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On The Muse Of The Videogame
Thanks to the IGDA for its 'Ivory Tower' article discussing whether the creative training for game developers is being taught alongside the technical specifics in university and other educational programs. The article argues: "Vocationally-focused university programs and trade schools have jumped on the opportunity to supply the next set of technically trained personnel for the game industry... but who will supply the next set of visionaries and artists?" The author goes on to suggest: "In large part, education for the game industry is a predictably useful business... what we need in the game industry are technically competent developers, artists, and designers who are fundamentally versed in the rich subtleties of human experience." Can this kind of game design vision be formally taught?
Can this kind of game design vision be formally taught?
I don't see why not. Schools teach all kinds of other creative outlets from painting to music to writing. As long as the student is ready to learn and willing to be criticized, he can learn an awful lot.
Why train people to be creative? If you need training for that, then you're probably not somebody who will ever be very creative anyways.
Besides, when you're taught how to be creative, you end up copying somebody else's style. Develop your ideas on your own, and if people don't like it then tough luck. But, I'd rather have people hate my ideas than like the ones that aren't truly mine.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Well the games industry is going to bring in people who have gone through game making degrees / college courses as programmers / level designers, Artists for the graphics, Sound Techinicians and Musicians for Sound Effects and Music. Degree's could not teach the full wealth in all the area's, nor would should it hope to.
Does NASA only employ astronauts?
To some extent good game design can be taught. Why do you think so many games are quite a bit like other games? Some things just work right, some don't. Teaching that much is simple.
;) )) to the most complex wargames and RPG's, if the game doesn't feel right it will not work. That isn't something you can teach. Hell, I could probably get 20 different answers from as many people as to what the 'feel' of a game is.
;) ). There isn't any room for the people that have no experience. Go look at some game-related job boards. Everyone is looking for someone with 5+ years of experience and at least two shipped titles... how many people like that are there in the industry, and how many of that subset can design games, and how many of THAT subset can design GOOD games? Until the industry at large settles down and looks outside of the known for answers, they're screwed.
But can you teach someone how to be creative? No, you can't. People that have absolutely no artistic aptitude will still suck after 4 years of art school. At some point you have to have some innate ability.
What makes a good game is a designer that knows from the beginning what the game is supposed to feel like. From the simplest puzzle games (Tetris, Puzzle Bobble (Frozen Bubble
One of the biggest problems is that the industry is getting so large so fast that companies don't have room for risk. They only want to hire people they know can do the right things (which is why John Romero has to hire himself to get a job
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Is that there are so many game developers nowadays that are super succesful despite completely lacking any brains whatsoever when it comes to good design and human experience that it wont matter. The market, especially the PC, PS2, XboX and GBA markets, are flooded with crap games nowadays. Many of these games turn a profit despite being total trash. Until the game players force game makers to step up the quality nobody will need this training to get in the industry. And while the hardcore of us know which are good and which are bad, even some are guilty of buying crap games, like progress quest MMOs/RPGs and movie license games. When gamers stop buying into such unoriginal crapass games developers will go out and start trying to make quality.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
....Creative Writing? A good writer can create a storyline that is fluid and can conform to the concept of a video game, and most games nowadays involve a story of some sort.
That said, I don't see why it couldn't be taught. Hire a few former or current game developers who are well-known for their creative talents, write up a textbook that lays out the problems with creative game design, elements that make such designs hard, etc. Slap a high-level course name like Game Design 490 on it, and you're done.
However, there's an obvious difference between Game Design and Graphic Art Design, so there would probably need to be more than one course.
I think it would be important to list the limitations and risks of such designs, though; making an innovative game often involves a lot more effort because you may have to code an entire engine yourself, or make any number of unique decisions about a game, rather than say, making a mod, which could cost you if you're a small-time developer. Still, I'm surprised this isn't a course somewhere.
If you teach creativity then who will produce tomorrows Madden 2012 or Megan Man X+9^5 OR Part 6 of some shitty Platform game? Please think of the children and keep making cookie cutter games. Creativity only breeds contempt and dillusions of self worth.
-Dipster
The best video games come from people who love what they do AND go after all the technical knowledge required to do the job. Love of the game can't be taught. This is true of every profession, not just making video games.
Finally, to be truly excellent a person needs to have a natural apptitude for the work. Enjoying it is first, going after the technical skills is second, and finally a person must have a natural skill.
"Imagineering."
Others have tried to capitalize in other ways upon the creative process by quantifying and boiling it down to as simple a process as possible. (With varying success.)
I'd say that the process of creativity can't exactly be taught, but it can be inspired by teaching people to think in different ways. The teaching shows them the door. Creativity doesn't happen until they go through and start to explore.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
The humanity subjects (i.e. English, the arts) are important if you want to make an innovative game. The important thing to remember is that their are no new ideas, virtually everything has been done before by storytellers/authors in the past; humans have been around for thousands of years, and there are only so many ideas. The way to make an "innovative" game concept is merely to recycle the best ideas from the past. You are not likely to read much literature in a programming class; therefore, a company could be composed entirely of brilliant programmers and still make awful games. You need to have people trained in the humanities in order to make a successful game
Still Rampant, Wowbagger
Publishers won't take risks on games that are creative, innovative or even interesting. None of them will take the gamble anymore. They are all run by scared little men who are now standing precariously on licenses and sequels.
... things are getting ready to crash.
The game industry is fast becoming like the toy industry. Feeding off the entertainment industry, rather than becoming one.
License, sequels, no innovation
as someone who went through a 3 year course in game development (programming) and took a multitude of game design courses along the way. The most important lesson we were ever shown was: ----> ----> It's strange how many people (and game companies) don't know this simple concept... so there's my free advice for the day ;)
Wouldnt you like to be a pepper too?
The thing about programming is that it is getting to the point that most any motivated person can do it. The problem is that they can create a lousy experience. Often times the programmers don't even understand what a user is attempting to accomplish but are able to fill business requirements fine, it still makes for a crappy program though.
In a computer game, it is all about the user experience, not just the story but how the user interacts with the program too. If it is too hard, or too clunky people will not even consider it. People who can create a good user experience, in the interface and the presentation should be worth their weight in gold.
There are good reasons people hate browsing some business sites, not to mention boring and uninformative. This is something that a smart business should always invest in, but will be relucant to even acknowledge its importance not understanding the subject.
I'm in the Immersive Mediated Environments program at IU. They teach you how to make a pretty 3D model, but they also teach you about user interfaces, script writing, etc, etc. It's a cross listed Master's degree that varies from student to student, but generally includes telecommunication, computer science, fine arts, theater, music, and even business courses. Of course there's really only so much a person can learn about creativity. Generally, it's a you have it or you don't kind of thing. People who don't have much creativity can learn to make something that looks/works nice, but people with natural creativity are the ones who make the new and exciting things in the world.
The best starting point would be formal training in "Video Games Appreciation".
Similar to art appreciation, it would not only teach how to break down a game into its components, style, and cultural context, but it would also make students intimately familiar with classic examples of both good and bad games.
"Why was game X so well-loved? Why did game Y tank so badly? Which game designers consistently turned out the best games, and what were each of their approaches that worked so successfully for them? What were the major recognizable styles of games, and when did each style gain prominence, and what was unique or interesting about each style?"
So many game designers today keep making the same stupid mistakes that have been made ad nauseum for decades now. If they had competent backgrounds in video game appreciation, I think we would see the quality of games rise across the board in the industry.
Or, to put it super-simply: learn from the mistakes of generations past, and stop repeating them.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Yes, actually your information is definitely out of date and inaccurate. UC Irvine has actually launched, in some capacity, the program you were talking about in collaboration with UC San Diego. Information can be found here.
It may seem blindingly obvious, but the best way to go about getting new ideas is to come into contact with those of other people(regardless of their field) and then link them up to make something original.
Given that many people today haven't ever touched old games, not even the most classic, the most basic and revolutionary of them, I think a good start to a designer's curriculum would be based primarily on seminar classes where the students investigate older works within, say, a given platform or time frame, and then discuss and write on them. As the field progresses, a more standardized pattern of study would emerge as we better recognize the most important aspects - the alternative being years of toiling away at emulators and playing everything in the library of each and every 8-bit platform from A to Z as I have done - or tried to do; the 16-bit era I have only slightly trodden into, and while I've tried to keep up with modern stuff, it's hard to do in any depth since games tend to get much bulkier as time goes on - but for the time being what's necessary is a program that turns out designers who have a clear view of what's been tried before, and how it has/hasn't worked. Even if they don't come up with anything new, they should become competent at identifying some successful forms of gameplay and avoiding classic pitfalls. That's the whole point of their training, after all; to learn game design at a level that average people wouldn't reach on their own.
Can this kind of game design vision be formally taught?
Yes, fool! Whaddaya think a Liberal Arts degree is for? We be all up in the subtle human experience biz.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must really be getting back to my unemployment.