[game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

[Gregory Walek]

A striking point which is not in Brenda's Blog post which was made at
GDC (and picked up by Forbes) is how she sorts resumes:
"If you look at my laptop, you'll see two folders of resumes - one is
people who can code and one is the trash."
http://blogs.forbes.com/davidewalt/2011/03/01/want-to-be-a-game-designer
-learn-to-code/

Brenda's argument is that when you are doing digital game design, you
are designing what is to be programmed. If you have no clue to the
underlying fundamentals then you are dead in the water. It's great that
you can talk the talk, if you can't prove you can  walk the walk you are
not worth looking at. 

The kicker here is that these comments are being said by someone whom is
involved with the HIRING process.  

- Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of jparker
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 12:54 PM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

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-cod
e-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

> game_edu at igda.org

> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>

>


-- 
 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

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