Skillset Blog

I’ve been to Manchester (didn’t stay for the football though) for Games:Edu and was intending to post live from the event, unfortunately, an unscrupulous wireless provider was unwilling to part with a connection for less that £350.

However - here are my thoughts on (must stress) Matt’s own thoughts which are not in any way representative of either Evolution or SCEE.

Matt’s morning session raised an interesting point, in highlighting attitudes towards games courses in industry alongside some of the more rabid musings of the mainstream press. In identifying the classic entertainment cycle (experienced by books, films, rock and roll and TV) of formation, damnation, acceptance and celebration.

Looking at this, and games themselves seem to be hovering in between damnation and acceptance, it strikes me that the games industry itself is guilty of applying this cycle to games courses.

In the beginning industry involvement sparked the development of courses at places like Abertay. With Skillset’s course approval process we are looking to push acceptance and celebration of games courses (good ones at any rate - part of the acceptance process is accepting that there will always be ‘bad’ examples of the type).

Matt highlights the Hollywood New Wave (Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg et al) and the fact the reason they helped develop mainstream films with a more literate, interesting approach is because they were the first generation of film students from accepted film courses.

If the games industry properly celebrates games courses will we see this generation being replicated, with the next generation of games developers creating artistic, pooular, innovative games? This could engender more acceptance for games themselves in the mainstream.

Asked whether games design should be taught at Universities Matt was positive that it ’should’ be taught. As a theoretical discipline it is a worthy subject and will be necessary for a greater understanding of the medium and to improve the content of games in the future. Lacking a clear definition, a universal language and a good supply of lecturers with the relevant expertise, it is definitely not an easy subject to tackle and one that divides opinion.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Games, Skillset. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but we reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.