[game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

[jparker]

Interesting rant, and she certainly has credentials.

Still, I don't think that game designers are necessarily excellent 
programmers. They need to understand limits and possibilities, and to be 
able to communicate well with programmers. Game design is not a 
programming task, and game development is not a software business. It's 
a business that does involve software to be sure. Computer science 
programs (in my observation over only the past 12 years) produce 
relatively poor game designers, as their focus is rather different than 
that of most design fields. It makes as much sense that a CS major could 
design a good chair or house as design a good game. And in fact, the 
game programmers on a team traditionally have relatively little input to 
the creative process (again, there are certainly exceptions, and things 
are changing in some places).

If a game designer has a vast knowledge of programming that could be a 
good thing. I don't believe it to be a requirement. Thus the question is 
'is it worth the time needed to become an excellent programmer'? That's 
hard to answer with authority.

Jim

On 3/3/2011 8:38 AM, Peter Border wrote:

> For anybody else who's stuck at home this week.

>

> http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/built-on-a-foundation-of-code-game-edu-rant/

>

> Peter Border

> Game and Application Design Chairman

> Globe University/Minnesota School of Business

> 1401 West 76th St

> Richfield, MN 55423

> pborder at msbcollege.edu

> ________________________________________

>

> _______________________________________________

> game_edu mailing list

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>

>


-- 
 From Hauptmann
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The inflated  style is itself a  kind of euphemism.  A mass of Latin
words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and
covering up all  the details. The  great enemy of  clear language is
insincerity.                                          —George Orwell

Dr. J. R. Parker,                    Digital Media Laboratory
Professor of Play                    http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jparker
Faculty of Fine Arts                 jparker@ ucalgary.ca
University of Calgary                403-220-6784      AB606/AB611