Article: Games have a place in higher education, but where they are now isn’t working.
ngon master
I just put up this piece on Medium and thought you folks might appreciate it. I include explanations on where game development college programs are failing, suggestions on how to objectively improve them, and encouragement for students to make the most of their secondary education. Feel free to mention your opinions on the topic or your experiences with game dev college programs!
Edit: Thank you to all of the wonderful responses and for sharing your experiences! Feel free to ask questions on Twitter, too! I'm getting a lot of conversation about this over there, which has been awesome.
Edit: Thank you to all of the wonderful responses and for sharing your experiences! Feel free to ask questions on Twitter, too! I'm getting a lot of conversation about this over there, which has been awesome.
Replies
In general I believe that attending education related to games can be very valuable, but as student you need to be critical about both your university and yourself. It's vital that you choose an education that has a great environment and teachers, a place were people will allow your skills to flourish using mentoring and critique. For example universities without project samples or short descriptions of the professors teaching is a no-go.
Additionally it is also up to students to take advantage of their education, you have four years to work your bum off and collect knowledge, both in and outside of class. A mistake a lot of my classmates make is that they expect to land a job by just going to classes and doing the required work. That is a bad practice.
Henning from Flipped Normals has some great suggestions and critique about this subject too, it's worth a read:
https://flippednormals.com/blog/creative-students-handbook-schools/
My undergrad is in Illustration (which is another story we'll not get into now), and I left that believing that my work was up to a good standard. I was living in that vacuum that you refer to. How wrong I was!
I took the decision in April last year to really knuckle down and concentrate on building myself up as an artist. I had been out of uni for long enough to have enough 'world wariness' about the industry. Rather paradoxically it would seem, I actually made choice to go back into formal education (I'm currently on an MA in Games Art), however, I am in this time with a *very* clear view of what I want out of it, and what work needs to be done to get there. I am now very aware of the high standards the industry sets, something I was ignorant of when doing my BA.
In my view there is a huge gap when it comes to getting a traditional art education and doing the fundamentals properly. These facilities (such as life drawing) are optional, and seen as such by the students. In my view it should be mandatory. The fundamentals of drawing weren't even taught on my BA in Illustration (how on earth that makes sense I have no idea), and were instead passed over in favour of wishy washy critiques about the 'feeling' of an image. I understand that conveying emotive messages in Illustration is a big part of the job, but I think you should have the tools (perspective, anatomy etc) to be able to use them if you need to.
I suspect that @almighty_gir might like this article as well...
My course taught a lot of on using the software but very few on the fundamentals. Learning the fundamentals should be the number one priority since it is a core skill for being an artist. Super important for portfolio pieces. Some students did study the fundamentals in their own free time and that made their work stand out against all the others.
During my course we had a lot of free time. I chose a lot of that time to study and improve myself. The teachers did tell us to keep improving and doing personal work but the vast majority of students have no idea how much self study outside the course is needed to to get a dream job. Everyone just assumes they will break into the industry with no work outside the course.
The majority of responses that I've heard (here and otherwise) certainly affirm the seemingly nationwide systemic issues within game design college programs. So many issues are dealt with in the vast majority of colleges, but with some resources and time, I think a lot of them can have solutions. As a few quick responses:
Heck yes, I think a quick way for students that are looking at a college can get a bit of a grasp on the quality of it is to visit and see what's on the walls. Schools that have content to show off will do so because it works. If you can't find quality work coming out of the program, that's a major red flag.
Absolutely to all of this. And for that last point, honestly, it's true. You can learn all of these skills online for sure...but being in a school setting provides valuable networking and soft skill-learning opportunities. There are pros and cons for all options.
Props for pushing through and continuing to work on your craft. It's REALLY hard to leave that vacuum and then deal with that emotional fallout, so I feel you. And heck yes to it being mandatory, and also to have it early-on in the program. It creates a base for students to build off of.
It's so nice to hear more people calling for fundamentals...always. ALWAYS MORE FUNDAMENTALS.
And for sure- it takes SO much outside and personal work in order to be good enough for just entry level jobs. It can't be stressed enough.
Really interesting reading, thanks for taking the time to write it.
This website has lots of resources for a starting point for students on games related courses.
- Real life stories
- About the games industry
- Ways into the games industry
- Job roles
- Useful links
I've already made (and deleted due to shame) a post telling some of my experience, but if it helps I can say that among twenty three - twenty four students in the class I don't think more than one person apart from me had touched any 3D or videogame related software before entering the course, and that person was someone that already worked as a modeller. The person teaching modelling was some woman with the skills of a 3-4 month user that read Maya starter's guide and showing that her knowing about videogames was practically zero, but almost no one even knew what a render was, so yeah. When she opened a standard character model she downloaded everyone was amazed and started to exclaim how good you have to be to create something like that, like discharging themselves from any kind of responsability to improve like saying "nah, that's too professional; mediocrity it's all I can achieve".
I think right now there are a lot of problems with any videogame related studies, but the biggest one is that acceptance of mediocrity due to the ignorance of a lot of students and teachers and the appreciation for empty words that could be used to teach something, because it sounds more beatiful repeating again and again "we are going to make a videogame" that actually trying to do it right now and asking something out of it. In my course texturing and ilumination wasn't supossed to be touched until the second year, so you can imagine how much is asked of any student.
Also, why is there so much preocupation about finding a job related to videogames? That's the first thing I've heard from every class and every person in my school: "I want to be a modeller, I want to be animator"... but almost every person that says that hasn't made any move before entering a college or any school, and they could have. That mentality about landing a career I also think is a problem, because it makes you more centered about finding that dream job than making that thing you supposedly want to do. I personally wouldn't even care that much working as a pizza deliver guy if I have enough time and money to improve myself in what I want to and can stand the work. Blinding people with a big "there's job here" poster I don't think will really help to improve any skills.
And I wouldn't join a degree to get another student's feedback related to modelling, animation or videogames. Between a classroom of 30 people that maybe joined that class because they had to study something and "they like videogames, so let's study videogames" and a whole world behind a screen where you can find professionals pasionated about what they do and eager to help others to improve (which I love PC for; reading some random thread where you see someone letting his ass off to help another user is amazing), I prefer the second option. Also, you wont probably like or talk to all your schoolfellows, and in the end the only critique about your work that matters is yours, and there's a lot of ways of improving that.
I'll be joining an online master degree in some months, so I'm not saying that having any kind of guide is bad, but this is probably one of the best mediums if you want to get self-teached before getting taked by some, more or less, linear path, and I don't think that will ever change.
Thank you for sharing!
I've gone through a computing degree first, with a buildup of a Master in Games Art. Having felt that I missed out on a few of these in both of the degrees, I'm seeking to remedy that on my own now after uni..
I'm the game student that the game design college programs want you to hear about-- I graduated from my program on the Dean's List, started an internship at an AAA 2 months after that (NetherRealm too!), then got a full-time offer from another AAA 3 months after it ended. However, like you, I had almost a decade of corporate graphic design experience, and during school I worked so f****ing hard i bled out my eyesockets. Notably, out of my graduating class of 60 people, I think 2 of us have full-time positions in the industry currently.
I personally would like to see game design programs be more rigorous about expectations, including screening applicants, appropriately disciplining underperformers, and establishing that "my only real interest in life is playing video games" is not a qualification to become a developer, just a way to put yourself in five figures of student loan debt.