Majoring in Video Game Design

valdean writes "The New York Times has an article on how video game design is slowly but surely finding its way into mainstream academia. Whereas fewer than a dozen North American universities offered majors in game design five years ago, now that number is more than 100. From the article: 'Traditionalists in both education and the video game industry pooh-pooh the trend, calling it a bald bid by colleges to cash in on a fad. But others believe that video games - which already rival movie tickets in sales - are poised to become one of the dominant media of the new century.' Are video game design majors just slackers, or are they pursuing a lucrative and legitimate career?"

Comments

Better than Film-making

[HugePedlar]

Like any industry, particularly entertainment, there's excellence and there's shit.

Some video games contain the most innovative and brilliant code - think AI and shader routines. Not to mention some of the fantastic artwork, both 2D textures and 3D sculptures.

If people can study film-making at uni, why not game-creation? I'd argue some of the techniques needed for the latter are far more academic.