Video Game U

"Getting schooled in games" is taking on a whole new meaning. Can a specialized college degree get you in the door at a game company? Just like CliffsNotes, Next Generation brings you the answers...

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a classroom with 39 other hardcore videogame addicts, discussing the character development of Final Fantasy VIII's Squall Leonheart, analyzing EverQuest online communities, and debating the virtues of first-person shooters. Sounds great, eh? Now open your eyes and realize you're not dreaming: Classes such as these are being offered at colleges and universities around the country, and some schools even offer a degree in videogames.

If ever there was an indicator that videogames are gaining acceptance, it's their inclusion in classes at academic institutions like UC Irvine, DePaul University, and the University of North Texas. There's even a Master's program available in gaming at Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon, as well as a new Master of Fine Arts in game design program being introduced at USC in the fall of 2002. School has never been this interesting, and while videogame classes are still a work in progress, they reflect a maturing industry and an increasing student interest.

"We've seen a growing number of MIT students who want to go into the games industry," explains MIT's Henry Jenkins, the school's Director of Comparative Media Studies. "A decade ago, they wanted to be the next David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino," Jenkins continues. "Now, they want to be the next Will Wright or American McGee."

Who's Got Game?

Today's students are demanding courses of study in gaming, much like they did decades ago with the study of film, and the administrators are beginning to listen. (In fact, Next Generation readers are constantly asking editors about the availability of such curricula.) The videogame classes offered by traditional universities take both a theoretical and practical approach. Professor Ian Parberry teaches two game programming classes at the University of North Texas, and some of his students have landed jobs at Ritual Entertainment, Terminal Reality, and Paradigm Entertainment. The University of Michigan offers a Computer Game Design and Development class covering everything from interactive fiction to AI.

Pittsburgh, PA-based Carnegie Mellon University offers a Master of Entertainment Technology graduate degree that is jointly offered by CMU's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science. Led by co-directors Don Marinelli and Randy Pausch, the program exposes students to the different disciplines that go into making a game. Marinelli and Pausch realize it's not just programming zeros and ones that creates a great game; it takes a plan that accounts for everything from aesthetics to story to interface. Thus, the program was developed with cross-disciplinary classes including drama, psychology, English, computer engineering, and art.

"When we spoke to companies about what they wanted in potential employees," explains Pausch, "we were stunned to find that they didn't want people who knew how to use a specific set of tools. Instead, they needed people who have learned how to work with people from other disciplines, because that's the main reason they rarely hired people out of college. They wanted someone with the experience of working well with teams, both in success and failure. It's really hard to make something, especially in the context of a team, and see it through to the end, and that's what it's all about in gaming."

The Carnegie Mellon program, which started in 1999, currently lists 35 students and should expand to 40-45 students this fall. Six team projects are required during the two-year program, and the curriculum teaches many different facets of producing interactive software, including how to create and manage a production schedule. Students have also taken field trips to such sites as the Sony Metreon in San Francisco to learn about commercial possibilities of entertainment technology, and the Dave and Buster's arcade in Chicago to explore the social impact of immersive simulations and arcade games in a restaurant venue.

Gaming under the Microscope

Not all schools have developed entire programs with an eye on preparing a student for the game industry, but gaming courses are slowly making their way onto campus nonetheless. Are you going to pursue an English degree but want an elective more attractive than American Political Theory? You just might be surprised at what you find hiding in your course catalog.

Deep in the hallowed halls of Stanford University is STS 145: "History of Computer Game Design: Technology, Culture, and Business." In this course, instructor Henry Lowood has built a syllabus around such books as Geoffrey R. Loftus' Minds at Play: The Psychology of Video Games, David Sheff's Game Over, and Steven Poole's Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Last year's class featured a lecture on virtual worlds that used Asheron's Call as its model, as well as guest speakers including Dennis "Thresh" Fong of Quake tournament fame.

At Indiana University, Associate Clinical Professor Robert Appelman is leading the charge to use gaming as a means to study human behavior and learning. Appelman will oversee a series of classes, such as "The Impact of Games and Simulations in Instruction." This course examines the immersive qualities of videogames, and how they can be applied to teaching. "We've found that the information received through interactive games had longer-term residual effects [than non-interactive information]," says Appelman. "The content flow was less, but people retained information longer. We're studying how we can take that learning element from games and apply it to the learning process."

Get a Job!

Can you take what you learned at a university and slide into a comfy chair at a game developer or publisher? For Mauro Fiore, that transition was a seamless process. He went from the Carnegie Mellon program to an internship at Angel Studios, where he's currently a lead designer. While majoring in computer science during his undergraduate work at CMU, the Master's program conveniently made its debut, and after graduation, he jumped on board. "The program gave me a glimpse of what it was like to work on actual game projects," explains Fiore. "I learned how to interact with different groups working on the same project, which is crucial because that back-and-forth compromising happens on every game. An understanding of what someone can and cannot do, to determine limitations, is important because you can then challenge those limitations."

But for most prospective students interested in a videogame career, an academic gaming background is nowhere near an automatic ticket to landing a game development job. Game companies weren't beating down Fiore's door after graduation, but he did use his school's connections to land an internship at Angel Studios, where he designed races, tuned controls, and balanced AI settings on games such as Midtown Madness 2 and Midnight Club. The internship opened a door, and Fiore made the most of his opportunity.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that current videogame classes will put you on the fast track to the industry. Although videogames have grown up enough to gain the respect of universities, university classes haven't grown up enough to gain the respect of game companies. These classes and programs are, by and large, too early in their development to warrant a free pass to the office adjacent to Sid Meier's. Most professors are just trying to get game companies to recognize they even exist.

"[Game classes] are comparable to where computer graphics were 10 or 15 years ago," suggests Angel Studios CCO Michael Limber. "Back then, it was unusual to be trained in computer graphics at a university. Now, most of the artists in the industry have gone to art school."

For those looking to enter the game industry, university classes can provide a foot in the door. The Carnegie Mellon program is at the forefront of schools that have established game company connections, having connected students with internships at Angel Studios and also with Maxis. Many top developers know MIT's Jenkins and USC's Celia Pearce, and if you do well in their classes, they might help you get a head start over the thousands who also want game industry jobs.

Nutty Professors

According to some developers, one area of concern is how qualified a school's faculty may be. Each year at GDC and E3, aspiring developers flock to hear the wisdom from the likes of Ultima series creator Richard Garriott or Total Annihilation/Dungeon Siege creator Chris Taylor. Most attendees figure that these industry veterans have been through just about everything associated with the design and production of a game, and the experience they can share is invaluable. But you'd be hard-pressed to find Westwood founder Brett Sperry or LucasArt's legend Hal Barwood with a lesson plan in hand.

"I think the biggest problem right now is a lack of qualified teachers," suggests Maxis Lead Designer Will Wright. "Our industry is so young that there aren't many who are qualified to teach, and those who are qualified are still making games."

When asked, Wright and Ion Storm Studio Director Warren Spector (who recently hired a University of Texas grad who studied interactive fiction) expressed interest in helping to guide the next crop of gaming legends. Both are attracted to the prospect of teaching the unusually enthusiastic group of students that a game class would attract. But Wright and Spector are simply not ready to teach - not in the sense that they're not qualified, because any university would be extremely lucky to include the designers as faculty, but because Wright and Spector are still having too much fun creating games.

The concept of a university-based videogame education raises an eyebrow with Wright, who cites Chris Crawford's The Art of Computer Game Design and a few Internet bulletin boards as the only resources available during his formative years. And though Wright describes himself as a self-learner and admits he might not have gone down an academic videogame path had it been available to him, he does see the merit in such classes.

"Perhaps these courses can open people's eyes," explains Wright. "Most people get their [game] education playing games - someone plays a first-person shooter and loves it, and they want to make one because that's all they've been exposed to. By exposing people to different fields, [aspiring game designers] can realize that design has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years, and a lot of it's applicable to videogames, not just playing Doom. That can benefit the industry in the long run."

Pooling Resources

The views expressed by Wright and his peers are exactly what the International Game Developers Association (www.igda.org) hopes to collect, as it helps school systems formalize legitimate programs in the study of games. Ion Storm's Spector is co-chairing the IGDA's Education Committee with Doug Church, who is known for his work with Spector on Underworld and System Shock, as well as with Harmonix on the upcoming PS2 game Frequency (see Alphas, page 29). Spector and Church are creating a framework for teachers on how to approach gaming, whether in the form of a single lecture, or in the development of an entire department devoted to gaming studies.

"Specific tools and software packages aren't the areas in which we're lacking," explains Spector. "The abstract and analytical components are what we need, but at the least I hope a shared knowledge base and shared vocabulary come out of these programs, and the development of some analytical tools on which the industry can agree. We could also benefit from a more analytical way of thinking, so we can get beyond the word 'fun' as the be-all, end-all of game criticism."

The committee is also working on projects such as reaching out to high school and college guidance counselors who may not even realize that careers in videogames are possible. Many kids aren't interested in school because the subjects don't cross into their spheres of interest, but everyone wins if games can provide a motivational spark that makes education more appealing. And it's the learning part, the exploration, that is really what college life is all about.

"The goal of the university experience is not the chance to be a developer, but to think about what it means to be a developer," says Church. "That's something we [as professional game designers] rarely get to do from within the industry, because we're desperately doing it. We can train people to build levels - that's not the hard part. The hard part is training them to think about what games are, why they're fun, and what's interesting about them."

There will be a Quiz

Will an emerging curriculum help you get a job in videogames? We reiterate that you won't get a job just by showing up to class and collecting a diploma.

"I don't think it'll ever be to the point where we'll hire someone just because they have a Master's degree in game design," says Ion Storm's Spector. "Just as a cinematography degree from USC won't get you a job as Spielberg's cameraman - you still have to prove yourself before you get that first job."

However, any students who are serious about working in games and apply themselves to these courses will undoubtedly be taken more seriously as potential job candidates. Even if you take just one game class during college, you'll be able to speak at a more "insider" level than most gamers during an interview, and that's a big advantage.

And over the next few years, there is little doubt the academic world will further embrace videogames as a valid area of study. There is simply too much interest and too much money involved in gaming, and it's developed to the point that there is actually some history to the craft. We'll not only see a new crop of game designers, but a new crop of gamers who can better articulate what games they like, and why these titles are so attractive. Only through the process of understanding games and the elements that make them interesting, exciting, and (sorry, Warren) fun, can the industry continue to innovate and evolve. Finally, here is a notion worthy of homework.

- Kevin Toyama