The
BBC reports that British game companies are experiencing a skilled labor shortage. David Braben, chairman of Frontier Development and spokesman for the industry's "Games Up?" campaign, believes 95% of video game degrees aren't preparing students for the real world of development. He says that there is no standardization and only four out of the 81 British universities have
Skillset accreditation for video games degrees, which he believes makes the other 77 schools a "waste of time."
Braben went on to say the "dearth" of math and science graduates is hitting the British game industry hard. Business types also point out that Britain's
lack of tax support isn't helping either, as the nation slipped from third to fourth place in game development behind Canada in 2006. We miss the simpler times when it was all about
tightening up the graphics on level three.
[Via
GameDaily]
_thumbnail.jpg "i am 8-bit: 2008")
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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There's quite a few game studios in Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_companies_of_the_United_Kingdom
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Really they should have kept Rose, but Martha was okay and so is Donna. I kinda like Donna a bit more than Martha though. She is very strong-willed and independent.
Fuck. Rose. Tyler.
Martha Jones is and always will be superior, and so will Donna. All Rose could do was whinge about herself and fuck up the timestream.
Fuck. Rose. Tyler.
crazy game industry!
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This is the way of game developement. What is wrong is that there are courses for it at all. Companies are filled with creative people all waiting for a chance to make their games doing jobs that aren't the most exciting thing on the planet. If you believe a bullshit degree from a gaming course should put you ahead of those people who have spent years doing grunt work for a chance to shine I can not agree with you.
I know I would never consider anyone for more than an entry level position who had no experience but had a gaming degree.
So you're say you'd rather Portal, and FlOw had not happened then? I can't agree with you at all man, those are both great games.
And the fact is, as with most industries, there's more than one way to get into the industry. Most people who design/code indie titles, including some of those published on xbla didn't do years in the QA dungeon either. QA is just one path; and let's be completely honest here, I think we both know a couple of testers... so I assume you no doubt know what a shitty path that is to break into games. "Paying dues" my ass, no designer whose work I love started their career as a tester... can you think of any great designers who began life in the testing realm?
No, but can you think of any great designers who started out their careers by obtaining one of these degrees? I'm too lazy to look it up, but I doubt any of the big ones have. There is no "way" to get started, I think all one can do is have an undying passion for it, and start creating things they enjoy out of love for the medium, and just for the sake of creation, and then get noticed by the right person at the right time. Like you mention a little further down, Portal and flOw were born out of game school graduates, but it's highly unlikely that their success came because of their education. It was entirely their passion and their luck.
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You don't study to be creative. I blame such bogus degrees on the dearth of creativity in game design.
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I'm not trying to say the schools aren't crap... but don't be too quick to lay the industry's problems at their feet. Some of these schools/degree programs are crap to be sure; but then you've got schools like full sail turning out teams like the one that produced Portal (surely you find Portal to be a bit innovative?) and That Game Company, whose game flow was, if memory serves, the thesis project of company founder Jenova Chen when he was in USC's game design program.
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Hey, everybody, check out The Catherine Tate Show on DVD and Netflix.
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And let's not forget you're TOTALLY IGNORING the fact that there is more than 1 job in game development. I suck at design, I am not a creative person with gameplay, stories and whatnot but that doesn't matter because I'm looking at going into engine programming, mainly graphics programming. Still requires you to be creative but not in the way you are thinking. It requires logical thinking.
Btw a lot of the courses are crap, I know. My Uni should be on the skill set next year hopefully but it's only in its third year at the moment. We have 4 ex-industry staff, an AI lead from Lionhead, and the lead graphics artist from Motorstorm. I'd say our course is pretty set up. I'm just saying that you can't discredit everyone who goes in and does a games course just because most of the people who go in simply lack the skills.
The main failing comes before University anyway. We need to get kids interested in programming before the situation gets any worse. There's too much focus on IT as opposed to software development. It's all very well teaching kids how to use Access but we need people to build Access in the first place, and whereas other countries are beginning to realise and excel at this, as usual this shithole is miles behind the rest of the world. It's quite sad to see the education system here failing so appallingly.
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And let's not forget you're TOTALLY IGNORING the fact that there is more than 1 job in game development. I suck at design, I am not a creative person with gameplay, stories and whatnot but that doesn't matter because I'm looking at going into engine programming, mainly graphics programming. Still requires you to be creative but not in the way you are thinking. It requires logical thinking.
Btw a lot of the courses are crap, I know. My Uni should be on the skill set next year hopefully but it's only in its third year at the moment. We have 4 ex-industry staff, an AI lead from Lionhead, and the lead graphics artist from Motorstorm. I'd say our course is pretty set up. I'm just saying that you can't discredit everyone who goes in and does a games course just because most of the people who go in simply lack the skills.
The main failing comes before University anyway. We need to get kids interested in programming before the situation gets any worse. There's too much focus on IT as opposed to software development. It's all very well teaching kids how to use Access but we need people to build Access in the first place, and whereas other countries are beginning to realise and excel at this, as usual this shithole is miles behind the rest of the world. It's quite sad to see the education system here failing so appallingly.
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