[game_edu] watered down CS programs

[Mark Claypool]

Yusuf Pisan writes:
 > Academics are jumping in on the "let's train game" because
 > 
 > 	- Demand from students. They have played games, they know games
 > are cool and now they want to make games, and they want it now.
 > 
 > 	- Demand from "senior" university administrators. They worry about
 > the bottom line. If most of your funding is from student numbers,
 > you will be very sensitive to the demands.

I agree with the above, but want to add one ... let's not forget the
fun factor.  I don't mean in playing games, I mean in teaching about
them.  The reason I've moved to teaching game-related courses is not
because of any of the above reasons (although they provide some
impetus), but because it is fun to teach about games.  Most academics
are teachers by choice (in CS, certainly, it is not about the money
... there is more to be had elsewhere) because it is fun.  And
teaching is often made even more enjoyable by enthusiastic, motivated
students.

 > - Junior academics trying to carve a name for themselves. Making a
 > dent in theoretical computing, algorithms, operating systems and
 > other traditional fields is very difficult, many years of research
 > that must be digested. Games is relatively virgin territory.

I disagree with the above.  At least in network games, an area I
follow closely, there are few junior faculty making games-related
research their primary thrust.  In fact, most of the network games
researchers do their core research elsewhere (in the traditionally
difficult networking field) and do research in network games on the
side, mostly because they like the application domain.  I think this
is the "fun factor" carried over to research, as well.

Moreover, getting game-related research funding from traditional
agencies (such as NSF) is hard and getting such funds from game
industries is even harder.  This makes it even less attractive for
junior faculty to try and make a tenure case in game related research.

Mark

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Mark Claypool   Associate Professor of Computer Science   claypool at cs.wpi.edu
   Worcester Polytechnic Institute   http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/