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

[William Huber]

For me as a researcher, as well as for graduate students interested in
questions of the pipeline, engineering issues, etc., a dream-case would be
access to the entire archive of material related to a single (perhaps
historical) project - everything from GDDs and TDDs to meeting notes,
prototypes, storyboards, email threads, asset archives, version control /
source control logs, marketing reports, even, if available, back-of-napkin
type material, for a major title (AAA). I know it is asking for the moon,
but someone with a foundation in the right types of analysis (e.g., ANT)
could do wonders with that kind of material.

2010/8/13 Simon Rozner <infonaut at gameonaut.com>


> Hi Ian,

> thanks for bringing this up. And Dan, gret suggestion.

>

> One thing I think would be hugely interesting to have are design and

> technical docs at various stages. Even though same great ones are out there

> many are either incomplete and never show their evolution. To my students

> this would be fantastic to see and discuss and show design decisions. Also

> pre beta builds before and after a change was made would be superb so show

> changes in action. Now surely that would be difficult for copyrights and

> licensing etc issues.

>

> Will think of more.

>

> Cheers

> Simon

>

> DigiPen Singapore

>

>

>

> Sent from my iPhone

>

> On 12-Aug-2010, at 17:05, "Dan Carreker" <DanC at NarrativeDesigns.com>

> wrote:

>

>  Hey Ian,

>

>

>

> I’ll tell you the one thing that’s been on my mind re: resources: Sample

> games.

>

>

>

> I would love to see many of the classic and pioneering games bundled for

> use by schools. And I believe there are two feasible means for this to come

> about.

>

>

>

> One is to release education bundles. In 2000, PC Gamer Magazine released a

> free CD in one of their issues with 12 classic games (X-Com, Ultima I, Wing

> Commander, Duke Nuke-em, etc.) Each of these were tested by the developers

> to make sure they were compatible with modern hardware and treated -- by

> Activision (where I worked at the time) at least -- as an OEM product. I see

> no reason why a curriculum publisher could not arrange a similar deal. It

> would likely be easiest to release one bundle per company, i.e. an EA pack,

> an Activision pack, etc. but as long as the games are older than 3-5 years I

> doubt it would be very expensive. Furthermore, it could be done as a license

> agreement based on the number of computers encouraging bulk sales of games

> that are doing nothing but sitting in a vault somewhere.

>

>

>

> Alternatively, a service such as Steam could host games that the schools’

> could license. Of course they do this now, but most of the games are 1)

> fairly new and 2) priced a little more expensive than I think most schools

> could afford (once you start talking about multiple accounts for dozens of

> games.)

>

>

>

> The REAL crown though would be samples of builds at various stages. I know

> these are usually VERY guarded by the companies, but you can learn a lot

> about the design challenges and the design process when you see how the game

> evolve over their development and having various sample buggy versions of a

> the level from game would be fantastic.

>

>

>

> There are plenty of other things I think would be beneficial to school I

> teach at, but this would be the one thing that would get me the most

> excited. I’ve even been toying with the idea of looking for investors to

> pursue this, but all the entrepreneurs I know are very tight with their

> finances right now.

>

>

>

> --Dan Carreker

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>  ------------------------------

>

> *From:* Ian Schreiber [mailto:ai864 at yahoo.com]

> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 11, 2010 5:40 PM

> *To:* <game_edu at igda.org>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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