Game schools?

[Captain N]

I know there are several schools dedicated to just game design but I want a minor in business and I doubt they offer it. So I was wondering, do any other colleges offer game design as a major? I know I read an article in EGM about it a while ago but I can't remember any of the schools. Is there like a search engine for majors or something I can use?

[Rayo]

Why bother jumping ship on a dying cause. Its killing itself its killing dignity and eventually will explode in on itself take all you dorks with it. Forget about it your chances are slim to make it in the industry anyway. Your first game would be about meatball subs anyway and that wouldn't take off.

[Blank]

University of Advancing Technology
Full Sail
Art Institutes (numerous)

I'd reccomend UAT, like me. But as you said, it's a tech school. So if you want to switch your major, your choices are slim.

[Carps]

I believe Carnegie Mellon is offering one. I'm in my final year studying acting there, but I'm sure I can get you more information if you're interested.

[DeadMan]

I am trying to find the issue, I believe it was the September one... But somehow it is missing :|

[Octocamo]

I am trying to find the issue, I believe it was the September one... But somehow it is missing :|

They had one like 2 years ago. It's under my bed probably. Good article.

[Tom the First]

Champlain College offers a major in Game Design, and they have somthing called an "upside down curriculum," so you actually start making games the first year instead of doing the boring stuff. The Game Design major is all team based.

[Captain N]

University of Advancing Technology
Full Sail
Art Institutes (numerous)

I'd reccomend UAT, like me. But as you said, it's a tech school. So if you want to switch your major, your choices are slim.

It's not that I want to switch my major, I want a minor in business so if I can't get a job in the industry I have something to fall back on.

[AcquiredTarget]

What about the one college that has the G4 ad with those two meatheads? Collins University or something like that.

[Blackwolf]

What about the one college that has the G4 ad with those two meatheads? Collins University or something like that.

Considering how completely inaccurate that commercial is for Westwood College about how the game industry works, I'm afraid to see how completely inaccurate the material they teach in their courses is.

[dcNate]

Go to a real college, not one of those crappy Full Sail ones that just rip you off. Game companies probably won't take you from a 'gaming college' unless you had still to begin with. Better to go to a real college, like the Carnegie Mellon route. I believe their program has connections to EA, so if you want to sell your soul (you will anyway to pay for CM), go that route.

[eswat]

Go to a real college, not one of those crappy Full Sail ones that just rip you off. Game companies probably won't take you from a 'gaming college' unless you had still to begin with. Better to go to a real college, like the Carnegie Mellon route. I believe their program has connections to EA, so if you want to sell your soul (you will anyway to pay for CM), go that route.

I concur, while your studying at a real college you could be modding pc games and get some experience in whatever field you want without having to pay a tuition fee.

[Blank]

Go to a real college, not one of those crappy Full Sail ones that just rip you off. Game companies probably won't take you from a 'gaming college' unless you had still to begin with. Better to go to a real college, like the Carnegie Mellon route. I believe their program has connections to EA, so if you want to sell your soul (you will anyway to pay for CM), go that route.

Well this puts a damper on my route. I have no other option than to not believe you.

[Blind Unknown]

I wish it were the 80's-early 90's. Much much MUCH easier to get into the industry back then.

I know I would love to make games for a living, but I'm realistic too. Odds are greatly against me. And all of you, BTW. I'm still deciding what other career I would like that doesn't involve gaming. Have yet to think of one.

[Blank]

I wish it were the 80's-early 90's. Much much MUCH easier to get into the industry back then.

I know I would love to make games for a living, but I'm realistic too. Odds are greatly against me. And all of you, BTW. I'm still deciding what other career I would like that doesn't involve gaming. Have yet to think of one.

Odds are not against you if you understand you have to be the best at what you do to be noticed. This industry, though rapidly growing and becoming much more difficult to get into should not disuade you from your passion. I know what I have to do and I intend on being the top of my class. You should aim for the same recognition.

[Blackwolf]

Well this puts a damper on my route. I have no other option than to not believe you.

Let me put a different spin on it, then.

Nate is right, to a point. There are a few "game design" colleges that are actually great in the industry. I can't remember the ones off hand, but the ones that are 12-14 month courses are apparently really loved by game companies. Why? Because you're in "crunch mode" the entire time. You are eating, sleeping, and breathing your classwork. If your classwork assignment gets behind, the teacher then cancels your project, just like in the game industry.

So, once you get out in the game industry, you think it's all a walk in the park because you busted your ass more in school than you did at work. Then, when crunch mode really comes at the end of the development cycle, you're breezing through it because it's more what you're used to from school.

The bad part is, all you know is game programming. If, for some reason, you get laid off and can't get another job and need to make ends meet, you won't necessarily be able to get a traditional software consulting job because you don't know many of the things traditional companies need - THAT'S what's taught at more conventional Universities.

The honest-to-god best route is to get a CS degree, work in the traditional software consulting industry in the daytime and do full games in your spare time. When I say full, I mean down to the installer and documentation. The last 10% of any game development is NOT FUN. It's not designing or creating, it's doing the gruntwork to make sure that other people can install and play your game. 95% of amateur game projects stop at this stage, or even before it.

You've got a good shot if you just came out of a rigorous game design school, but you also have a good shot if you have a more traditional CS degree and have experience in the software industry while STILL devoting your free time to writing, and finishing games.

[Blank]

Well, the schedule I have set up is year round for two and a half years. Plus, I've got some pretty good plans coming. We're forming a team for a game. Now, before anyone chuckles, I am aware that many people say this and it often never gets past doodles and a bunch of radical ideas that would be hell to program. We've actually been very cautious about this idea. We're hoping to make our engine for it too. Though this is considered suicide, pulling it off would give us an incredible edge over our competition at UAT or GDC.

[Sub-Z]

Considering how completely inaccurate that commercial is for Westwood College about how the game industry works, I'm afraid to see how completely inaccurate the material they teach in their courses is.

I like how they talk about tightening up the graphics a little bit.... on what looks like a PS1 because of their controllers. :)

[Gene Starwind]

I like how they talk about tightening up the graphics a little bit.... on what looks like a PS1 because of their controllers. :)
And we all know you make games with PS1 controllers.

[Oomba]

Go to any major college with computer science degrees. I'm considering Savanna College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, cuz it looks sweet.

[Captain N]

The bad part is, all you know is game programming. If, for some reason, you get laid off and can't get another job and need to make ends meet, you won't necessarily be able to get a traditional software consulting job because you don't know many of the things traditional companies need - THAT'S what's taught at more conventional Universities.


Sorry for bumping this but I only have limited net access.

Not to ignore the rest of what you said BW, but that quote is exactly why I want to stay away from a game design school. I know trying hard and putting effort works off, but i'm way to pessamistic to put my eggs in one basket.

I'm looking at alot of the colleges mentioned and Champlain is sizing up to be pretty good. I just had a few more questions.

I have like 0 experience in anything even close to HTML, coding, programming anything. Are these courses just like jump in with knowledge already had?

This one is more college based but just how legitamate is a minor degree? I'm deciding wether or not to minor in GD or major and just minor major business.

[Blank]

Sorry for bumping this but I only have limited net access.

Not to ignore the rest of what you said BW, but that quote is exactly why I want to stay away from a game design school. I know trying hard and putting effort works off, but i'm way to pessamistic to put my eggs in one basket.

I'm looking at alot of the colleges mentioned and Champlain is sizing up to be pretty good. I just had a few more questions.

I have like 0 experience in anything even close to HTML, coding, programming anything. Are these courses just like jump in with knowledge already had?

This one is more college based but just how legitamate is a minor degree? I'm deciding wether or not to minor in GD or major and just minor major business.


Anywhere you go with Game Design, you'll likely have the same feelings. Now knowing you personally Blake I can only assume you want to be successful but confident in your choices. If this is the case and you're worried in majoring Game Design, I highly suggest you major in Business. Business is a far more broad field and you'll have much higher chances of hitting it big.

I chose Game Design because I believe that I have something in it. I think that I'll hit it big and become a huge name in the business. I'm confident in that, but at the same time am willing to accept my actions if it fails. I do have a few backup routes (script writer, artist, etc.), but anywhere I go I'm basically cursed to be a starving artist.

If you want my personal opinion on your choice, I say you stick with Business.

[AcquiredTarget]

$.02
I'd second what BM sez. A biz degree will give you a better chance of finding work if the company you're working for sends its development overseas. Or if you find you don't like working in the game industry (shudder)

[Tom the First]

When I talked to Ben Saywer of DigitalMill (he's a big game industry expert), he said I could take my knowledge of game design to other jobs. But hey, it's just from a game industry expert, so what would he know?

[eswat]

When I talked to Ben Saywer of DigitalMill (he's a big game industry expert), he said I could take my knowledge of game design to other jobs. But hey, it's just from a game industry expert, so what would he know?

Depending on what you took to get a game design job in a first place, you could get a job somewhere else. Doubt a degree in game design and previous experience as a technical game designer would help you put in an Oracle database in another job :confused:

[Blackwolf]

When I talked to Ben Saywer of DigitalMill (he's a big game industry expert), he said I could take my knowledge of game design to other jobs. But hey, it's just from a game industry expert, so what would he know?

Not much about the rest of the software industry, apparently.

Sure, you can take some stuff with you, but if all you know is game design you are absolutely fucked when needing to do what the majority of software consultants do outside of the gaming industry. There's nothing you know from game design that can help you develop backend financial or manufacturing applications unless your game just happened to be an MMORPG and you happened to work on the server side that interfaced with the databases and utilized the socket layer.

Likewise, if all you know is financial/manufacturing backend application development, you can't take that knowledge with you into game design. It works both ways. That's why it helps to not specialize. Learn a little bit about everything, and then expand on that knowledge when you get that job, and you'll also have something to fall back on when you get laid off from your game job.

[Wildarms7000]

You're Stupid, You'll make stupid games

[Blank]

Not much about the rest of the software industry, apparently.

Sure, you can take some stuff with you, but if all you know is game design you are absolutely fucked when needing to do what the majority of software consultants do outside of the gaming industry. There's nothing you know from game design that can help you develop backend financial or manufacturing applications unless your game just happened to be an MMORPG and you happened to work on the server side that interfaced with the databases and utilized the socket layer.

Likewise, if all you know is financial/manufacturing backend application development, you can't take that knowledge with you into game design. It works both ways. That's why it helps to not specialize. Learn a little bit about everything, and then expand on that knowledge when you get that job, and you'll also have something to fall back on when you get laid off from your game job.


Well I'm sure a game design degree does not force you to stick to technical jobs. I'm sure you could also use your artistic sides to find work as well, no? I mean, a game designer is a pretty broad field in learning from what I understand. A game designer must be familiar with many different talents in a project and must excel in some. Perhaps you could land a job as a project coordinator with game design experience, or writing?

I guess it all depends on how much work you really put into your education.

[Captain N]

You're Stupid, You'll make stupid games

Yeah, puberity'll make you a little cranky WA

[Kir0s]

Go to USC.

[Ichiban]

Likewise, if all you know is financial/manufacturing backend application development, you can't take that knowledge with you into game design. It works both ways. That's why it helps to not specialize. Learn a little bit about everything, and then expand on that knowledge when you get that job, and you'll also have something to fall back on when you get laid off from your game job.

Thats what I believe, thats why I am currently studying Computer Engineering which is a mix of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I really like this because Im (acording to my teacher) really good at the computer science side, but I know next to nothing on the engineering side, so I really enjoy these classes.

Now I've looked into a few game design colleges and I didnt like them. I felt they didnt have the course to really get me understanding I need to create games. One of the colleges I was looking at only taugh up to College Algebra which I learned in High school, and didnt teach any of the physics. If I am givin a section on a project working with the physics engine, I would at least want to know and understand what the formulas are doing befor I just throw them in some code and hope they are doing what I want them to be doing. And as I figured out in the Computer Graphics course I took last semester, it's not really easy just to transfer Physics and linear algebra formulas into programming code. Sometimes it was just weird, sometimes it took some Calculus work around to get it working properly, but anyways, I would feel a lot better at least taking these classes and understanding what they do and are use for before just throwing formulas into code.

Also if you are looking for a college that you can learn the Computer Science you need to do game design, and still have something to fall back on if you either dont get a job in the industry or get fired/laid off, my college has a lot of good majors and isnt that bad of a school. But I will warn you it's not easy and lot of work. http://capitol-college.edu/ Trust me, if you graduate from here you will get a job and quickly, they have connection with NSA, FBI, NASA, Lockheed, and other companies (to many to name right now).