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Game-Related Education On the Rise At Colleges
The LA Times has a story about the increased interest in learning how to make video games amongst college students, and the subsequent rise in game-related education as the schools respond to that demand. Some programs are gaining legitimacy, while others do perhaps more harm than good. Quoting:
"The surge in interest has led schools to add games to their menu — but not always to the benefit of its students. Recruiters say they often see 'mills' that run around-the-clock sessions to quickly churn out as many students as possible. Other programs teach specific skills but not how games are pulled together. 'It's a very hot academic growth area,' said Colleen McCreary, who runs EA's university relations program. 'I'm very worried about the number of community colleges and for-profit institutions, as well as four-year programs, that are using game design as a lure for students who are not going to be prepared for the real entry-level positions that the game industry wants.'"
The economy is in total meltdown, and the best our academic institutions have to offer is more video games. When are they going to follow the leads of Harvard and Yale and give us the fine leaders like George W Bush, John Kerry, Ben Bernanke, Barrack Obama, and the head of Lehman Brothers. Running the country into the ground, now that's a REAL degree!
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Just look at the rise of "computer" classes in high schools that don't teach you more than Word and Excel. And even the highest level computer classes only might barely touch on HTML. This is no different.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Most of the computer science dropouts I know started the degree because they like playing computer games. Later they realize that it's much more than playing games and they cannot program themselves out of a logical wet paper bag. At least this gives them an opportunity to get a degree
Speaking of game related education, a 2008 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a particular memory task, called Dual N-Back, may actually improve working memory (short term memory) and fluid intelligence (gF). This is an important finding because fluid intelligence was previously thought to be unchangeable. The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time.
Read the original experimental study here.
There's a free open source version of the Dual N-Back task called Brain Workshop. Start practicing!
Stay far away from the Video Game industry if you value your 'personal' time. Of the few people I know working for BioWare and Ubisoft... that job will become your life.
I think it all boils down to what one boss said to one of the guys I know: "I've got 35 resumes sitting on my desk of people just as qualified as you who are willing to do your job. So no you can't have time off."
... if there is one thing I have noticed is that because of the internet, and the industry as aw hole. Most schools and universities simply cannot keep up, and many schools are outright bad, even the "major leagues". I think it's time to consolidate the best talent for subjects that can be taught online and have community edited courses + wiki's, etc. It would go along way to being able to improve courses in real time.
There's been tonnes of times I've wanted to leave comments on some professors problems, or notes under paragraph of a textbook/books he's ascribed to read, and change the wording to make it more clear. I think the whole "top down" approach to education is obsolete since there is just too much stuff that current teachers and professors are clueless about that has been learned about how we learn from cognitive science.
In fact if the internet teaches you anything, it teaches you how horrible teachers and professors and their classes really are. Many classes are so over-crowded and are taught by mere TA's (teaching assistents, etc), it's a wonder anything gets learned in modern university mills.
IMHO, if the game industry wants skills it should be funding it's own school and should be staffed with people FROM the industry, i.e. software and gaming, etc. It shouldn't be staffed by academics who have NEVER worked in the industry. This is one of my biggest pet peeves about universities, is that the people that frequently teach are out of touch or have never really done any serious work in the industry. A select few teachers can get by with that, but most can't. Most are busy doing other stuff.
Next is the fact that how we learn is just starting to be uncovered, there has been a lot of development in the cognitive sciences over the last 30 years that will have an enormous effect on pedagogy and teaching, right now much teaching is really in the dark ages, since it's not based on any science, it's based on "throw it against the wall, drill, practice, and hope it sticks" method.
A good game-related course may cover things like:
* C & C++ .. and more.
* DirectX & OpenGL, Pixel shader programming
* Physics, Matrix transformations, quaternions
* Collision detection for various types of primitives and response
* Audio programming
* Game level design, storyboarding
* 3D object design and animation
* Performance optimization techniques including spatial partitioning, level of detail objects, fast motion blur, fast shadow mapping, and more
* World auto-generation, map editors and scripting
* Using game engine SDKs
* Writing for portability
* Developing for constrained systems (consoles) incl. fixed point maths
"Game-related" courses can be very involved and just as valid as any other CS degree teaching many of the same concepts and APIs. It's a shame that some people hear the word "game" and become dismissive.
I've had to fire three programmers already. None were looking for real work they wanted to be paid to play. They talked well and seemed to have the skills but all had poor attitudes and didn't display even rudimentary professional behavior. I wasted a lot of time and money trying to give each a chance to perform but in the end I fired all of them. Our company has had to rethink doing any game related work due to the generally poor quality of applicants. It's very hard to find decent programmers no matter what we are willing to pay. I'm probably going to have to resort to headhunters and if that fails we'll have to drop the idea entirely. We have backing to produce games but unless I can find competent programmers we simply can't take on the projects.
They're the equivalent rock n roll geek dream (though slightly less glamorous in reality). Most of us own a guitar, most of us have programmed "a game".
I record my sleeptalking
Art's and technology is what they call it at my school. I love it because I'm a CS Major and every time I hear someone say they are a ATEC Major I laugh a little. It seems like a psuedo-CS Degree. I'm sure that 1 in 100 are really good programmers who will be dedicated to the field, but other then that, it seems like Bull
News at 11.
GameRanger - multiplayer gaming service for PC and Mac games
It is the game of life and this has been done since the beginning of computers and I took a course once in BAL, RPG, COBOL, and JCL. They were teaching punch cards too. I think it is just a way for an institution to make money and even the university I attend is offering courses that will never be an advantage to the student and the price of education is a disadvantage for those who are mislead to believe that what they are learning will pay off well enough to get them out from under $100,000 of student loans. I know several students at the university I attend that graduate and then realize that the degree they have will never pay for the education cost they incurred. A person who was interested in game development has many free and open source packages that will teach you the basics of game development and leave you without a hole in your pocket.
The first thing I thought of in regards to the EA quote was those ITT Tech and other TV commercials who advertise making games after 2 years. That's bullshit, in my humble opinion. I've been programming as a hobby for a while and am in the middle of a 4 year university CS program and, at the moment, would have absolutely nothing worthwhile to add to a game programming team. Or modeling team. Or anything. I could be a beta tester, that's about it. And I have a feeling those aren't in demand. Now granted, I probably have less experience than a person leaving a 2 year game design program because that's so targeted and CS is so general. But I at least have a feeling for how much you can learn in a year.
Point is, games these days are incredibly complex. We're talking multi million dollar budgets, with blockbuster titles reaching the hundred millions. 100+ person programming teams. Kids coming out of a quickie game design degree are going to be poorly prepared, if at all, for this complexity. And it's not fair, because designing games is a process that strengthens programming and general logic abilities.
At least, that's my very opinionated two cents.
My first real programming was done for gaming purposes. I wrote a zork-like thing in Apple Pascal on an Apple IIe in high school (yes I know, get off my lawn). And tried to write Cosmic Encounter for the C64. Running out of room is what moved me to buy an Amiga and my first real C compiler, Aztec C. And my first hard drive once I got sick of programming off of floppies. Which I hardware hacked onto the 86 pin expansion port to make it a full 100 pin ZorroII port.
Anything that gets your butt in the chair and writing code is good. I had no idea what I was getting into when I stared down this path, but it was gaming that was the beginning. And now it's put a roof over my head.
YMMV of course, but for me it's hardly been a waste of time.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This is a great trend, but I've been predicting it for years. This growth in specialized software and hardware is making entertainment better and better. Eventually, computer gaming will extend into the physical world, and the user will be able to actively participate. In these "holosuites," you'll be able to virtually live out any fantasy, whether it be a battle, sex, mountain climbing, exploring strange new worlds, historical adventure, you name it.
Someday, the more advanced ones will be room-sized and appear in businesses. Then my long-predicted plan will come into fruition. I'll open a bar-casino with these "holosuites,"and rent them out by the hour, specializing in the more salacious variety of "holoprogram." I'm not sure of a name for my bar-casino yet, but I am thinking something modern and cutting edge, maybe named after a sub-atomic particle.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
but this dream at least has fall-back potential. Upon first reading the headline, I thought, "Yeah, game programming is like trying to become a professional sports player. Glamorous and lucrative, yes, but highly unlikely given the # of spots and interested individuals."
But this is different. In programming, if you can't work on games, you can work on websites or accounting systems, or make pie charts. Not necessarily sexy but they'll pay the bills. A lot more than being a high school coach. The common thread whatever your endeavour is hard work. So sit down and code. If you're lucky, Blizzard'll come calling.
Ithaca College's Park School of Communications is now offering a video game design major. Now personally I immediately thought, "Oh boy, a com school is offering a class for video games completely separate of the CS program. I'm worried that what they're doing is just scratching the surface of video game development by giving a broad look at video game design.
I think what colleges need to do is point kids in a specialized path. Unlike Ithaca's program I think that it would be better to point oneself in a path specifically in programming, graphic design, or even writing. That way instead of doing a ton of things marginally well you can do the programming, graphics, story writing, etc.
Then again I'm just a lowly undergrad student. They could care less about my input. Just as long as they get my 42,000$ a year. I mentioned this to one of the advisers for the major and she assured me it was doing just that. I'm still a bit skeptical however.
The ideal is that games are partly used as a lure to trick more 18-year-olds into finding a degree in computer science interesting---rather than a class on asm programming on the SPARC or something, you teach them similar concepts with a class that makes them program asm on the Gameboy Advance or Atari 2600, making the low-level architecture/asm class seem more interesting. Of course, programs vary in how exactly they integrate games into the curriculum.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Education-Unrelated Gaming continues steadily at Colleges.
In the last years we've seen lots of new courses like this in Brazil, although we have no real demand for so many "game professionals". And most game professionals hold BSc in computer science for programming and BA for the art part.
And as the EA exec said, most of people with such degrees are not suitable for entry-level jobs. I'm myself a game programmer, and I can safely say that the programming skills of most guys that come from these schools is sub-par with the average CS Joe. The lack of theoretical education on computer science creates some problems to understand the larger picture sometimes.
And don't get me started on game designers (there are courses focusing on that), as 99.999% of companies don't hire "game designers". Which don't stop us from getting 3, 4 resumés each week asking for a position as game designer.
"Go forth, and be excellent to each other" --Bill & Ted
As a game developer myself, Drawn to Life (2007) Lock's Quest (2008), and a student from a 'video game college', I can offer perspective to interested parties.
Any prospective student should know that it is very difficult to break into the gaming industry. Further, they need to ask themselves why they are attending generic college XYZ for video games. Specifically, what does this college offer and what are their job placement statistics? DigiPen regularly has job placement percentages in the high 90s within 6 months of graduation. Might I add that many of our professors have worked in the industry extensively? Who better to lecture on game networking, audio, physics, etc. than someone who has developed on triple A titles on all of the major consoles? I could spend ample time explaining how the first 2 years at DigiPen covers more than most Master's programs elsewhere in the country, but I digress.
The sad fact of the matter is that most collegiate programs do not have the expertise on the bench to be able to ACTUALLY help students get ready for the real world of video game programming. DigiPen graduates are more-often-than-not able to hit the ground running on most any platform or console.
To compound matters worse, real-time interactive simulations (aka video games or other simulators) are some of the most advanced computing that a developer can strive to code. Everything from memory management to networking has to be properly written for games. You are, in a sense, writing an entire OS on top of the underlying console dashboards. Quite a daunting task.
And to add just a bit more, what is it with Computer Science students who believe they can leave a typical college and hit the ground running with that perfect development job? I've spent a decade of internships, part-time jobs, multiple college degrees, etc. to get to the point where I can competently compete for a development job 'fresh out of college'. And yes, that means I was interning back in high school in development-type jobs.
Real video game colleges spend more time on advanced math (the stuff beyond calculus) and physics than discussing the best attack combo for the latest fighting game. Don't get me wrong, we play video games, but that is typically after an 80-120 hour work week writing code until we actually dream out our coding assignments to only wake up at 4 am to rewrite a memory manager, network engine, sound engine, shader, 3d model file format, etc.
when obama takes office not are you only going to have to pay for your education, honky, but you're also going to have to pay for a niggers too.
And remember kids because of vidaa games
[c]omputer science can be fun.
I think the important point is that "computer science" as a degree today isn't the same as what it was 15 years ago.
Not all CS majors strive to write software... and certainly not all CS majors hope to spend their lives writing java.
General computer literacy regarding using computers, typing, doing research on the internet, and creating office document/presentations/reports/spreadsheets is my opinion should all be PRE-REQUISITE work for colleges.
I suppose having classes that teach students how to use Maya or Max is probably at least as interesting/educational/useful as having a pottery class.
But, I do have a concern about how well US universities prepare students for a career that will not just pay off their student loans, but support them for the rest of their lives...
In other countries, universities only really teach classes that help people get jobs that will pay the bills.
Here in the US, we tend to think of colleges as a bastion of free thought and expression as opposed to training for 35 years of grind in the workforce.
So... maybe there is a place for teaching students how to work for a company that designs video games...
at least there are jobs... :)
Full Sail.
As a tabletop designer, I wish someone could change the title of this to "Video Game-Related..." simply so people like myself won't get encouraged by the misleading name. This will probably teach modelling, programming and even marketting...but I doubt game theory will be explored nearly enough...
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I have to ask why anyone good would really want to go into game programming at this point. The era when you could get rich that way is more or less over. The fundamental problems of graphics, game physics, organizing a big world, making the NPCs act reasonably smart, and cramming all this into a painful machine like a PS3 have mostly been solved. Now it's mostly a grunt job. The hours are awful and the pay is low for the skill level required.
It was kind of cool back when we were first figuring out how to make a physics engine that actually worked right. Now that's a solved problem.
However, there's an ongoing demand for low-level programmers to work on the details of big worlds. The lower-tier schools can provide the cannon fodder for those jobs.
Waste of money.
apparently, EA just closed its Chicago studio. One less prospective employer.
New Economic Perspectives
The college I am attending is one of them, and right now making video game seems to be the most popular concentration in Computer Science department.
Teach them Game-Theory
hehehe...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I'm a student at one of the universities discussed in the article. I can tell you the games program is a VERY serious program, and the people who come in thinking that it's a goof off major get flunked out quickly. Every Computer Science(Games) student takes all the same computer science classes as the standard CS major, but instead of having 30 units worth of electives to take Intro to Basket Weaving, they have to take group design courses and other collaborative classes focused on preparing them for the teamwork that will be necessary in the field. I've recently decided to switch my major to Computer Egineering / Computer Science, but it was by no means because CS-Games was too easy. You really do have to be the complete package of a game designer - artistic and technical - to cut it in that program. In the end, I decided I liked the hardware more than the creative process.
""Game-related" courses can be very involved and just as valid as any other CS degree teaching many of the same concepts and APIs. It's a shame that some people hear the word "game" and become dismissive."
Kind of like hearing MSCE!
I'm currently working as a Game Developer using my Flash developement skills to build free + subsciption model RIA games. I was suprised to find that it is a rapidly growing market (my current employer went from 2 to 170 people since 2003), but thinking of it, it makes sense. People often use the computer or computer-like devices for proaktive escapisim more than 90% of the time. Or they're doing mostly pointless stuff that could easyly be automated without the need of someine sitting in front of the screen all the time.
Business Process Automation, GUI/Web, Embedded and Games, that's basically where the large chunks of the field are at. And it has been that way the last 25 years ever since IT gained traction. Given the amount of people with access to computers is steadyly rising and at the same time plafforms are getting more diverse (pro gaming PCs down to mobile devices), I'm not suprised anymore that computer-gaming is a currently growing market with many niches to cover.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well, having been both in the games industry for a couple of years, and making a better living with no-brainer Java/DB stuff ever since... here's my insight into it:
People who want to program a game are there _because_ they haven't "grown the fuck up." I'm not necessarily saying that in a demeaning way. I've been there myself, remember? They're the people who haven't lost that young age idealism and all that. They're the people willing to take a massively sub-par pay (just look at the average pay in the games industry: the joke is that they haven't outsourced it to India because the Indians don't work for that little), do longer hours, etc, to do their idea of doing the right thing. It's the guys willing to thumb their nose at society's norms and at the measuring it all in money and your car's price. Otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.
That however also comes with certain ideas born of the very same idealism, like that being an ass in a suit still means being an ass. Or that worth should be measured by what you can do, not by what you wear or whose money you've earned. That it's what you know, not who you know. Etc.
But again, those who don't have, or no longer have, that idealism, also aren't there willing to work for peanuts and be mistreated just to fulfill some ideal of what they want to work on.
If you want those who have "grown the fuck up", and think it all in terms of doing a job by the numbers, for the money, you'll find those of us doing some no-brainer web sites with all the buzzwords. You want EJB with that? Sure. It's half the work and several times the pay. If you don't aim for outright consultant, you only need less than half the skills too, and you might not even need to learn much new for decades. In fact, I think I'll learn COBOL next, 'cause I hear those salaries are on the rise. I'm a professional. I'm a high-tech luxury prostitute. I'll even put a costume for you if you pay enough. (E.g., suit and tie, if that's your fantasy.)
I don't think you can mix and match from column A and B that easily. Or not without paying a lot more than I suspect the OP is willing to pay. You want the skills and willingness to learn and long hours from column A, but the mentality from column B. It's going to cost you a pretty penny. Because that mentality from column B also says "hey, the whole free market economics says it's good to look for the best possible pay for my skills." You'll have to pay a competitive price by column B standards.
And at that, it won't be the entry wage of the professional world either. Depending on which studies you wish to believe, about 3 out of 4 don't contribute much to their projects, and 2 out of 3 don't even really know the language they're supposed to program in. So you'll want to aim for the top 25% or so. Which also means paying a competitive wage for that segment. It won't be cheap.
Basically I doubt that when the OP said he can't get professional programmers at any price, he really meant at any price. Hey, if you want to pay my consulting fee, I'd be happy to work on a game too. I suspect more like he expected to pay a wage for a game programmer, and get a suit-bearer. Even better, a suit-bearer with the skills of one of the former. It ain't gonna happen at that price.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This is an amusing development. I wonder what percentage of computer professionals are in the gaming industry? Isn't this a whole lot like offering a degree in professional basketball? It seems to me that people that do this sort of thing are born not made...
Anybody who wants to work with scientific data should take a real data-crunching package like R or Matlab, and avoid Excel like the plague.
But there's no such word as "amongst." You can reply with any link you want to try and prove me wrong but sorry. It's not a real world. I can't seem to get the keywords to load on my browser, but I'd love it if there's a "crappygrammar" tag because of the summary.
Bark less. Wag more.
List of useless degrees (IMO):
-Liberal Arts BA
-Information Technology BS
-Digital Media BA
-Game Design BA
All of these degrees were created for one reason.... to take in people who do not have the ability to do hard math and reading, but are able to pay for a high level education. This is a gold mine for Universities and Colleges all around mainly for two reasons. Reason number one is, because many students who want to avoid hard math will flock to those degrees like flies on doodoo. Mention the word Calculus and they will cringe! Second reason is that Universities do not have to hire high level educators. It costs money, a good amount, to find professors to teach high level courses involving high levels of math, engineering, and sciences. They want to save as much money as possible. And most of the professors who end up teaching for the degrees I listed are adjunct professors, which get paid a lot less than a tenure professor.
As for me, I ultimately chose Civil Engineering because people need roads & bridges built/repaired, as well as buildings. My job outlook is still good even this bad economy so as long as I am good and build up a network with employers. I looked into schools that offer 'game design', information technology, etc. What I found is that those are very much like vocational training. You basically learn the tools of the trade and nothing else. Just like a mechanic is taught how to fix a car, but they don't know how to design one. That's how these degrees are handled.
Also, you cannot learn game design. It takes experience. Also, a lot of people going into that degree have it in their head that that is what they will be doing once they graduate (I thought this too when I was interested in it). Sad fact is that they won't. Game Design, you need tons of experience to get a job as one at another company. Also, most of these include programming language courses, but they don't teach the fundamentals of computer software engineering so that when a new standard comes out, they can easily grasp it and implement it into their own software design (this applies to everything other than game programming and that is the general educational goal of Computer Science). This is why programmers who create graphics engine are all computer science majors or are super smart and learned it on their own.
The thing is, it will be very hard to find a job in this field once you graduate. Why? Because someone with just a highschool diploma can just as easily get a job that you paid $50,000+ to learn and took you 4 years to do it. I have a friend who works as a level designer. He makes roughly $49,000 a year and he only went to college (community college) for 1 year before he quit and devoted his full time learning the ins and outs of Unreal Level Editing and eventually got hired. It took him 3 years to end up with that salary. He now knows how to model in Maya and 3DS Max and he did not go to school for any of this! He used the Internet and books to learn all of that. There are just way too many people wanting to get into this industry because it is easy to learn. It is all about networking with those who are already in the industry, which is how it is in almost every industry.
In conclusion. Those degrees are useless, in my opinion. If I want to go to college it is to get an education that will last me almost my whole life. I don't want to go to school and pay for something that I can learn from a book at the bookstore! Do not let me stop you from doing what you want to do though. I have met those who are into the game development jobs they went to school for, but that is because they also have good communication skills and know how to market themselves to employers and live up to their expectations.
Overall, it is all about networking and putting yourself out there so that you get noticed and when they look at your resume/demo reel, they can easily remember you and realise that you are a good candidate for the job.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I've read a number of articles and worked with recent University grads. Even without adding games you can hardly call what universities do education. All they do is make money for themselves like any other business. ..of course I took the physics too..but that was just for fun.
Even my own university was more inept job training than any useful education.
Those people interested in the actual science of computing are far better off learning some media science because that's what it boils down to. The future of computing science has more to do with marketing than physics.
All your diploma are mine.... Finally, I can "study" endlessly.
You know nothing about how research works in this country. If you block any federal funds from reaching a category of research, you more or less make sure it will not take place on research universities
Why is that? Universities already have sweeping patent portfolios, enormous endowments... I mean, why on earth does not an institution that claims itself to be a center of learning actually not interested in science.
I mean, whose to blame more if Sarah Palin wants to stop paying for fruit fly research, her, or the thousands of universities and millions of scientists world wide that can't be bothered to research something unless the taxpayers give them a check, on top of all the other money universities already get.
What a moral sham. Sarah Palin is against science because I won't do any work on a cure of autism, unless I get a fat government bonus. What a sham.
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