Universities Step Up Videogame Studies 41
Thanks to Wired News for their article discussing the continuing rise of academic programs related to videogames, covering the University Of Southern California, who are "...planning to offer a minor degree in the topic in the fall of 2004... it is believed to be the first major research university to do so." The article also notes that, previously, "gaming programs were limited to more-specialized schools such as DigiPen in the Seattle area and art schools like the Art Institute of California in San Francisco, which offers a degree in game art and design. NYU and the University of Washington have certificate programs in video games, and others, like MIT, wrap gaming into media studies programs."
Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
This has come up before. It's a bit less appetizing than initially appears. That isn't to say that the video game field is a bad field, but that I'd want to think hard before picking up a video game development degree. (This is coming from someone who took a video game development class in university himself.) My comments apply to the software development side of video gaming -- game design, story, music, are a whole different story.
Reasons:
a) Video game development is a hard industry to work in. Turnover is high, pay is relatively low, and there are tough schedules. You may like it, you may not, but it's easy to get a rosy picture of it before you enter the industry. Sure, long hours may not be a big deal at first -- fresh college grads frequently don't have a problem -- but if you get married, have a couple kids, the hours may start to be too much.
b) Video game development houses, from what I can tell (and I don't work in the industry), tend to get a bit shafted from a financial point of view. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case -- they take on a good deal of the risk, they require a good amount of resources, but generally the publisher is the one to really profit from games. There are a few well-to-do game development houses (id is everyone's favorite example), but I suspect most of those seem to publish their own games.
c) I'm not sure that you can *spend* four years learning to write video games. Nobody knows where exactly the technology is going for certain. Currently, for a typical 3d game, you want a grounding in matrix math, some systems programming, an algorithms class or two (especially in graph theory for pathfinding), and experience with applications programming. Depending upon your role, you may want a class in networking (engineer/CS-style, not IT), you may want a class in languages (probably not -- in general, folks have found it to not be a very good idea to make up a new scripting language for each game), you may want a class in practical AI, and you may want something in signal processing (if you're doing *really* elaborate synthetic sound). There just isn't a whole hell of a lot of things that you need to write video games. A good chunk of, say, a CS degree is theory, and you just don't need anything too elaborate to write video games.
d) Writing video games != playing video games. It's easy to associate video games with fun and assume that writing production-quality video games is equally fun. Obviously, that depends to a good degree on the person. I tend to dislike writing video game code, since it's likely done with tough time constrants, and you don't have the freedom to write clean code. It's unlikely that the code will be maintained or anyone else will work with it in the future other than a few bugfixes, compared to, say, database software.
e) I suspect it's easier to get a general CS degree and move to video game programming than it is to get a video game programming degree and move to a position that uses more general CS knowledge.
f) If you're looking for a degree as a magic card to get a job in the video game industry, you may want to reconsider. For years, a lot of the folks in the videogame industry got in there be being really dedicated to video game development, independently producing a portfolio, etc. Right now, the big money is in the console market. As a n inexperienced junior programmer, it's fairly difficult to move directly to the console market -- it's easier to get a job working on PC-based games and then move to the onsole market. Unfortunately, the PC game market's smaller size can mean that it's tough to get into *that* at the moment.
g) If I'm hiring someone to build a space shuttle, I don't look for someone with a space-shuttle building degree. Aerospace engineering, sure. You aren't going to be penalized for being to general. My experience is that college is useful for making you learn the g
Re:Warning (Score:1)
Bottom line on this stuff
Re:Warning (Score:2)
Just wanted to add to the parent post. While cramming hard for theory courses don't forget to take "soft" courses in your English, Drama, Design, Art, and Psychology departments. It all depends on what these departments have to offer, but it doesn't hurt to understand a bit about humans work as well. It's good to get some grounding in different mechanisms of human communication, and to develop a good aesthetic sense, particularly if you want to have any involvement in the design side of th
Re:Warning (Score:1)
The primary reason for this is because the development houses don't fund their own development. They create a game idea and maybe a very basic mock-up to show off, and t
Re:Is this the degree the same as an MCSE? (Score:1)
Guildhall. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Attention Harbinger. . . (Score:1, Informative)
for those in canada (Score:2, Insightful)
I recently finished my studies at A.I.C.D.I.S. Artschool [artschool.com] in burnaby, bc, canada. They were recently bought by the arts institute, which in a way is a good thing. After graduating, you have access to the whole AI job board, and from what I've been told, they are decently good at finding job placements for people. I studied game programming there and learned a lot about programming and game design that I would not have learned elsewhere. They have some excellent instructors there (my programming instructor i
Re:for those in canada (Score:2)
Re:for those in canada (Score:1)
The industry doesn't want this. (Score:4, Insightful)
For an artist, skills with traditional media (paper drawing, clay modeling) are more important than knowing how to use a certain 3D package.
For a programmer, generic computer skills and adaptability are more important than being able to use specific hardware.
By the time the above have obtained their degree the industry will have completely changed and the skills they have will be obsolete. Not to mention the possible avoidance of advanced topics that would be covered in a standard art or computer science degree. For example: Will these kids be scared of assembler?
For management? Why.. a business degree would be more applicable.
Re:The industry doesn't want this. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The industry doesn't want this. (Score:3, Insightful)
People in a general CS program are scared of assembler.
Game programming is one of the few areas left where you're likely to drop down to assembly. If anything, I'd expect someone from a gaming schoo
Re:The industry doesn't want this. (Score:1)
The school I went to put me through two types of assembly, because it was a 'general' CS program, not in spite of that fact. The program had a very academic(as opposed to 'practical' slant). The requirement were structured for a combination of breadth, and understanding underlying concepts. Thus, assembly itself was a subject(typically x86), and there was a hardware course on microcontrollers.
Re:The industry doesn't want this. (Score:2, Interesting)
The university thought process (Score:2)
1. See media/politics/economics/etc. generating demand in a particular field, create course to absorb demand.
2. Profit.
3. Goto 1.
Note that this is analogous to the usual /. joke, but doesn't include the ??? step. Uni's don't leave anything to chance...
Q.
Sociology, folkdancing and now this. (Score:1)
I'm sure we all recognize the kind of student this will attract: Those unbathed, ill-groomed term-room troglodytes we knew in college, who gave out the terminal room phone number as their own and slowly, lumpishly flunked out.
Some of them stayed on anyway, parasitizing an institution that was no longer willing to tolerate their presence.
Now I guess we won't be flunking them out any more, we'll be giving
Actual benefits? (Score:2)
I realize that these game-centric courses are relatively new, but shouldn't we be hearing some success stories from them? Someone must have gotten a degree from Full Sail by now.
Re:Actual benefits? (Score:2)
No, not really. Which you're not going to hear from anyone employed by/who's been through one of these places, but it's the truth.
The modern games industry is structured around two basic concepts - a continual cycle of cheap and keen labour ("I write games" sounds a lot sexier than "I submit databases queries to a machine I've
Re:Actual benefits? (Score:3, Insightful)
A couple of years ago a colleague did some part-time teaching at a local video game school. He didn't do it again because it was ridiculous. The stuff they were teaching was outdated, and way too specific.
For instance, they spent many weeks learning about fixed-point math. Now, it has been a long time since most of us have relied on using fixed-point numbers instead of floats for speed. Sometimes they are still used for compression, but they are always converted to floating-
Re:Actual benefits? (Score:2)
For examples, check these links:
http://www.tsbgames.com/
http://
Hey, what about Georgia Tech? (Score:2, Informative)
Plus, the video game class has successfully sent at least one group to the IDGA conference every semester it's been taught, which is pretty impressive, seeing as it's one class amoung several and only has about 30
Re:Hey, what about Georgia Tech? (Score:1)
my advice (Score:1)
Not new at RIT (Score:1)
well rounded (Score:1)
If someone had noticed what a sad state my upbringing had left me in when I was off at college, I might not have wasted 15 years of my adult life hating myself and escaping into books and video games to try and manage my depression and loneliness.
The lost opportunity for a real childhoo
MSU & Spartasoft (Score:2)
Additionally, MSU has Spartasoft, [msu.edu] which had 2 finalists out of the 10 games selected for the GDC Student Showcase in 2003.
Other schools offer this as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Perspective (Score:1)
College used to be a place of higher education where people went to learn, to gain perspective, etc.
Games are becoming an important social force in our world, so they are being studied. The proliferation of courses and programs does not indicate that more people want to WORK in video games, it means
Re:Perspective (Score:1)
So what I've pretty much decided on doing for
Other side of the pond. (Score:1)
They do not offer any specialized educational programmes, but students from the regular programmes can do projects with them. Their angle is quite humanistic. They tend to look more at the sociological aspect of games.
damn, I thought I had one already (Score:2)