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What Are the Advantages/Disadvantages of Game Schools?
GameCareerGuide has up an article looking at the pros and cons of going to a 'game school'. There are a number of programs in schools across the country that now focus on game development, game design, and creating game art. Are they worth it? "First, and probably most importantly, game-specific schools do not typically offer a comprehensive undergraduate education. Some game programs, as well as art schools, will actually encourage young students to go elsewhere for their undergraduate education and return to game school for more advanced training. I've literally heard that out of the mouths of art school faculty: Go get your bachelor's degree at a traditional university, then come back and apply to art school after you've learned a little more about the world. And while it's true that not everyone is cut out for a traditional education in the humanities or sciences, many many people who initially fight it find it invaluable after the fact. "
Sure, there are PLENTY of kids who came to the school because they thought if they played game, they could make them and end up dropping out or unemployed. But I saw the same things when I was going for a C.S. degree at a "traditional" college, and anyone who's been to any type of college will tell you there are people who join that major who have the wrong expectations and should not be there.
Im not going to defend all "game schools", but I think it's unfair to put a blanket dismissal to all of them. If you find a good one (make sure they aren't just taking your money) and take it seriously, you can learn skills that will apply directly to getting a job. I have many friends with C.S. and other degrees from nice universities and state schools that have no real-world applicable knowledge.
In short, I have my degree from a "game school" and currently my major, "Visual & Game Programming", has a 100% hire rate among graduates - all employed at film (Pixar, ILM) or game companies (ArenaNet, Perpetual)
I have just finished a BA(Hons) in what is essentially game art development at a UK university. The games industry hires people based on portfolios, not qualifications, even programmers (I know very little about the programming side apart from a CS grad friend of mine who's going for gaming jobs) need demos quite often. Most game jobs apart from programming are art orientated, ie rigging, animating, modeling, texturing, environment /level design, audio. Artists are not hired because they have degrees, they are hired because they have great portfolios. My opinion is that game degrees really should be broken down into 3 categories: Game Design, Game Art, and Game Programming. Obviously some courses specialise more within these areas, ie graphics programming or animation but those are the 3 overall types you're likely to find listed.
The degree I was on was run by ex-games industry staff, all with years of experience and shipped titles, and plenty of firsthand knowledge of the way the game industry works and what game development is like. The problem is with game degrees is they simply are not going to be respected among non gaming employers (and among many gaming ones too) as a traditional academic degree in something like maths, business, CS etc. It'd be nice to think my games degree (I got a first)looked on paper as good as someone with a normal one, but im not kidding myself here.
As we know, not all degrees are created equal, and this is especially so with the current state of game degrees. Firstly, "game design" degrees are almost completely worthless(some many be more game art or game programming but use the "game design" tag mind you), most of them are run by academics with no industry experience or those with only a vauge sense of the realities of game development. The job "game designer" basically does not exist in a lot of companies, where the whole team either makes contributions to design or the leads of various departments take this job. Many companies have a lead designer, this is a postition you can apply for after maybe 4-5 years experience in some other part of development, probably more than 5 years though, or maybe an amazing career in QA. Either way, companies do not spend $5 million developing a game only to hand over the major design aspects of it to a graduate with a "game design" degree from a university whos lecturers haven't been near a game company.
Although I did a game degree myself, I expect it to count for nothing more than any other degree and probably a bit less in fact than if i'd have done a "proper" degree when looking for jobs at game companies. The adundance of shitty game degrees run by academics is still making a lot of developers suspicious of game degree grads despite the fact they're starting to hire quite a bit from the good courses out there.
Only do a game degree if you are 100% certain it's the only thing you're going to want to do and you have the willpower to make yourself employable in what is a very competetive industry. If you want to be a programmer, get a CS degree and try and specialise as much as possible in your modules/work in gaming orientated subjects ie pyhsics, gui, graphics etc. My uni has another game degree, a programming one, as I described earlier its run by academics with no games experience and is total shite - apparently they only learn C++ in the final year and its all java up till then (stop crying, now). Also, just because it's a good uni may not mean the course itself is any good. The quality of degrees varies massively within universities themselves, find out as much about the degree, what you'll learn, and who will be teaching you as you possibly can. Try and find graduates from the degree on forums / using some decent googling to see if any of them ended up actually working in the game industry.
Don't bother with game design degrees at all, no one hires game designers without experience, and most certainly no one hires game designers because they have "game design" degrees. If they did, it's be