With the video game industry’s growth outstripping that of all other mediums one would assume that one of the multitude of games development courses would be the best way to get your own piece of this pie. Unfortunately there are a disproportionate number of students and courses for the size of the games job market.
Games design is an attractive prospect to many who spent their youth in arcades or with their hands firmly glued to a controller but the public perception is far from the truth. The curriculum generally doesn’t involve playing games all day nor are such courses often lax.
Understanding of coding, system architecture and other parts of more supposedly serious computer related courses are key building blocks. An infatuation with the hobby is not nearly enough to get you through a full three years. But even with the necessary drive, the road is a slippery one.
In 2006 there were 44 such degrees around the country. This number doubled by 2008 and yet both government and industry bodies agree that only a handful of these are up to standard.
Many offer a pick and mix skill set which leaves graduates as jacks of all trades, masters of none. Others provide outdated or overly simplistic versions of what is essentially a computer science degree.
Those cynically minded might blame the universities outright. The casual observer might suggests they are just slapping together courses in a rush to get a new wave of fee payers.
However the problem facing most computer related subjects is the short half life of anything involved. System architectures and coding languages change over the course of a few years and will differ between potential companies. Keeping lectures relevant and up-to-date is hard enough with areas of study which you’d expect to be pretty stable.
Many members of the industry would point potential new employees to community sites for their gateway into the industry.
Modding, user made content for preexisting games, was the starting point for many individuals and even entire teams to go on to developing full titles. The key difference in this route being it is for all intents and purposes free and has much more in the way of instant gratification.
Developers often release tools which they used later on in game productions (SDKs) to the public, which means a complete amateur can come up with something unique in a short amount of time. Or there are programs like Garry’s mod which facilitates simple scripting in a widely used physics engine, allowing the creation of entirely new games but with the frame already in place.
The major flaw with the community based design education is the lack of structure and measurable traits to show. Most degrees in any faculty stress they not only teach facts but also good communication skills, team work, critical thinking and other life skills.
Many companies are quite happy to take Physicists, Mathematicians et al, with computer games courses only having any sort of marked advantage in that most students will have developed a portfolio. There are however many more options open to a graduate with a physics degree in the job market.
The industry is in dire need of new blood. The buzz created by the Nintendo Wii saw a tremendous growth in the market and the Wii remote was held up as the pinnacle of innovation but behind any Christmas related hype, people are still playing the same games they were 10 years ago.
There has been no quantum leap and consumers have begun to complain about the tendency of developers to just throw out another World War II shoot ’em up whenever they want a quick buck.
The advent of online retail and direct download has also meant that it is possible to cut out the middle man so that new developers can have just as much of a chance as the big name publishers. Indie games such as Braid and World of Goo receive critical acclaim and high sales despite not being attached to a known development studio.
The success of such avenues is testament to both the desire for new things in the medium and the vast opportunities available to newcomers. Which is why it’s so frustrating that many aspiring game designers are being misled.
There are currently attempts to legitimise courses either by working towards a standardised skill set or having the curriculum evaluated and given a stamp of approval by industry groups.
Unfortunately this might be too little too late, with the number of courses predicted to balloon to over 300 by UCAS and the fact that many students are already partway through these discredited degrees, games designers might replace all the English students queuing up at the job centre.
Brendan Allitt