Universities Step Up Videogame Studies

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."

Comments

Dude, first post. . .

[ChewBakaSan]

That is if my other one didn't go through. Anyway, if this is true, I would love to go to one of these colleges.

Is this the degree the same as an MCSE?

[Muda69]

Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert.

Re:Is this the degree the same as an MCSE?

[dang-a-pin]

Um, who's having a bad day Mr. Grumpy Pants?!??! Only -1 for the MCSE joke? C'mon, that's funny stuff!

Re:Is this the degree the same as an MCSE?

[Anonymous Coward]

No attempt at a sense of humor goes unpunished on /.

Guildhall.

[Harbinger(JDW)]

Sorely lacking from the schools mentioned in this article is the Guildhall at SMU. Not only is it backed by a major university, but it is also not in a particular faculty which means that the teachers can teach the specialized curriculum and not have to go to classes that are simply CS or Art classes poorly adapted to creating games. Add to that the fact that the numerous game companies in the Dallas area are very supportive and often have people drop by to give lectures, and you have one great potential for a school. It isn't all hype either, the people in the game industry really are participating and giving lectures to the students. I should know, since I am among the first group of students currently in the program.

Re:Guildhall.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick addition, the Guildhall is a "graduate" level program that lasts 18 months, not a four year program. Most of the people in the school already have degrees.

Attention Harbinger. . .

[ChewBakaSan]

If you could possibly e-mail me some info on those classes and how I could attend them, . . . yeah, that would be nice. Thanks.

Re:Attention Harbinger. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you can get a bunch of info Here

for those in canada

[schapman]

I recently finished my studies at A.I.C.D.I.S. Artschool 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 is probably the best teacher i've ever had), and the course is very much driven to applicable studies. I've found the universities offer a lot of theory, and while this is good, we spent most of our time making use of those theories. I worked on one game there that was our schools feature at the 2003 game developers conference (a fantasy sword fighting total conversion of UT2003). They also stress the importance of working with teams and from the start, you work with groups on projects. As with any school, there are some flaws (mainly the high cost as it is a for-profit, private, and thereforce non-subsidized school) but on the whole, it was a positive experience. I work as programmer now (not in games though, as game companies seem to prefer people with experience) and am working on a demo to start my career in games on the side as I develop my programming experience. There are some big bonus' in going to a private school though.. unlike large universities, they can change the curriculum at any time, and with the constant and frequent changes in the game industry this is a must. I started my 3 year program there when directX 8 was in the mainstream, but by the 3rd year, dx9 had been released, so our instructor took much of his personal time out to learn the differences to be able to instruct us in its use. They also stress the importance of good game design, which many games seem to be lacking these days. I still remember the biggest point of this when a fellow student posted a piece of paper on the wall that said:

hero

|

\/

gameplay

|

\/

monsters and treasure

Re:for those in canada

[Kethinov]

Paragraphing is a virtue ;)

Re:for those in canada

[schapman]

haha... just wanted to make it prettier.. sorry to all the text onlies out there :P

The industry doesn't want this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see any possible way that those in the industry still sane would want to encourage these types of degrees. The industry is already so saturated that it's easy to imagine lots of disapointment and people not using their degrees. Is this the new film school stereotype?

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.

[schapman]

Will these kids be scared of assembler? AHH assembler :P actually, in my program, we learned assembler as the first step to writing shaders. After we spent some time on it though, we switched to HLSL. According to the instructors, the only time anyone in the game industry uses assembly now is after the game is mostly written, and certain parts need to be optimized. also, according to them, the only people who write assembler now, are the poeple who have been doing it for a long time. we are getting to the point where assembler is becoming obselete in games. with things like HLSL, and other higher level shader languages coming out, there wont be much of a need for it soon. Even when I see all the posts on the directx mailing list, i always see render code done in c/c++. The only time the assembler is broken out is for shaders, and even that right now seems to be people finding bugs to fix in the compiler.

Re:The industry doesn't want this.

[edwdig]

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?

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 school to be less afraid of assembly than someone from a standard CS program.

Re:The industry doesn't want this.

[Anonymous Coward]

as an artist and student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and a member of the first class here to take the newly introduced Game Art & Design major, i'd like to say that they do indeed put a major influence on traditional media, and we do everything from paper drawing and clay modeling as well as learn multiple 3D packages throughout our major.

Re:The industry doesn't want this.

[CaptMonkeyDLuffy]

Well, there are exceptions to the 'scared of assembler' rule. It does vary by the individual program though.

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. Wire up and program a simple z80 system...

That said, my school was(from what I heard of other programs) the exception to the rule...

Warning

[0x0d0a]

Anyway, if this is true, I would love to go to one of these colleges.

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

[TwistedSquare]

Some very good points. I had considered going into games with my CS degree but backed off when I realised much of the above points, particularly the long hours (things like working 30 days solid including weekends before deadlines), poor pay (less than the job I now have) because of a large supply of applicants, and in some cases poor management (particularly small start-up studios that are so focused on profit they only view in the short-term, and it will kill them eventually).

Bottom line on this stuff - you can get into games with a straight CS degree but often the opposite is not true, why restrict yourself!

Re:Warning

[sahala]

Great points.

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 things, or help you work with game designers who may seem a little insane.

At the very least taking these other courses is a good way to meet women (which arguably may draw you away from the game industry, but that's a different manner) that you might not otherwise meet in hardcore theory and engineering courses.

One interesting degree (Masters level) is in Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology department. Check out their Curriculum. It doesn't teach specific technologies that apply to the video game industry, and in fact the focus is much broader, but it's not a bad foundation for starting a career in the videogame/tech-entertainment industry. They've got a good track record for placing graduates in top-notch organizations.

Re:Warning

[PainKilleR-CE]

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.

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 then shop for a publisher. The publisher puts up the development money and does everything else you would normally expect a publisher to do (handle marketing, does their own testing, and distribution). Patches, also, are generally publisher-funded. This isn't to say that development houses don't take on risk, simply that they are rarely self-funded.

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.

Actually, the only well-known development houses that publish their own games are the ones that are primarily publishers, such as EA, Sierra, and so on. id's games are published by Activision (and id made their name for themselves when they developed their last couple of shareware games under Apogee http://rinkworks.com/apogee/s/2.7.1.shtml ). id also self-poblished for a short time, and even published games for a handful of other developers (usually licensees of id's engines), but Quake2 and 3 have been published by Activision, under what are assumed to be terms favourable to id Software (otherwise, why would they bother, since Doom, at it's time, was one of the most successful PC games ever released). Valve is developing Steam as a method for self-publishing, but otherwise they publish through Sierra. On the other hand, Valve is self-owned and self-funded, meaning that Sierra didn't put any money into Half-Life other than marketing and publishing, so Valve most likely saw a better return than many development houses (and again, this is because Valve put up the money for development themselves, which most developers don't do).

Sociology, folkdancing and now this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It boggles the mind. They're not even pretending to educate any more. It's right out in the open.

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 them A's in "Self-Justification of Incompetence", "Advanced Parasitism", and "Stinking Like a Corpse". I can see it now -- UC Irvine will attract every drug-addled adolescent imbecile in the United States to this "program". Academic standards, already lowerd beyond all human tolerance, will sink beyond all nadirs previously imagined.

They're trying to produce a generation of young Americans so dismally uneducated that they'll fall for any idiotic junk-science and pseudo-philosophy that comes down the pike. A nation of perfect suckers to do as their told, a nation of drones incapable of thinking critically. The "recycling" industry will take off like a rocket (I'll be investing tomorrow, believe me) because these sad excuses for "college graduates" will be incapable of finding out where the "recycling" trucks actually go with the trash that the suckers have carefully sorted through (like bag ladies in their own homes, or slaves assigned as punishment to the garbage heap). Where do those trucks go, you ask? The dump, same as the other trucks. It's just obedience-training. The liberals always do what they're told, because they haven't the imagination or strength of will to create their own freedom.

I'm sorry if I'm ranting here, but I'm watching my nation get flushed down the toilet at the taxpayer's expense, and it's a bit hard to take.

Actual benefits?

[Thedalek]

I hear a lot about people going to universities with video game degrees. I don't hear much about how the video game industry in general views these degrees. Do they respect them? Does Nintendo or EA say, "Oh, I see you have a degree in game design, and another in game theory. You're just the person we're looking for!"

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?

[Textbook Error]

I hear a lot about people going to universities with video game degrees. I don't hear much about how the video game industry in general views these degrees. Do they respect them?

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 never seen down in the basement", so there's always demand) coming in, and making money on 1-2 hits from big names (Will Wright, Warren Spector, Peter Molyneux, etc) to pay for the other 8-9 titles that flop.

From a publisher's point of view, if you've signed up your sure-fire/franchise hits for the year then you can afford to take a gamble on your 8-9 other titles - and you really don't care where the people developing them went to school, you want to know their track record. If they've actually shipped something in the past they have a good chance of doing it again, and so even if the game isn't a blockbuster you will at least get it delivered. This means, even if the game sucks, you will probably sell enough to break even - and may even get lucky and have a surprise hit.

From a developer, the same applies. First and foremost you're looking for people who've actually shipped things in the past. Failing which you're looking for cheap new hires (from anywhere), who're a)keen and b)smart (the second one being optional, depending on how good the company is). These places are attempting to set themselves up as almost trade schools, but they're missing the point - although the application of computing science is what both they and the real world "do", the real world only cares about the real world.

If you haven't actually got that "I shipped this title" on your CV yet, what you do have on your CV is less interesting to an employer than how you've conducted yourself. If you've continued your education then that's encouraging, but if you want to distinguish yourself then either a)do something like a challenging degree (CS, maths, philosophy, medicine, law, theology - the subject isn't particularly significant) or b)skip academia and achieve something independently.

A lot of what he writes is tripe, but you should assume that your prospective employer is looking for people who are Smart and Gets Things Done. Neither of those are contingent on having a degree in Pokemon.

Re:Actual benefits?

[EduardoTheBastard]

No, we don't respect them.

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-point before anything is done with them.

Plus, anyone with even a reasonable mathematical background can learn everything there is to know about fixed-point numbers in an hour. If the students needed several weeks, they probably aren't the sharpest crayons in the box.

When I hire a programmer, they need to be flexible and smart. Just out of university, I want to see someone who can communicate well and has a solid grounding in computer science. They will learn the rest.

(Of course, if they are just out of school then they'll be really cheap because they don't really know anything yet. Ha! But it doesn't take long for the stars to shine through and get promoted.)

Re:Actual benefits?

[spongebob]

There are actual benefits to these kinds of degrees. In particular the students who attend Full Sail get a strong foundation in software engineering as well as some of the most important aspects of game development that nobody will ever tell you like...not to expect everyone to bow down to the great designer that you are right out of school. The students that come out are humble and hardworking and quick a number of them take jobs right away.

For examples, check these links:

http://www.tsbgames.com/

http://www.glaximus.com/

http://siggi.vefurinn.is/

Hey, what about Georgia Tech?

[brandonY]

We may not offer it as a major, but we do certainly offer a very successful class in video game design, alongside other classes that go along with it, such as digital video special effects (who make some very impressive movies), computer graphics, and more AI classes than you can shake a stick at.

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 students, unlike Digipen where the whole school is trying solely to make games.

So, um, yeah...go Jackets! To hell with Georgia! Woooo!

Re:Hey, what about Georgia Tech?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a studen at Digipen I'd like to point out that at the IDGA conference last year our school one top honors for 4 out of the top 10 games.

Re:Hey, what about Georgia Tech?

[brandonY]

As a student of Georgia Tech, I'd like to point out that the word you were looking for is spelled "won."

The university thought process

[quinkin]

The university thought process:

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.

my advice

[theMerovingian]

1) Go to a 4-year state school, and get a degree in something that ends with "Engineer". Become an Oracle DBA, learn some java, sql, vb, and asp. Get some experience applying these tools in an industry with high cash flow (banks, energy companies, pharma, etc.) 2) Profit!!! 3) Screw around with video games on your 42" flat-panel TV while sitting on your new red leather couch. Bourgeois isn't bad!

Not new at RIT

[BeatdownGeek]

The Software Engineering department at RIT has an application domain (like a concentration w/in your degree) for Computer Game programming. I believe this concentrates much more on the programmming aspect of game programming, though... I don't think they get very much into the artisitic realm of this.

well rounded

[Lepruhkawn]

I'd like some sort of psychology class to be a part of a video game curriculum. The idea being that the students that are drawn to video games because they had very deprived childhoods get a chance to become aware of that.

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 childhood was bad enough. I don't need to waste the rest of my life.

Of course, I know that an interest in video games does not imply anything specific about one's mental health.

Okay, Okay. I'm a whining, snivelling worm boy and I have no one to blame but myself.

Excuse me while I go reread Snow Crash and then spend all night playing Battlefield 1942.

MSU & Spartasoft

[XxtraLarGe]

Michigan State University has a few classes in the Computer Science and Telecommunications departments which have game programming as a part of the class. In fact, there's one TC class which is dedicated entirely to game design. They are going to be having a graduate school curriculum similar to Guildhall in the near future.

Additionally, MSU has Spartasoft, which had 2 finalists out of the 10 games selected for the GDC Student Showcase in 2003.

Other schools offer this as well

[Anonymous Coward]

The University of Hull (in England) offers a Master's Program as well as an undergrad program: Computer Science with Games Development. The University of Abertay Dundee also offers a Computer Games Programming course both as a Master's and as Bachelor's

Perspective

[yawgnol]

Most of these comments seem to be about people wondering whether or not a degree in Game Whatever will get them a job. Since when has college become a place that is supposed to provide you with job training?

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 that more people are INTERESTED in them. They are evolving and demand attention.

I know a lot of Philosophy majors that never got good Philosophy Jobs or got to work in big Philosophy Companies. That doesn't mean it wasn't important to them...

Re:Perspective

[ReyTFox]

This is very true. I'm a freshman undergrad wanting to get in the game industry, specifically in design; the main problem I face in my own preferred subject of learning is that game design is not included in any art curriculum, and it is not explictly interconnected with programming, either. Both art and programming are processes to implement a design, but they aren't themselves the design, just as a movie script isn't the product of acting or directing talent.

So what I've pretty much decided on doing for college is to go half-and-half between something I can really like outside of video games(perhaps history), and a useful technical skill that might help within the industry(computer science).

Other side of the pond.

[Bish.dk]

In Europe you'll find a Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen.

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

[Savatte]

I practically majored in Quake in college, with concentrations in rocket jumping and speed running.

So.....

[Anonymous Coward]

What did you get YOUR degree in? You don't seem all that smart to me.

Are you saying we need buttoned-down, useless, preppy fucks in place of the smelly people? I mean, I hate smelly people, but at least they KNOW that they are nothing more than cogs in the big machine.

The only thing worse than dumb people are dumb people who think they are smart. Maybe we are talking about the same thing after all.