Three years ago a certain teacher in game design told the students in front of him that they will hate games once they are done with the education… The truth is that I, personally, already felt pretty neutral towards them even back then. But the process of making games – now that is a different story altogether.
It’s time for a small post-mortem of the experiment called the game design education that I put myself through. In short – it was a conflicting, but fun* experience.
The process of making games remains a majorly practical activity, while the nature of academia is to observe and to discuss. These two natures create interference with each other. I can’t recall all the times when someone exclaimed “I wish we’ve had more game design theory!” during a production cycle, or “I wish we’ve had more time spent on making games!” during a theoretical course. In the end, there was neither enough production or theory to satisfy everyone’s demands, I think. But, in all fairness, we did get to experience both to a certain degree.
Some people wanted to have more time spent on learning the software tools, while others considered learning the tools a waste of our time since most of that can be done at home via video tutorials and such.
The teachers recommended to use Unity, but the majority used Unreal anyway.
Programmers and artists hated designers and managers for not knowing what to do, while the designers and the managers hated the programmers and the artists for not cooperating.
Finally, in the end, we all had to engage in the academic work which had nothing to do with the game development what so ever.
The final verdict: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And now I’m off to search for a relevant job in the world of ludicrous entry requirements, junior positions with a minimum of 1-2 years inside of the industry already, and an uncertain future for the games in general.
This is gonna be fun*!
*the definition of “fun” is left to the readers own interpretation according to any prefered game theory.
lostingame.design 