[game_edu] type of degree for a new program?

[Mike Edwards]

Our team at Parsons has been doing research across universities into
this subject.  We've come to some tentative conclusions:

* The IGDA guidelines are great, and extremely thorough, but no one
school could implement every course that is in there in a single program
(or track), nor could any student reasonably cover them all in an
undergrad career.

* What seems to be working is to take the school's strengths and parlay
them into the games program.  For example, a school with technical
expertise would pursue something like the BS for programmers and other
technicians and an art school might go for the BA option.

* Many schools have tracks within a games program that combine to form
what is close to a complete implementation of the IGDA curriculum.  A
popular division seems to be Game Programming, Game Art, and Game Design
(narrative, theory, play, etc.).  Game Criticism also seems to be
emerging, though it is more of a traditional liberal arts concentration
like Comparative Lit and Art History than the other more vocational
tracks.


>From your description, it seems like you're leaning toward a Game Design

program (as opposed to Programming or Art).  The BFA degree, it looks
like, is popular for that kind of curriculum.

This is all preliminary research, though, so take it with a grain of
salt ;)  I'd actually love to hear what other people think and where
your experiences and ideas differ.

-Mike

On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 13:55 -0800, Ian Schreiber wrote:

> My own personal opinion is that the difference is largely, um,

> academic. The biggest challenge isn't what letters to put in front of

> it, but creating a useful program in the first place. Game design is

> one of the hardest subject areas because it's so broad, so it could

> really be anything.

>  

> If anything, because the field is so broad, you can say something

> about your concentration. BS in Game Design implies that you

> specialize in systems/technical design. BA tells me your students

> probably take more art courses than programming. BFA sounds like the

> "purest" form of game design, in terms of treating games as their own

> artistic medium. Again, these are just my own gut reactions to the

> letters.

>  

> At the end of the day, the curriculum and faculty should speak for

> itself.

> 

> Kim Gregson <kgregson at ithaca.edu> wrote:

>         Hi everybody,

>         

>         I putting together the paperwork to propose a new

>         degree in game design where I teach. Everybody is

>         pretty positive about it. We're working with folks in

>         computer science and art history. We're basing a lot

>         of it off the IGDA curriculum framework.

>         

>         However, we can not figure out what kind of degree to

>         make it. I teach in a communication school (just for

>         context)

>         

>         I ruled out a BA because I didn't want people to think

>         it was a game studies (critical-cultural) degree.

>         

>         I am leaning against making it a BS because it's not

>         computer engineering or even heavy on math and

>         computer science.

>         

>         The associate dean suggested a BFA because the

>         proposed degree has a lot of requirements, like our

>         other BFA degree. However,it kind of fits because

>         we're going to focus on aspects of game creation that

>         we have strengths in, such as the story telling, the

>         visual look, game audio, as well as the programming

>         and basic design. 

>         

>         Does anyone have any suggestions or examples? Any idea

>         if folks in the industry would recognize the

>         difference (or care) in the letters (as opposed to the

>         actual courses)?

>         

>         Thanks for any feedback...Kim Gregson at Ithaca College

>         

>         

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