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?

Comments

subject

[capoccia]

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.

Re:subject

[nkodengar]

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.

They can teach peeople how to use their creativity effectively, however nothing can be done if the creativity isn't there allready.

Strange...

[fozzmeister]

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?

Maybe

[black mariah]

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.

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 ;) )) 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.

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 ;) ). 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.

Re:Maybe

[cgenman]

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.

My previous college, the University of California, Irvine, was considering offering a degree in Video Game Design* in the school of the humanities, next to the department which handled Film Studies. This degree, which had wide support on campus, would mark one the first long-term collaboration between the arts, humanities, and programming departments, and received the necessary approval, was personally terminated by the chancellor due to the "inappropriateness" of the material.

Apparently Video Games are an inappropriate field of study for a system which gives out degrees in "Film Studies" "Television Studies" and "The 70's." Currently the only non-technical college in California offering a degree in Video Games is USC, a college in the heart of Los Angeles known for catering to the job market. It is also one of a very few in the nation.

How are we to educate upcoming designers about what works and doesn't work if we can't even have basic investigation into the problem through remedial college courses? Why is this major part of the human condition not worthy of study? Until such a time as we have departments of video games in the school of humanities, we won't be preparing people properly for lives as game designers and we won't be preparing people to be intelligent consumers of games. I may not have become a movie critic, but film studies was a valuable course to take to become an educated member of this society. Every time I have to explain a reference to a "magic mushroom," "respan point," "100 coins," or other things that are accepted videogame shorthand, I wonder how people can successfully avoid this very large part of their society. When I have to explain to people what Pac Man was and why it is relevant to our consumerist society, I really want to reach out and slap that Chancellor.

We're never going to be able to educate people until we have a little basic pure research to work from. We're never going to get our pure research until the stigma of gaming is erased.

BTW, while most gaming companies say on job boards that they're looking for 5+ years of experience and 2 shipped titles, most positions are filled either from inside or from word-of-mouth from known developers and their friends with much, much less experience. But even if you don't meet the requirements, if you have something to show that is "really cool," you will get the job. If anything the gaming industry is suffering from too little experience related to too fast of an expansion, not too much. The inexperienced designers I've worked with have tended to roll over when bad ideas were suggested by their colleagues or good ideas were shot down. The experienced developers tended to stand their ground more, and more wisely.

*I had already graduated when this went down, so my information is primarily second hand and the little bits that were reported in the larger news media. If anyone knows something more up-to-date, please let us know.

The way I see it

[Apreche]

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.

Re:The way I see it

[nkodengar]

Ironically many of the most creative and innovative games hardly sell at all. We only need to look at companies like Looking Glass Studios who folded due to poor sales... It's the larger corporations like EA who produce the majority of the trash we see on the shelves of game retailers.

Some would call it...

[b0r0din]

....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.

Re:Some would call it...

[*weasel]

Unfortunately game design isn't as well understood as narrative design.

Narratives have been studied for centuries, resulting in our understanding of pacing, foreshadowing, dramatic irony, and such.

Interactives on the other hand are still very new. How much interaction is too much? too little? When should we simulate, and when should we emulate? How do you pace an interactive? What makes a puzzle frustrating, and what makes it fun? How does camera angle selection affect the player? How does unlimited save/reload affect tension and flow? What is the impact of having gameplay elements hinge upon /random/ events?

Furthermore, for narratives, there is a wealth of traditional study of classic pieces. By studying those works and the critiques of them - writers can be made aware of the less immediate reactions to their creations: the abstracted interpretations, allegories, metaphors and conventions.

For interactives, there are classic works to study(though not as many) - but there has been no formal analysis of them. No one has looked into /why/ pacman was so popular when crystal castles was not. There has been no formal study of games beyond their technical specifications.

Compare video game reviews to book reviews, or even film reviews. Film critics don't spend time discussing the technical proficiency of the editing or color balancing in movies (except in extreme cases). They discuss what the color balancing adds. They talk about whether the editing fits the flow of the film, or detracts from it - whether the framing lends the appropriate feelings.

While designers can learn a bit from classical studies, and while even one good course would be better than none - there is certainly enough material to at least justify a specialized degree.

Re:Some would call it...

[cableshaft]

No one has looked into /why/ pacman was so popular...

No one? Try reading Scott Miller's The Genius of Pac Man

There has been no formal study of games beyond their technical specifications.

No formal study, perhaps, but there have been several important game designers who have a lot to say on games beyond the technical specs (in fact, just about every book on Game Design -- about 8 have been published in the last two years alone -- only give lip service to technical specifications). Chris Crawford, in particular, has pretty much made a career giving lectures throughout the world on this very subject. You can read some of it here, or read his books.

His game design book actually went into the psychology of creativity, and he even had a chapter that listed the books he suggested to open your mind and give you enough of a creative background to draw from (including history books, myths, a book on "how things work", etc.)

There's a lot of discussion out here on the internet involving the non-technical aspects of game design, and if you know the right places to look, even amongst established game developers. They might not qualify as formal studies, but I'd give more weight on their analyses than "formal studies" anyway. Besides, if you want formal studies on what works in video games, start researching psychology, particularly behaviorism. There's a wealth of information in that field alone which would help game design tremendously.

Best Games

[Mr_Blank]

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.

Disney has a word for it.

[Crash Culligan]

"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.

Video Games Appreciation

[c0d3h4x0r]

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.