[game_edu] Mutual respect - WAS: loopy Proposal - The Aggies!

[Alex Jarvis]

Mike,
  I completely understand what you are saying here- my personal opinion as a
student is that I do not think the 'Game Studies' (for lack of a better
term, although this is one I enjoy) program need be nailed down to the
computer department. I would n ot discount the programs already in place
that are computer intensive, but what I would like to see is a class (or
series of classes) that focus on theory- where books like Rules of
play<http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=9802>or
A
Theory of Fun <http://www.theoryoffun.com/> are the text- all the while, of
course, in league with the CS or equivalent department to put what they
learned in the theory classes into practice. As you said; not impossible.
It's not necessarily writing, that would be the focus, but on pure theory
and mechanics.
  In terms of experience, where it is undoubtedly a great asset, I agree
with Mike that it is not necessarily required.

And in terms of getting support from game companies- I have gotten some
success by creating my own organization at my school- which could be
recognized as an independent  studio, despite the fact we are 'under the
umbrella' of the university.

Alex

On Dec 5, 2007 9:25 AM, Mike Reddy <Mike.Reddy at newport.ac.uk> wrote:


> Executive Summary:

> ------------------

> There is an ongoing problem with the perception of what universities can

> offer the games industry, from both sides. The best way to overcome this is

> public recognition of academics' contributions. This should go beyond

> curriculum issues (Skillset) to applied research and collaborations between

> the industry and academia: "Let us build your A.I. for you Sir!" No, the

> suggested awards should not serve to isolate educational institutions from

> the industry, but must involve the industry as well. It should also attempt

> to heal the rift between the "creatives" and the "techies", which is

> completely artificial. Otherwise, it would completely fail to address the

> problem.

>

> The appologetically extended version:

> -------------------------------------

> Not sure I agree with "Alex Jarvis" <adrenjarvi at gmail.com> on Mark

> Baldwin's response to my suggestion when he said "That was an incredibly

> well-thought out response, and I have taken it to heart."

>

> My first reading of this was that it was slightly petulant, but this might

> be a response to probably more flippancy in my original post than was ideal.

> Sorry.

>

> To set a context, here are a few other interviews that shaped my frame of

> mind the other day:

>

> http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30715

>

> is particularly bad at making sweeping generalisations about the

> university structure, which underlies my assertation of a lack of respect

> for what academics have to offer.

>

> http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30968 (my original url

> of rant)

>

> had me seething with the statement "that with a university it takes at

> least three years to change a course. If a lecturer now sees that companies

> are using a new language to program in, it'll take him three years to

> implement it in the course." Brenda, your response on your blog is SO

> reassuring! Dead on Brenda. All this interview proves is that there is a

> need for trained individuals and that Qantm see universities as their main

> competitor. But I'd like to go further (a bit later on in my rant) and make

> the case that there are reasons why uni's are behind, and why they should be

> (and are to some degree) ahead.

>

> http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30973

>

> has the clearly ridiculous claim that "The students are asking for fast

> laptops, and all they have is one 386, probably without even the right

> software..."

>

> Well, apart from the marketing hype, which needs to be take with a huge

> grain of salt, most well equiped uni's have far better kit than this for the

> gamers; often at the expence of other student groups. I know that when

> prospective students come to our campus for open days, they often make the

> decision to come to us, purely on the basis that we take them into our

> bespoke games lab and say "This belongs to you. You even have complete admin

> rights..." I am sure that we are not alone in this respect. I have just been

> asked to spec out the new games lab for our purpose built new campus for

> 2010 and the kit will play Crysis rather well, over three monitors. Far

> better than a 386 with the wrong software...

>

> While Alex's battle to get recognition for games in a computing

> environment is similar to that received by multimedia, which also

> historically has been split between the arts and technology stools, we

> should also remember the early days of film and photography; Mark makes

> reference to Film Studies being taught in Physics departments, but I am not

> sure that this is a perfect analogy. In the beginning, photography and later

> film were pretty much Chemistry, followed by a period of reproduction that

> "proper" art did not recognise. Look at the brief rejection of digital

> cameras, now seen as a rather laughably short revolution. People don't

> consider the celluloid or the CCD when considering the medium of film

> nowadays; it is practically invisible. Yet, this is not the case for

> computer games, where the delivery mechanism is integral to the media;

> imagine trying to get Crysis onto a PS2 for example, or E.A.s recent call

> for a common hardware platform. Hard computer science will continue to be a

> backbone for the games industry for some time to come.

>

> At the recent Games Career Fair in London, I polled the developers

> attending - some of whom have former Newport graduates working for them

> already - and the programming guys were pretty much of the same mind: They

> need really good Software Engineering graduates, who ideally have learned

> these skills in the context of games development; the latter was not a

> requirement. What they often asked for were students who had been allowed to

> specialise in their preferred field, rather than having been taught a

> homogenous course, where everyone does too little of everything. This is

> hard to do in a university setting, but is achievable.

>

> NOTE: This is at odds with 20 years ago, when formally trained programmers

> were the last people the Industry wanted; they wanted the maverick bedroom

> hackers, who could understand the creative nature of making games and would

> probably have to do pretty much everything from designing pixels to story

> development.

>

> The other thing that prospective employers ask us for is the life skills

> of team work and good communication.

>

> In our case, there are two sister courses at Newport: A BA in Games

> Design, taught in the Arts, Media and Design School; and the BSc in Games

> Development and A.I. in the Computing Department (itself part of the

> Newport Business School - don't ask...). We teach both sets of students

> collaboratively on several modules in the second year, recently recognised

> as "Best Practice by the HEA". The ratio of 2:1 artists to programmers is

> not unreasonable, given the industry ratios where content generators are

> usually double the techies over the lifetime of a game. What the students

> actually get from this experience is what it is really like to work between

> two different disciplines. What we rarely get is a finished game, but a

> wonderful train wreck that the survivors look back on as a "wonderfully

> formative experience." We know that they can look interviewers in the eye

> and confidently state that they know what team work involves.

>

> So Alex's discomfort (my interpretation) and Mark's dismissal of Games

> Studies (not a name that I did or would use, as it is too closely linked to

> the tarred term "Media Studies".) as not belonging in a computer science

> department seems a little dismissive, if not patronising in the latter case

> [P.S. It's Wales, not Whales - they are large mammals.]

>

> It is a common target to question the validity of teaching games

> development without the pedigree of games experience. One could question the

> validity of entering higher education without the background in pedagogy and

> educational studies. It would be really facitious to ask Mark what his

> educational experience was; just because he has made a game, does that mean

> that he can teach this?

>

> IMPORTANT NOTE: The previous paragraph is not to be taken as flame. I am

> well aware of Mark Baldwin's pedigree and it is perfectly possible (probably

> inevitable) that experience managing teams of game developers is perfect

> experience for an educational environment. We should just not allow

> ourselves to fall into the "If they couldn't do, they taught" mentality.

>

> I would say that the ideal background would be experience in the Industry,

> but I think that universities would have as much trouble filling these roles

> as the Industry has filling some of its job positions. [P.S. Any developer

> in the South West/Wales area who would have me on a sabbatical for a few

> months to a year, please email me!] I think that as pointed out by some

> other posters, Industry links are the second best, and often most realistic,

> option available to universities who genuinely want to contribute the the

> Industry. Skillset is one pathway for this. However, I don't think that we

> should merely be looking at curriculum development here. And we should not

> blindly accept the dichotomy that the creative and technical sides of

> computer games are mutually exclusive and divided. There is just as much

> creativity in nailing that excellent shader code as there is in the

> over-arching story arc... Anyone who insists that my better students are not

> creative, despite the fact that most of them will never be "games

> designers," and are more likely to work on game engine, A.I. toolsets,

> etc, has an incomplete knowledge of the different contributions that

> individuals make towards the end result.

>

> Mark noted it, and Alex asked how academia can learn to better respect

> games as a legitimate area of study. I can only speak from a technical

> standpoint, but computer departments that recognise the need for cutting

> edge, optimised graphics, physics and multi-threaded processing should (and

> sometimes do) respect these technical aspects and respect them as being

> legitimate paths of research; they have so many other applications and are

> really accessible because the research platforms are within reach of even

> modest grants as the end hardware is in the £100s rather than the £10,000s.

> Having said that, Newport has just put its money where its mouth is this

> month, having awarded £20,000 or thereabouts in kit to pump prime

> games-related research and consultancy.

>

> University research is often applied, and used directly by other

> industries: I have co-ordinated two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

> (KTP)programmes http://www.ktponline.org.uk/ where academic research

> directly benefitted companies, with financial support. Here may be an as yet

> untapped source of R&D funding for games companies. That would be a cool way

> for academia to give something back, and make those necessary industry

> links.

>

> What is really frustrating when I read about universities being behind the

> industry is the fact that it is almost impossible to get access to the

> industry standard development tools that they are criticising us for not

> having. With the exception of Sony's PSP initiative (which still needs an

> approval process btw. Fingers crossed for our recent application.) and to a

> lesser extent the Microsoft XNA experiment, it is not possible to buy dev

> kits, at any price, from console manufacturers. They will often only sell to

> licenced developers who have gone through numerous hoops to get approval.

> When asked, several companies have expressed a distinct lack of trust in

> educational establishments. So, it is annoying when we get the funds to

> purchase current tools, only to be politely refused. I think that this is

> one of the few legitimate areas where universities can be identified as

> being behind.

>

> In terms of research into graphics, A.I. networks, etc, most if not all

> techniques in use in the industry today have come from academic research;

> check out SciGraph for example. And not to underplay the educational and

> artistic areas of games, humanities departments have much to offer as well,

> if the industry would only let them. It's a two way street. It would be

> interesting to hear from this quarter, and I would definitely want to

> include them in any Aggie award line-up.

>

> Mike

>

> P.S. An edited version of this rant will soon be winging its way to

> gamesindustry .biz as a response to some of the silly stuff url'ed above.

> Comments, criticisms and suggestions welcome.

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-- 
Alex Jarvis
Ludology Student
http://ludologistjarvi.blogspot.com/
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