Video games degrees: 95% fail to hit skills target

[Prabhakar Ragde]

"Nearly all degree courses in video gaming at British universities leave graduates unfit to work in the industry[...]"

I wonder what they'd think of programs at Canadian universities? --PR

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2287204,00.html

[apomb]

I believe Tony covered this in his blog

[Tony]

Quote:

The games industry claims that Canadian government support has allowed it to flourish, and thousands of jobs are moving from Britain to Canada.

You've seen my view on this, right?

It's been pointed out elsewhere that the accreditation established is relatively new (3 years old?), speculating that not all of the courses had a chance to be evaluated... Though I don't think this would have a great impact on what this figure implies.

I think Canada is doing well (as the quote suggests) simply because we don't yet have a lot of watered-down "game" courses at Universities.

[Zeroth]

Is this general video game programming, or 3d animation/level design? There is a distinct difference. Then there are the courses teaching video game design, with the full overview of management, gameplay design, etc.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Tony @ Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:40 pm wrote:

You've seen my view on this, right?

Sorry for what is essentially a double post, then. I hadn't looked at the blog recently (it was awfully quiet for a while, so I stopped looking). --PR

Edit: fixed formatting.

[Tony]

I'm still in between midterms. Though that's why we have RSS feeds, right?

[apomb]

Tony @ Wed Jun 25, 2008 3:45 pm wrote:

I'm still in between midterms. Though that's why we have RSS feeds, right?

RSS Feeds are one of my favourite things since I discovered them... on the topic of your blog, though tony... you looking for any summer writers?

[Reality Check]

Just by the commercials those game design colleges seem to be approaching game design in the wrong way. Not really surprised by this...but the number is quite high.

[apomb]

They seem to be targeted at unemployed schlubs who stay home during the day, and feel sorry for themselves. I was sick one day a couple weeks ago, and noticed that the wording is simple, yet harsh. And you rarely see those kinds of commercials at any other time of the day.

[Reality Check]

Nice catch apomb.

I mean, if you're an unemployed not so bright guy living in your parents' basement, surely you'd love to make cash making games and testing them. Chances are those people are already gamers and play all the time so the idea of making them or testing them for cash in just a year must be appealing. Little do they know what it actually takes to make a game.

[Aziz]

But Visual Basics are so easy!!!1!

[Tony]

Aziz @ Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:30 pm wrote:

But Visual Basics are so easy!!!1!

Yes, all of them

You just drag and drop an application together. Wow!

Actually XNA is aiming at that, and Lee Winder (who commented on the /blog article) has wrote about that. It's easy to "drag and drop" (relatively speaking) together a pretty looking demo, and with some more effort -- a "marketplace" minigame. Though that hardly prepares one for a $20mil commercial game dev project.

[Aziz]

I could go on with the sarcastic comments, but I'm starting to want to kill myself when I do it.

[apomb]

Reality Check @ Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:23 pm wrote:

Nice catch apomb.

I mean, if you're an unemployed not so bright guy living in your parents' basement, surely you'd love to make cash making games and testing them. Chances are those people are already gamers and play all the time so the idea of making them or testing them for cash in just a year must be appealing. Little do they know what it actually takes to make a game.

exactly, and this probably accounts for a good portion of said 95% of inadequate developers. though, one cannot be too sure of statistics all the time.

[Aziz]

Afterall, they're 41% made up, right?

But I think you're in the ballpark here