Are video game degrees fit for purpose?

 

Traditionally a niche medium, video games have recently achieved unprecedented levels of popularity. 60% of the UK population play games with the global industry now worth $18 billion. It is a burgeoning sector with 22,000 employed by the industry in the UK alone. Recent estimates suggest that the sector needs to recruit 1,700 additional staff in the next five years to keep up with international growth.

This demand has been met by a total of 81 UK institutions offering degrees in video game design. Industry campaigner Games Up? has warned, however, that only 4 of these institutions offer courses that are accredited by Skillset, the sector skills council for creative media. In other words, 95% of video game degrees fail to equip graduates with the necessary skills to obtain a job in the industry; in fact, graduates from an accredited course are three times more likely to find employment.

In a presentation delivered last year, entitled `The Pitfalls of Game Development', the head of Electronic Arts' Global Talent Brand, Matthew Jeffrey, stated that game design degrees did not focus on skills essential to the industry. He emphasised that EA preferred maths, physics and computer science graduates who had a greater understanding of core programming skills. In a follow-up interview with Phil Elliott of gamesindustry.biz, Jeffrey noted that only three of the previous 300 staff hires were entry-level game designers and none of these had studied games design degrees.

When a major employer like EA denounces video game degrees, why are so many on offer? Jeffrey likens them to the “latest fashion accessory” in that institutions, on the back of the increasing popularity of video games and the allure of the industry, are hurriedly creating degrees that will attract students, but will not readily lead to employment.

David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments and spokesperson for the Games Up? campaign, echoes EA's emphasis on the more traditional subjects of maths, physics and computer science. He warns that a recent decline in the number of UK graduates from these subjects is about to plunge the video games industry, as well as others, into a recruitment crisis and that the rise of video game degrees will do little to address this as many are “a waste of time for all concerned.”

The problem is that the unaccredited video game degrees focus more on creating art work or developing a story rather than on C++, data structuring, algorithms and memory management which are essential in game programming. Ernest W. Adams, a 19-year veteran of the video games industry, noted in his keynote address at the 2008 Game Developers' Conference that, without incorporating these skills, the degrees, and their graduates, are of very little use to the industry.

Some have alleged that this is a result of institutions putting more emphasis on bringing students in, along with their tuition fees, rather than equipping them properly when they go out. Some institutions may rely on the allure of video gaming but the fact of the matter is that those students who want to game for three years will not necessarily be the best at tackling the demanding nature of programming, which is inherently difficult to learn.

It is also difficult to teach. Many faculties require a great deal of time and funding to construct a strong degree course, something which universities are not prepared to offer on the basis that video games are a senseless waste of time.

The Games Up? campaign is lobbying hard to address this issue in order to improve the quality of the courses on offer and ensure that many more acquire accreditation. But it seems, at least for the moment, that students considering a career in gaming may be better off studying maths, physics or computer science. Not only do they equip them with the requisite skills, they also offer a greater breadth of career choices if they can't, or not longer want to, get in the industry.