[game_edu] game_edu Digest, Vol 71, Issue 2

[John Jamison]

Great question Ian,

I used to direct a national game & sim programming degree program, and
always had a few ideas I had hoped to make happen with a couple of 'willing'
game companies.

- One was to simply initiate a monthly 1-hour live webinar with my students
and some good folks in a company from the industry. Each month would be a
specific topic being addressed by the company..."What games or game ideas
have you rejected recently, and why?", "What is the absolute hardest thing
about doing it 'right'?", "What are the top three things you would do
differently if you were starting over?"...those kinds of things. The nice
thing about webinars is that they take an hour...no major prep, no travel,
and they are great for give & take.

- We were lucky to have a company work with us on idea #2, which was to send
us a pile of old game design docs, most of which were from games that had
been shelved, or that weren't otherwise 'super-top-secret'. Seeing these
'real' documents gave the students more motivation to spend the time
creating them in those cursed assignments.

- I always thought it would be cool if a company would farm-out some
challenging "code challenges" for students...some pieces of games that
students could work on and have the opportunity to spend time with 'real'
issues. A simple agreement document could be drafted to make this all
'legal' and clarify ownership, etc. My students would have signed most
anything to have the opportunity to participate in some 'real' code-work.

- The free software/free whatever thing is always talked about, but I
thought it would be great to do something like that monthly webinar thing
again, but have some real 'game-guys' spend some time showing some of their
little "bet ya didn't know you could do this" for various pieces of software
they use. This kind of brain-stretching could be loads of fun. My guess is
that some of my students could have shown some company guys a few things
they didn't know too.

I always found companies very interested in helping out and increasing the
interaction with students, but at the same time they were challenged by the
lack of time and tight financials to spend too much time in that direction.
So I'm looking for those 'little' pieces that could still carry a huge
amount of payoff for the learners...

Just my thoughts,

John


----------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> Message: 1

> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:39:46 -0700 (PDT)

> From: Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com>

> Subject: [game_edu] What would you want from a game company?

> To: game_edu at igda.org

> Message-ID: <258762.38248.qm at web39702.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>

> Hi everyone,

>

> Just had an interesting discussion with a colleague about potential value

> that a

> large game company (something like EA, Blizzard, Zynga, etc.) could offer

> schools on a large scale.

>

> I realize there is always the danger that the "value" could be a

> thinly-veiled

> sales pitch for "how to educate your students to get hired at our studio,

> screw

> liberal arts and screw the rest of the industry"... but for the purposes of

> this

> discussion, let's assume it's not like that, that this would be a genuine

> offer

> of assistance.

>

> This could be anything: resources for students, resources for faculty,

> whatever.

> Assume an offer of time, not money. (Saying "they could give a generous

> grant to

> our institution" is too easy and too obvious :-)

>

> What kinds of things could a game company offer that would make you

> absolutely

> thrilled if you saw it on, say, this mailing list? I had my own ideas, but

> would

> be interested in seeing other opinions.

>

> If you're wondering why I'm asking, it's because I get the feeling that a

> lot of

> things that would be of huge value to us collectively are things that some

> companies would be very willing to give in the name of improving game

> education,

> and it's just a matter of using the strength of our numbers (and the

> numbers of

> the IGDA in general) to make it happen. So far most of these sorts of

> academic-industry collaborations have been between a single school and a

> single

> studio, which just means that every one of us has to reinvent the wheel

> with

> every studio. It'd be nice to find a better way.

>

> Thanks,

> - Ian

>

>

>

-- 
John Jamison, PhD.
john at imagilearning.com
217.416.4506
Skype: virtualbacon
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jjamison
Zintro: http://www.zintro.com/expert/John-Jamison

Second Life
"Virtual Bacon"
http://slurl.com/secondlife/imagiLEARNING/38/5/21

Ask me about Tranceformational Learning!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_edu/attachments/20100812/92538ed1/attachment.htm>