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

[Eric Byron]

I've had a lot of support from the Studio leadership group.  We have been able to support some of the programs with financial contributions, copies of games and tours of the Studio. I do almost all of my work with education on my own time so it does not interfere with my normal job responsibilities. I am also very careful about representing EA and, of course, protecting our IP.  

Eric
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steven Yau 
  To: IGDA Game Education Listserv ; ebyron at cfl.rr.com 
  Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 10:36 AM
  Subject: Re: [game_edu] What would you want from a game company?


  Eric, is this supported by your local EA studio? If so, was there any 'hoops' you have to jump through to be allowed to help in the first place?


  On 16 August 2010 12:22, Eric Byron <ebyron at cfl.rr.com> wrote:

    I work for EA at the Tiburon Studio in Orlando and I monitor the IGDA Education SIG because I want to contribute in a more significant way. I sit on advisory boards for multiple schools in the area, volunteer regularly to speak to students, give tours of our Studio and have provided job shadow experiences for teachers. I taught as an adjunct instructor off and on for years in the IT field and now find it very interesting that some schools offering degrees in game development don't seem to know how to use people from the industry to help.

    I found schools like to be able to say that they have someone from EA on their advisory board, but won't actually discuss curriculum with us. One school did accept feedback on their curriculum and I later helped them write a course. They invited me to be on the national advisory board so I recruited another senior member of our staff to join me in that capacity. It's been almost a year since we agreed to help. We've never heard from them again.

    I support what Ian is trying to do. There are more people in my studio that would be willing to get involved if they thought they could really help the industry through partnership with education. We get it. We want to help but don't treat us like we don't know the "difference between industry and academia". 

    Eric


    Eric Byron
    Development Manager
    Electronic Arts - Tiburon
    ebyron at ea.com

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Ian Schreiber 
      To: IGDA Game Education Listserv 
      Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 3:50 PM
      Subject: Re: [game_edu] What would you want from a game company?


      Hi Greg (and all),

      Based on some of the responses so far, I'd like to clarify something.

      A lot of requests are along the lines of "we would like it if more individual developers/studios built individual relationships with our school." This includes everything from guest speakers, to advisory board members, to judges of local competitions. This is great, and I'm sure it is something all of us are working on for our respective schools. But it's not what I'm looking for, because it doesn't scale. In fact, it's zero-sum: if EA's university outreach department can only visit 20 schools per year (or whatever) and you take up one of those slots, that's one less for the rest of us.

      So what I'm hoping to find here is something where one individual developer or one studio can do something that benefits ALL of us, all 100+ schools at the same time, from their one single action. The difference between an unlimited-seat online webinar versus a site visit, for example.

      I actually think there are some studios (and individuals) out there who really want to contribute to education. They don't need convincing; they know this is a win-win. But they ARE short on time, they have little or no experience in understanding the differences between industry and academia, and what they need from us is two things: guidance for HOW to contribute, and a conduit that lets them contribute to a lot of people (i.e. all of us, not just one of us) without having to repeat their efforts hundreds of times. IGDA can provide the conduit, but I'm looking for ideas on how to best leverage our "strength in numbers" here.

      Does that make it more clear, where I'm going with this?

      Thanks,
      - Ian




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      From: Gregory Walek <gwalek at ccsnh.edu>
      To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>
      Sent: Thu, August 12, 2010 1:18:00 PM
      Subject: Re: [game_edu] What would you want from a game company?


      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.   


        




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