[game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

[Adam Parker]

This was an interesting read, thanks to Brenda and everyone so far. It's
provoked the following opinionated, rough-edited response from me, speaking
from a game design lecturer’s perspective.

1) Game design is about making – in part. Students must make, make, make,
and code is implicit in this. Coding is thus vital, and everything I say
from here in needs to be read in light of my actual desire that all my
design students should learn to code.

Code, however, isn’t game design in itself. It is pointless to learn to code
without having any idea about *what* to code. This is the path that avoids
making “FPS Clone MLXXVIII” solely because we can’t think of anything
better. Critical awareness is thus of vital importance in a competitive
business framework, and needs to be front and centre in design training.

Yes, code is good. But so are a range of other skills, such as conceptual
development, and by that I don’t mean simple brainstorming. I mean learning
to use knowledge gained from encountering recent developments in other
design disciplines, in critical thinking and the social sciences, in
neuropsychology, in HCI, in computer engineering, in the arts. I mean
learning to develop concepts in themselves. I mean reading philosophy for
its power to reorient your complacent headspace. I mean engaging with ideas
because they will help guide your pen and keyboard.

A fundamental question being: exactly what, my dear student, do you think
that you making? and why? and for who? Technical skills training alone
brings the clone menace.

2) One does not need to construct an image editor to develop complex image
compositions. Instead, one needs skills in image composition. At some point,
game engines may allow bypassing traditional, language-based coding skills
for designers – but I suspect the core of systems thinking coupled with
making, otherwise known as design practice, will remain.

Game design involves the functional decomposition of problems, and the
generation of potential approaches to addressing those problems, in the
service of the manifestation of systems of play. If focused solely on coding
skills, the ideal course Brenda is describing already has a name: it’s a
very over-focused Bachelors Degree in Games Programming, and one that verges
on technical training rather than degree training, where we are concerned
with the development of the human potential of the student as much as their
technical skill level.

3) Design training is more about learning and practicing thinking in the
service of manifesting systems, and not just about particular technical
disciplines. In this model, particular technical disciplines are thus
vectors for design training. A designer is one who continually develops
their understanding of methods for addressing problems, for getting to the
root of what matters in a given context. This person will often move from a
home technical discipline, following a shift in practical interests. I did
this, moving from interaction design to games design, and I am hardly
unique.

So, I would argue that what Brenda talks about when she mentions people
being unable to move from board games to digital, or from RPG to FPS, is
actually evidence of the limited state of design knowledge in the workplace
to date, and not a reflection on the innate nature of design practice
itself.

4) In the degree program that I lecture into, we train all our designers in
a range of code methods, such as Unrealscript, Darkbasic, C#, Javascript,
engines like Unity and UDK, as well as making them work with programmers who
are using Visual Studio, Xcode, UDK, Unity and custom tools. So, I think
this article reflects a personal epiphany on Brenda’s part, rather than any
factual account of the place of code in contemporary game design education.
That being said, I know there are schools that do not teach code in game
design at all. I agree that this could be considered lacking, but it depends
on the context.

The three points that Brenda raises at the end to identify a good program
might be sufficient grounds for a technical skills diploma in game
development, but do not serve to structure degree education in game design.
Where is the conceptual practice here? Where is the reflective practice? The
innovative practice? What stands in the way of the making of *Clone of Duty
XIII: With Us or Against Us*? I refer to my point 1 above.

Game designers coming from a degree background need to have sufficient
critical skills to question the technical practice within which they are
developing mastery. Without this stream of reflective practitioners, our
innovation well runs dry. This requires situated theory, necessarily taking
us much beyond learn-to-make simplicity.

5) Game design may seem like low hanging fruit, but far from it. It requires
rigour as any other discipline. Personally, I advocate an approach grounded
in interaction design, modulated through spatial design practices such as
architecture and industrial design processes. I also agree that the social
sciences are vital – interaction designers recognise this, so should game
designers. More ethnography! But I am only one person and might be wrong.

However, a model like this means that we can now approach the training
problem from a perspective that integrates game design into the notion of
design in a wider sense – making graduates more likely to find employment
outside the area. In other words, games are a vector for teaching design,
and thus for introducing students to a wide choice of possible alternative
futures beyond the narrow set of preferences they currently hold.
-- 
Adam Parker
Senior Lecturer, Games Design
Qantm College

Qantm College Melbourne Campus
235 Normanby Rd
South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia

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