My hubby on the other hand flipped out and says that it is a waste of time and a stupid thing for me to do because he says that game companies wouldn’t hire someone who got their gaming degree from a community college, and secondly that we live in St. Louis and I will never get a job in game design in St. Louis, so it is a big waste of money. So after him screaming at me for like an hour about what a waste it is, I figured I would come here and ask others opinions.
Hi,
I teach on a games design BA in the UK. Its a fairly provincial University and most of the students are local. Im in charge of a few modules on the course that mainly deal with theoretical and conceptual study/practice. What is interesting is how my teaching style and modules differ radically from the rest of the course delivery.
I run lecture series looking at games from a critical/conceptual standpoint, both as counsumers and as devleopers. We deal with issues like virtual economics, gamer communities, psychological effects of virtual space/design, game balance (flow theory), parody and self-reflexiveness in games etc etc. I also run a seminar series looking at questions like ‘what are the differences between games and toys’, ‘what is replayability’ and ‘what psychological rewards do games provide’ etc
My approach is to broaden the debate and examine games/games design from a more critical perspective. I hope that the graduates will be able to enter games culture on a wide range of levels, journalism, programming, script writing, researching, designing, distribution etc etc. This is from my belief that not only are there not enough dev-team jobs in the industry for them (certainly not at bungie, which they all dream of!) and university shold be about a broader education than just aquiring skillsets.
This tends to clash with the other modules on the course that focus on 3d max skills or texture design. I have no problem with such modules, but I feel that skill based tutorial style education is not going to be right for all of them and a wider range of critically capable people is needed to help the games industry/culture mature.
But in truth I am not totally sure what the industry wants, perhaps a production line of lowpoly modelling graduates is what they look for. As many in the industry know, the reality of games production is not as glamorous as many students think and I am hoping to prompt them into creating new genres and areas of practice for themselves and others.