The industry's fast growth means more US students are studying game design, writes Alex Pham
THE THUKRALS wanted their son, Dhruv, to go into nanotechnology. So when he told them he'd rather be a video game developer, he might as well have said he wanted to join the circus.
"Are you serious?" they asked.
He was. The 21-year-old USC graduate proved it by switching the focus of his computer science doctorate to video game programming. He then tried to convince his parents back home in New Delhi that helping people have fun was a legitimate, lucrative career. He peppered them with articles about the video game industry, which is expected to generate global revenue of nearly $50 billion this year. He sent them annual reports of some of the industry's top companies. They relented.
"Awareness is growing and more students are interested," said Thukral, who in 2004 became one of the inaugural students in USC's graduate programme for video game development.
Game design has helped rekindle interest in computer science and is a hot subject at more than 200 schools in the US, according to the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group. As making games crosses several disciplines, the diversity of programmes that offer such courses is staggering: fine arts colleges, engineering schools, film schools, music schools and even drama programmes are sending graduates into the fast-growing industry.
"Some programmes throw a drama guy together with a programming guy to see what they come up with," said Bing Gordon, a venture capitalist and former chief creative officer for games group Electronic Arts. "Games is the ultimate interdisciplinary art."
When video games emerged in the late 1970s, their creators tended to be hobbyists working in bedrooms and garages. Now, companies recruit armies to work in studios. They invent characters, write dialogue, compose music, create lavish digital scenes and write the software that rules these worlds. A blockbuster game can require more than 100 developers to work for two or more years.
"Just like everything else, universities are about following the money," said Jessie Schell, who teaches game design at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburgh. Colleges really began to take notice about six years ago, when the game industry's sales started to rival movie box-office receipts, Schell said. Since then, he said, there's been a "great boom" in the number of programmes cropping up to train future developers.
One of them is Expression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, California. Founded in 1999 to teach computer graphics and sound design for the movie industry, the school created a course for video game designers last year after seeing so many of its graduates join the profession.
Gordon said the better programmes tended to emphasise teamwork among students with different skills. "It's mind-bending technology, combined with clever game design, glorious artwork and beautiful audio," Schell said. "There's no one person on the team who can do it all. We think of it like team inventing."
USC takes a similar tack. In May, students from its computer science, film, music and art programmes gathered to show off their game projects to a crowd of about 60 industry recruiters. One was Matt Coohill, creative director of Digital Domain, a visual effects company that's branching into games. "The skills they teach here fit perfectly with what we're trying to do," Coohill said.
USC's games programme has boosted interest in the school's computer science department, said Mike Zyda, director of the USC GamePipe Lab, which hosted the event. When Zyda came to the university in 2005 to organise a games curriculum, the computer science department counted 52 students taking three game development courses. This spring, the department taught 379 students in 18 game development classes.
However, recruiters say they often see university "mills" that churn out as many students as possible. Other programmes teach specific skills, but not how games are pulled together.
"It's a very hot academic growth area," said Colleen McCreary, who runs EA's university relations programme. "I'm very worried about the number of community colleges and for-profit institutions as well as four-year programmes that are using game design as a lure for students who are not going to be prepared for the real entry-level positions that the industry wants."
Among established programmes, success in placing students in jobs is high. About one-third of Carnegie Mellon's graduates work at EA, said Cindy Nicola, its vice-president of talent acquisition. The company soaks up close to 300 new graduates each year from various universities.
"You've got kids who wake up saying: 'I want to be a game developer when I grow up,'" she said.
One of them is Paul Bellezza (26), who says he thinks of games "as the new dominant form of entertainment". He was so desperate to enrol in the USC school of cinema he showed up uninvited to many of its events. After months of schmoozing, he got in.
There, he teamed with another student, Matt Korba, to produce a title called The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom. They graduated from the masters programme in May and formed their own company, Odd Gentlemen, in Los Angeles. "This is my dream job," Bellezza said. However, working in the business isn't always a bed of roses, particularly for entry-level game testers. Bellezza did it for a year before going to USC.
"Imagine having to play a video game that's not as good as the ones you get to play at home," said David SJ Hodgson, co-author of the book Video Game Careers.
However, rewards await those who stick it out. The average annual salary last year for developerswas $73,600, not including bonuses and stock options, according to a 2007 survey by Game Developer magazine.
Gordon had this message for other students: "We're starved for talent. So hurry up and graduate."
Some don't even have to graduate. Thukral got a job offer at EA's mobile games division. He took it and is now working on his doctorate at night. His parents, he said, were very pleased.
