A quick pointer to an interesting piece on Gamasutra today – the 10 Myths About Game Degrees. Dr Andrew Tuson from City University has set out to debunk some of the popularly held views on games degrees, and has some good insights in the main.
However - his argument seems to me to fall down because it misses a key point – the main reason these ‘myths’ are innacurate is because they assign a value or trait to ‘games degrees’ and I think this article also argues back, without acknowledging the most important point in the debate about the modern games degree and that is, that they are not all the same.
It’s a fallacy (or a myth!) to talk about ‘games degrees’ as a unified section of higher education. UCAS is currently listing nearly 300 courses. Skillset accredits 4. I’m confident that all 10 of these ‘myths’ are exactly that where our network is concerned – graduates of these courses have a better than even chance of getting work, industry values them, students value them, and the institutions invest heavily in maintaining their reputations.
Am I confident of saying that about every new degree program in the UK?
Not really, and employers certainly aren’t – which is what gives rise to these ‘myths’ in the first place. No smoke without fire, I believe is the saying.
The Ten Myths of Games Degrees:
1. Game degrees are easy – students play games all day!
2. There are few jobs in the game industry.
3. Game companies prefer graduates from ‘traditional’ disciplines…
4. …and no one else will want to employ games graduates!
5. All you’ll do is testing.
6. You can learn on the job, no degree required.
7. Your job will be outsourced to India, China, or (insert country of current economic paranoia here).
8. Game programming degrees are more valued than game design degrees (or vice-versa).
9. Game programming degrees produce hackers and nerds.
10. Universities are only in it for the money!
I certainly do think however that there are more courses out there that do not fall victim to any of these statements – if anyone’s interested in proving it why not fill in an application form!
Well – invitations are on their way. 1st of July is the date, and if you are an employer on the look out for talented artists and animators then this is definitely the event for you.
All going swimmingly by all accounts, around 50 students through the doors and through the first round of pitching. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students with all but one indicating they enjoyed the day!
