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

[Gregory Walek]

A lot of what I'm writing deals with school-studio relations. Where I
think what Ian is trying to leverage the IGDA for is to break open door
and change expectations from studios. (If I got this wrong Ian, please
clarify ) What we need to bang into their heads: We're building their
future employees. They should have a stake in this.   

 

 

The best use of their time (for us) is we need to have them share their
knowledge. 

How does take place?

 

* Having representatives on an industry board to review and overview
curriculum and technology. Things change. 3 years ago Zynga was hatching
from its shell. 2 years before that We were looking at the 360, Wii, and
PS3 launches. Just before that, Per-Pixel-Lighting and normal map
goodness was the big change. Z-brush and then mudbrush would gain
traction as artist tools. (This is not intended as a complete history
lecture, but examples). We need them to inform us what is going on and
adapt to it. 

 

* Supporting Faculty with how they use technology. This is critical for
faculty with no (or very little) industry experience. It's also needed
for experienced faculty as well. For experience faculty, they might have
a large amount of experience in an engine which is  under a lock and key
and unavailable in any form for non-commercial or academic use. That's
time and effort to get back up to speed with a new engine, or to pave
over the potholes in their knowledge. Better to have support, than to do
it alone. 

 

* Evaluating student work and providing feedback to students and
faculty. One way to facilitate that is work with them to schedule "show
of games" at the end of the term. Be flexible! You'll most likely get
the majority of your industry guests after they get off work. Again,
work with them on time. 


* Having them come talk to students. There's experts out there. It's
really helpful to hear a topic from someone OTHER than the normal
lecturer.  Hearing from HR about how to get in the door is great. (And
HR is going to ask for resumes!). If you do game jams (like the Global
Game Jam) or other events having someone to give the kick
off\keynote\rah-rah let's get going speech in person is helpful. 

 

 

Greg Walek      

NHTI - AGGP

 

  

From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Ian Schreiber
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 8:40 PM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: [game_edu] What would you want from a game company?

 

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

 

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