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June 20th, 2008 @ 15:49
Speaking to the BBC, Frontier boss David Braben has slammed British university games courses, saying the huge majority of them do not prepare students for the rigours of development.
“95% of video gaming degrees are simply not fit for purpose. Without some sort of common standard, like Skillset accreditation, these degrees are a waste of time for all concerned.”
He added: “We are facing a serious decline in the quality of graduates looking to enter the industry. The dearth of maths, physics and computer science graduates is hitting us hard.”
Braben is one of the members of industry campaign body “Games Up?”, a group pushing the UK’s Parliament to actually do something about anything related to games, other than putting different-coloured stickers on them.
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June 20th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Yeah, they’ve been saying this for years. What do those games courses actually involve, anyway?
June 20th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Same as all uni courses. Sitting around in a blanket for three years smoking weed and “experimenting” with the pasty girl down the hall before writing two essays on fractals and “finding yourself” in South Afuckingmerica for a year.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
There’s an article in this month’s Edge where a number of people say exactly the same thing - the courses are throwing out grads who are basically unemployable because they’re done ‘a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a bit of programming here, a bit of 3D modelling there’. As a result you’ve got people who aren’t programmers, aren’t modellers, aren’t artists, and therefore aren’t actually any use. Basically the whole thing is a big con job - you’d be better off doing a bog-standard software engineering degree. But of course, that doesn’t sound nearly so exciting on paper.
/polishes software engineering degree
/vaguely remembers actually turning up to Uni once or twice
June 20th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I did one of those courses. It was shit. Fortunately, I taught myself what I needed to know, did the extra work, and made myself employable (going to uni as a mature student helped).
The industry is just as to blame as the universities, though. Their reluctance to get involved in the courses and the universities’ lack of knowledge combined means the courses don’t really know what they should be teaching. A better relationship between them would help immensely.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I’m not so sure that doing a little bit of everything is all that bad.
You don’t go straight from doing your A levels to knowing that you enjoy character animation more than level design, or if you’d rather do AI programming than production.
There are loads of areas in the games industry that people aren’t likely to get experience of until they’re actually at university.
Anyway, I’m sure that these days most courses teach you a bit of everything in the first year, then let you choose your own speciality as you progress.
Short of forcing people to choose a specific subject from day 1, I don’t see what the alternative to the current system is.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
No, it’s bad. Always. You can’t get a ‘generic odd-job man’ foothold in the games industry, you have to be good at something. The guys in the interview suggest the only degree worth doing is programming - artists can come from anywhere. There’s no way to get straight into stuff like level design, etc., you have to work your way into those kinds of jobs from the inside.
Even doing work with engines like U3 and stuff is apparently pointless as new-entrants nearly always end up doing the less intensive stuff - user interface, file handling, etc. Less fluffing about with toys, more solid hard work in maths and programming methodologies. That’s what they need.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
In my opinion if you want to be a part of the games industry you either do a degree in animation or other art related degree, a degree in programming, or a degree in advanced math like physics. I would never do a degree in games development as it trys to teach you everything when you might not be good at everything. Pointless waste of time to be honest.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
People in the games industry who don’t rate these courses should put their money where their mouth is and get on a steering commitee to push these courses in the right direction.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Bring back apprenticeships
like in the old days
June 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
too true. but yes we need the games company to get involved.
i’ve got an HND in 3d computer animation which is about as useful as recycled toilet paper