When most people think of classes in electronic gaming, they imagine one of two things:

1. Classes that teach you how to be better at games (I know, it sounds silly, but people ask me about it all the time).
2. Computer science classes where you design and program games.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no classes designed to teach kids' to be better game players, although if Quake can be a sport and Everquest players can make a living selling stuff on ebay, then, well, the idea actually isn't that farfetched. So much for option a.

As for option B, we saw last week that there are a number of programs and classes where students can learn to design and program games. However, over the past 15 years, commercial game design has grown from humble beginnings into complex productions. Increased technical capabilities have created a demand for all kinds of specialized talent, including designers, graphic (texture and animation) artists, level designers, testers, engine programmers, writers, and sound / engineering artists, to name a few. As technologies evolve, who knows what new roles we'll need. Already, we're hearing rumblings about the increased graphical capabilities of today's 3D engines demanding that game designers develop knowledge of architecture and interior design. God knows we could use better writers in gaming.

Most importantly, if gaming is to develop as an art form, it will need artists and designers who understand the nuances of the medium. Where are these artists going to come from? Where can you get the broad background of experiences and skills that modern gaming demands? Are there schools, classes, or programs where one can go to become a game artist or designer? What schools are teaching students to use new media tools and the fundamentals of interactive electronic entertainment? In part two of this series, I'll try to answer some of these questions, and highlight some programs doing innovative stuff in new media and comparative media. As in with the last installment, I make no claims to compiling an authoritative list of programs and would appreciate hearing about any omissions (email: editorial@joystick101.org).

Art and Design Schools with Multi-media focus
Not surprisingly, there are a number of Art and Design Schools that have gone digital and offer programs with immediate ties to game production. If game design is an artform, then it only makes sense that art schools would be the place to train artists for a digital generation.

Of course art schools, like most academic institutions, are slow to change and adopt innovations such as digital media. At Indiana for example, I know of more than one person who was nearly run out their respective departments for embracing digital media. Like their colleagues in computer science, artists who work in digital media are often perceived as too applied or too vocational.

Fortunately, such is not the case everywhere. At The University of Massachusetts at Lowell, for example, students can take Interactive Game Design taught by Craig Freeman. Students create interactive 3D spaces, mazes, and independent game projects. The course is a part of Professor Freeman's Hyperarts Laboratory Project which specializes in creating interactive spaces with QuickTime VR technologies. Freeman inherited the course from his predecessors and plans to rename the course Interactive Digital Media.

Freeman explained to me the practical problems associated with teaching a "gaming" course in an Art department.

"First of all it becomes difficult to get the students, almost always males, to think beyond toys. At this point they grew up with it and figure they can make their way through the university without ever coming out of their adolescent fantasies. Also, my work and education have always been in the avante guard of art practices, highly anti-commercial. I thing that there is too much of a implied vocational bent to game design as a academic discipline. Having said all that, I do believe that as a culture, we have raised a generation of citizens with physically altered brains and cognition and that new substantive cultural forms will emerge that make use of this new capacity to assimilate and associate large volumes of multi-layered information in burst. In fact I think that there is something evolutionary about it. In fact cultural forms that don't take this into account are certain to loose their relevancy. I am moving towards renaming the course Interactive Digital Media Art."

Design Schools Focusing in New Media
Outside of Freeman's course and project, there aren't many Art Schools focusing specifically on game design. More often, gaming classes or concepts are housed in design schools, such as The Rhode Island School of Design. RISD offers a broad range of design programs, including interior design, architecture, apparel, film, photography, animation, graphic design, landscape architecture, furniture design, ceramics...just looking at the list of choices at RISD is a bit overwhelming. You can study just about anything at RISD and at just about any level (undergraduate, graduate, continuing studies, workshops).

And, RISD has a strong commitment to using technology across its curriculum. RISD has several impressive computer labs and digital technologies are a primary focus in many RISD programs, such as their computer based design or certificate of new media programs.According to Ann Lavigne, graduate student and instructor, it is not uncommon for a RISD student go on to work in the gaming industry. (She also said that a few have gone on to work for the Simpson's, which may be more impressive in my book). Either way, RISD produces a large number of highly skilled designers and artists with strong technical skills. As 3D games gain greater graphical capability, the demand for architecture, landscape, and texture artists with strong digital skills will only increase. RISD, with its wide range of faculty, courses, and students, seems like a great place to be if you're interested in gaming from a design angle.

Of course, there are also similar design departments in most large universities. The design department at UCLA, for example also looks quite impressive, boasting a wide range of classes, faculty, and visiting faculty with a strong digital focus. They have both graduate and undergraduate programs, with a focus on visual communication design with an emphasis on digital media. Of course, talk is cheap, so I usually judge a program by its students. UCLA has an online student forum with student galleries, gripes about the program, pleas for teachers to get new haircuts, and other various student babblings. From students' projects and interests, it looks like an interdisciplinary media design program very much like a telecommunications program.

Most students create projects across several media, such as photography, print, and VR. For example, in one portfolio, you can see several treatments of for animations and 3D designs. In both RISD and UCLA, I couldn't find any examples of students designing actual games. However, it looks like students are gaining many of the artistic foundations, technical skills, and awareness of design issues (such as interactivity) that would be the ingredients for a good game design education. Like most of the examples we'll see today, the path from college to the gaming industry is not a perfectly straight line in these programs. But, students entering the gaming industry from a design school background certainly bring with them a unique set of skills and design sense. For students looking to enter the gaming industry, these cases highlight the importance of deciding exactly what ones skills and interests are, what they want to bring to the gaming industry, and then pursuing the kinds of experiences that will develop those skills.

New Media Telecommunications programs
Telecommunications seems like another natural place to house classes on gaming. Afterall, electronic games are some of the most interesting intersections between technology and communication theory. Networked games like muds have pushed how we interact online. Games rich symbology have pushed interface design. Soon, we will most likely see games pushing the ways we interact with electronic devices, through new inputs and outputs.

One such telecommunications program is New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, housed in the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television within Tisch School of the Arts. To decipher: It's a telecommunications program in a Film/ TV Department within an Art School. Judging by the projects, faculty, and students in the program, this is a good thing. The Tisch School of the Arts has three main divisions: performing arts, film and television, and new media and film. So, there is a clear production focus across all areas. Most importantly, there is a solid foundation in pop art and "The Lively Arts." That is, living popular art forms that are enjoyed by the masses. So, in a school where theater is traditional and film studies is mainstream, the chances are much greater that treating electronic gaming as art will be accepted; the hi-lo art debates central to UC Irvine's struggles are moot.

Within the Tisch School of Arts, there are any number of paths one might take in becoming a game designer. The clearest path, however, would be The Interactive Telecommunications Program. The ITP faculty is a diverse bunch, and the program draws heavily on the surrounding arts, design, and technology community, boasting nearly 50 adjunct faculty. Adjuncts range from Douglas Rushkoff, who writes for All Things Considered, Frontline, and the NY Times, among others, to Eric Zimmerman, who is the director of the RE:PLAY project, and author of several paper-based and digital games, including the brilliant Sissyfight 2000, which he has designer and project manager credits for. (If you haven't played Sissyfight, go do so now; it's fantastic game design as well as completely hilarious.) Courses range from foundations in telecommunications to production to 3D modeling. And, yes, there are classes in game design taught by Frank Lantz and Eric Zimmerman.

Of course, it's what the students do there that really matters. And, looking at ITP students' projects, they do some interesting things. Projects range from little shockwave games to 3D animations to PERL-based games. Much like Sissyfight, the games I saw were all more about originality than imitating what's been done before, which personally, I think is a good thing for learning game design. For example, Internet IPO Madness:

"Web Slots (tm) comments on the IPO giants by combining Internet domain name creation with the American symbol of wasted consumption and getting rich quick - a slot machine. Users use Web Slots(tm) as they would a slot machine, where they randomly search for existing 5 letter URLs by simply pulling the lever. If they hit a working URL, that site is logged online with an accompanying webcam picture of them."

Smaller Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Programs focusing in New Media
Programs like NYUs are established, well-connected, and use their geographic location to their advantage. I also found (and have heard about) smaller programs scattered across the US. At Indiana University, for example, there is the Masters in Immersive Mediated Environments Program, headed by Thom Gillespie. The MIME program is

"about art, music and storytelling designed for New Media, along with every media ever invented or used by humankind.... from cave wall etchings to Gibson's sims and virtual light. We strive to meld the digital with the traditional, be it film, radio, television, print, or any other medium. MIME recognizes that the explosion in digital convergence has come from applying human talent and imagination to technology. We therefore look to bringing content and creativity, whatever form they take, to digital and virtual platforms, resulting in New Media products that cover the gamut from computer games and internet development to virtual reality environments." (taken from the MIME Homepage).

Thom often refers to his students as his "herd of cats" and it seems that the program's flexibility and originality does attract a diverse, creative bunch. Steve MacLaughlin for example, created the company Expidant.com which in 3 years has grown from 4 to 65+ employees. On the other hand, you've got folks like Bart Everson, producer of Rox.com. In addition to teaching courses at Xavier University of Louisiana, Bart also co-hosted J&B on the Rox, a local public access cable tv (and now web) show that entertained a cult following in South Central Indiana for quite some time. While these folks are not in the gaming industry per se, they are in the interactive electronic entertainment industry, and several of their projects do draw from game design elements. They certainly are exploring game-related issues like interactivity in electronic entertainment.

Despite these successes, Gillespie describes the challenges of working in new media within an academic setting:

Me: Have you encountered any resistance to your efforts to study electronic media (particularly gaming) academically?

"You mean other than being thrown out of the School of Library andInformation Science where I started teaching game design? You mean other than still having faculty members refer to what I do as 'mere production work' as opposed to true intellectual work such as writing articles and books? No real problems. Academia is a great place to work at the edges of culture and media; I just had to be real nimble, attract lots of students and let the economic realities of game design reveal themselves. Money talks and students in seats means money for universities and colleges; the students allows me to be endured. The MIME graduate classes have consistent high enrollments."

Those who read the first installment of this "Gaming in Higher Education" series will find that Thom's experiences are far from unique. Much like Nideffer at UC Irvine, Gillespie has found resistance in colleagues who do not perceive new media design work (particularly games) as intellectually demanding or valuable work. Like Parberry at UNT, Gillespie has also encountered some sort of combination of envy, distrust, fear, and scorn by his colleagues and manages to persist because administrators value the number of "butts in seats" that he continually draws. The message here to gaming educators is clear: Watch out for disgruntled colleagues, pay attention to the bottom line, and be prepared to fight political battles if you want to mix electronic games with the academic game.

The Future of Interdisciplinary Electronic Entertainment Programs: Interdisciplinary Programs
So far, we've looked at art, design, and telecommunication programs, many of them have an interdisciplinary focus. In most cases, interdisciplinarity is gained by drawing faculty (particularly adjunct) from a variety of courses. Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) is unique in that it's a deliberate cross between art and computer science departments in the service of producing and studying electronic entertainment. ETC coordinator Janeen LaForce explains,

The ETC is a two-year graduate program that encourages students to explorethe intersection of arts and technology -- and gaming has long beensituated at that intersection. As a university with stellar computer,drama, and fine arts departments, CMU is on a short list of places where aninterdisciplinary program such as ours can flourish. Currently, the ETC hasstudents:

• creating new tools for game developers to use.
• prototyping a completely new and potentially revolutionary game genre.
• working with the DoD to develop a "simulation game" to train governmentnetwork administrators.
• co-oping at Angel Studios in Carlsbad, CA, a studio with whom we havedeveloped a strong relationship.
• spinning-off their own company to create game prototyping software, withthe support of some industry names.

The focus of the ETC is not to train game developers. However, as aninterdisciplinary program that fosters the cooperation of artists andtechnologists, we are fertile ground for the growth of gaming pioneers.

In short, you might think of CMU's ETC program as the combination of computer science and arts/ arts management. Randy Pausch and Don Marinelli, ETC's two directors, come from Computer Science (HCI) and Fine Arts (Drama and Arts Management). Students are expected to enter the program (which is graduate only), with either a computer science/ engineering or arts background. ETC doesn't try to make artists out of programmers or turn programmers into artists, but it does try to create a space for the two groups to communicate and collaborate. As such, students are expected to learn "learning the vocabulary, values, and working patterns of the other culture."

By now, I'm sure you're asking, so, what about those projects...what are the students doing? Well, the program is still fairly young, but already, they have a nice collection of student projects. In the Earth Theater (Spring, 2000), for example, students created "an interactive, educational pre-show for the Earth Theater at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA." In other projects, students developed tools for interactive storytelling and training materials for the Department of Defense. Across all of the projects I examined, there was a strong emphasis on collaborative work, partnering with community organizations and creating products that fulfill authentic needs. Most impressively, students are learning to do game design and development by actually doing game design and development in authentic social contexts. So, the constraints, needs, materials, resources, and context of a situation drive the design activity, as opposed to instructor-derived assignments or projects.

Many design educators argue that this "authentic" project-based learning is critical in design education. Students learn about the many sticky issues of design - working within budgets, constraints, and with clients while also learning to think with authentic tools and resources. Of course, how "authentic" these experiences are often depends on how the project plays out; however, it is clear that CMU students tackle projects of a size and scale uncommon for Master's students in the other programs I studied.

Closing Thoughts
The range of options available to those interested in electronic entertainment is striking. In addition to computer science, there are telecommunications, art, and design courses and programs focusing on electronic interactive entertainment and to a lesser extent, game design. Most of the programs I detailed above combine at least two or three different disciplines and try to support students in pursuing interests germane to them. Of course, some background in computer programming is probably a good idea for most students seriously interested in game design. It gives students a familiarity with the logic and vocabulary of programming, if nothing else. But, as electronic games become more complex, the need for increased specialization will likely continue as well. More and more, I think you will see people with strong digital architectural or interior design backgrounds contributing to game design.

Looking at students' projects, I was also struck by students' creativity and the potential for redefining what we think of as electronic gaming. An ongoing debate around joystick101.org as well as the game community more broadly is: "Are games art, and what would it take for them to become art?". Regardless of one's position on this issue, many people agree that games need to elicit a wider range of emotional responses or deal with social issues more thoughtfully in order to truly merit consideration as art. Looking at these projects, I was pleased to see some hints of designers using games to make social commentary or change the way we think about an issue. Bringing art and computer science students together to design games is just one way that we might finally see more profound innovation in gaming. In the next installment, I'll focus more on media cultural studies programs that examine these issues in closer depth.

Finally, gaming is a swiftly changing, interdisciplinary, applied field. Stories from big and small programs alike confirm that building connections within the local community is a key component of keeping a program current and making it relevant to students' needs and the current state of the art. Successful programs have used adjunct faculty to bring current design, technical, and artistic expertise into the classroom. And, they've used the local community as a laboratory for students, allowing students to gain real-world, practical design experience through participating in communities broader than the immediate classroom. When it works, students build not just products that meet authentic social needs, but also design skills and a strong portfolio. How to build these community partnerships, and what the future of gaming education might look like will be examined in the final installment of this series.

Kurt Squire is a co-founder of joystick101.org and taught a class on gaming at Indiana University for a few semesters.

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