What does the future hold for game teaching

1
What does the future hold for game teaching?

• Sud Sudirman
• Liverpool John Moores University

2
Presentation Overview

• Game Technology as an Academic Discipline
• Factors that affects the state of game teaching
  in future
• About the future
• Worries and Misconceptions from the past
• Trends and Pitfalls
• What has been done so far.

3
Game Technology as an Academic Discipline

• Although computer and video games have been
  around for more than 25 years, it is only
  recently that academia has regarded Computer Game
  Technology as an academic discipline.
• Computer games were traditionally a product of
  individuals or a small group of people working
  together, without many a well-defined paradigm or
  rules.
• But with the increasing sophistication and
  challenges in producing modern commercial games,
  many developers have to rethink of their strategy
• Multi-disciplinary rules are applied to increase
  effectiveness and reduce cost and development
  time.
• Companies need to recruit people with the right
  knowledge, the right attitude and discipline
  about game development

4
Game Technology as an Academic Discipline

• Many were sceptical initially due to the kiddie
  nature of computer games.
• Some also thought that game technology was
  too-specific a course of Computing or Software
  Engineering.
• Specific undergraduate degree courses are nothing
  new
• Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering
• Control Systems Engineering
• Automotive Engineering
• Robotics and Cybernetics
• Microbiology
• The birth and life of every academic discipline
  is related to its demand in the real world
• But it also depends on a number of other factors

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Factors that affects the state of game teaching

• Quality of game education
• The state of the industry and the demand for the
  graduates.
• The perceptions of the industry about the
  academic discipline
• Contribution from the industry to academia
• Contributions from academia to the industry

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The quality of game education

• Traditionally, a course is developed in a
  university via the strength in research.
• Strong research in the subject, together with the
  right expertise, will produce better teaching
  quality.
• This process is rather less observed when it
  comes to developing game courses.
• One main reason is that academia was sceptical
  about computer game education before it took off.
• This was remedied by active collaboration between
  academia and the industry to come up with a good
  curriculum.
• And equally importantly, many academia has now
  established game education as a proper academic
  discipline backed by strong research in the
  subject.

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Factors that affects the state of game teaching

• Quality of game education
• The state of the industry and the demand for the
  graduates.
• The perceptions of the industry about the
  academic discipline
• Contribution from the industry to academia
• Contributions from academia to the industry

8
The current state of game industry

• Computer Game consumers today have a lot to be
  happy about, because computer and console games
  are better than ever.
• The platforms are more powerful, environments are
  more detailed, and characters are more lifelike.
• So, support from consumers is high.
• The industry also enjoys a significant revenue
  from non-gaming sectors such as advertising
  companies, training companies, movie publishers
  and TV broadcasters to use their game or engine
  in their products (e.g., Time Commanders,
  Machinima, Full Spectrum Warrior.)

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The current state of game industry

• Huge market bigger than movie receipts
• US/Canada 5.6bn
• Western Europe 4.2bn
• Japan 2.8bn
• 30 of British households currently have video
  games consoles
• Current generation consoles (PlayStation 2,
  Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube) continue to
  stimulate the games market
• Next generation consoles (Playstation 3,
  Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Revolution) will
  give a boost in growth as what the current
  generation did 4-5 years ago.
• Online gaming is expected to mature and become
  pervasive because consoles are beginning to get
  online
• Wireless gaming is vital to the future of
  telecoms companies
• Handheld gaming is booming well over 100
  million Nintendo Gameboys sold, about 25 million
  Gameboy Advances, and the same success is
  expected for Sony PSP.

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The future of game industry

• IDG Datamonitor predicted by 2008 the worldwide
  software gaming market will reach 20.4 billion.
• So, the future seems bright and orange. Or is it?
• Not many suspected the great crash in 1984. Could
  the majority of people be wrong again this time?

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The Great Crash

• The year is 1984
• With the combined effect of the introduction of
  Home Computers and increased development efforts
  of many people.
• Making a computer games became a relatively
  easier business.
• Hence, the flood of cheap and low quality games
• Added with the fact that everybody, even
  breakfast cereal manufacturers, used computer
  game as cheap-to-make premium advertising tool

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What is the significance of this history now?

• Some people draw the similarity between the
  increase in peoples ability to create computer
  game then, to the (expected) boom in numbers of
  computer game graduates.
• Some people also draw the similarity between the
  relationship between the game industry and the
  other non-gaming industry in particular, the
  advertising companies.
• And they quote

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• Those who can not remember the past are condemn
  to repeat it.
• George Santayana

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• So have we learnt anything from this history?
• Or an equally important question
• Are we supposed to learn anything from this
  history?

15
Aside

• There was an article on Scots Newse in Winter 99
  by William Urban.
• It says Santayanas proverb is probably true but
  one can also learn the wrong lessons
• For example, from the first World War, we learnt
  not to be too hasty in judging our enemies
  motives. From World War II we learnt to stand up
  against aggressors and from Vietnam war we learnt
  not to get involved.
• So, back to the second question again
• Are we supposed to learn anything from the
  history of The Great Crash of 1984?

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Learning from History

• The answer is of course yes.
• Nintendo, with others, did learn from the mistake
  and acted upon it and they managed to revive the
  industry within a relatively short period of
  time.
• But whether the same attitude can still be used
  today to prevent another crash, is a different
  matter.

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Differences

• Even with high proliferation of internet and
  rapid increase of free online or downloadable
  games, they hardly put a dent on the mainstream
  game market.
• Computer games graduates, while in no doubt, will
  somehow increase the quality and sophistication
  of these free games, the games would be no
  match with most commercial games due to high
  production values and big budget.
• Regarding the relationship between the game
  industry and the advertising companies, there is
  also a significance different in attitude of the
  gaming industry towards the marketing companies
  between then and now.

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Differences

• As opposed to create games that promotes a
  product, game companies use advertisement as a
  natural feature in their game.
• Game companies no longer create games
  specifically to promote a product, but rather
  they use in-game advertisement techniques.
• In fact, some even go as far as to use dynamic
  advertisement system that changes the advert
  content depending on the time and date the game
  is being played, e.g., Splinter Cell Chaos
  Theory
• Although the case may not be so different with
  movie tie-ins game 20 years ago and now.

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• In any case, it would be unlikely for the game
  industry to crash, if not at all, because of the
  same reasons

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What about other reasons?

• Although in overall, the gaming market is
  increasing in size, the same can not be said
  about PC gaming market.
• The share of PC gaming market has reduced
  compared to a decade ago.
• One of the reasons is the significantly heavier
  reliance in PC games on new technology to attract
  consumers than in console games.

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Reliance in Technology

• Although no one is denying that reliance in
  technology is the main factor that keep people
  interested in games, heavy reliance puts extra
  burden on both developers and consumers.
• A copy of 30 year old Beatles music CD for 12.99
  compared to a copy of 9 year old Transport Tycoon
  game for 1.
• Console gaming traditionally relies more on
  techniques rather than technology, but fierce
  competition might shift this the other way
• Shorter console life span
• More complex CPU/GPU architectures increases
  development time and cost

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Worries and Pitfalls

• There is a possible pitfall in all of this.
• Heavy reliance in technology particularly affects
  small to medium development house the most
• Large overheads required to overcome the learning
  curve, and by the time they can break even,
  another new and more complex piece of hardware
  comes
• This could drive them out of business, creating
  a pool of unemployed developer and at the same
  time slowing down recruitment of fresh graduates
• Large companies also feel the burden of
  increasing development cost and time, driving the
  price up, and possibly to the point where
  consumers have enough.
• However, this could open up a larger opportunity
  of middleware companies.

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Effects on game teaching

• Since, game technology moves at a faster rate
  than most subjects, there is an extra pressure on
  universities to keep their courses up-to-date.
• And rather worryingly is that the industry might
  expect the level of technical knowledge and skill
  from the graduates to increase every year due to
  the same reason.
• Considering that universities accept new students
  at a more-or-less the same level of academic
  background every year, there is an inevitable gap
  between what is expected and what can be produced
  realistically.

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Factors that affects the state of game teaching

• Quality of game education
• The state of the industry and the demand for the
  graduates.
• The perceptions of the industry about the
  academic discipline
• Contribution from the industry to academia
• Contributions from academia to the industry

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The perception

• The academic background of many, if not all, of
  current practitioners in the game industry are
  not from game technology related degrees
• It would be natural for them to be sceptical
  about the new academic discipline.
• The challenges now lie in proving that the
  industry would really benefit from the
  specialisation of graduates.

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The dilemma

• As with other things in life, there are
  advantages and disadvantages in having a
  specialised degree.
• Graduates have more chance in working in the
  sector that they would like but at the expense of
  lower employability in other sector
• As a service provider to students, academic
  institutions must thread carefully between making
  the course more specialised or diverse
• In John Moores University, we design our BSc
  course in such a way that 3rd Level students can
  tailor their skill and knowledge set by being
  able to choose modules from a wide range of
  subjects, from very game technology specific
  modules to multimedia and to IT.
• This way we believe we can achieve a soft
  compromise from having a highly specialized
  subject to broadening the employability of our
  graduates

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The perception

• These first few years are crucial in terms of
  fostering a good perception of the industry to
  the academic output.
• So far, the situation is promising. Many computer
  games graduates are finding employment.
• And in John Moores University, especially at
  Masters degree level, our graduates are quite
  well perceived by major development houses such
  as EA and SCEE.

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Factors that affects the state of game teaching

• Quality of game education
• The state of the industry and the demand for the
  graduates.
• The perceptions of the industry about the
  academic discipline
• Contribution from the industry to academia
• Contributions from academia to the industry

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What academia wants

• Apart from the more obvious things such as better
  perception and graduate intake, there are a
  number of others
• Input in developing and adapting course
  curriculum and syllabus
• This has been pioneered by IGDA Education
  Committee
• Better support in providing practical experience
  ranging from providing real life case studies to
  collaborative final year projects to work
  placements.
• Although some difficulties are acknowledged due
  to high level of secrecy and confidentiality in
  some of materials required.

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What academia can give

• From an academic perspective, one of the things
  that we could do is to further the
  state-of-the-art technology by means of research
• Much academic research now is used in by the game
  industry mostly in the area of computer vision
  and AI.
• A two-way relationship in this area would really
  benefit the state of gaming industry
• Another thing we can do is to try to bring
  together the world of academia (students and
  academics) and the industry by means of
  conferences or workshops.
• At JMU we annually arrange a conference for
  practitioners and our students to meet in both
  formal and informal manners. http//www.cms.livjm.
  ac.uk/GDTW/GDTW2005/

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Summary

• There are plenty of things to be excited about
  for those who work or want to work in computer
  game industry.
• The crash of 1984 does not seem to repeatable at
  least for a foreseeable future and for the same
  reasons
• Game Technology courses have provided much needed
  quality human resources to the industry and have
  been received well by the industry
• But maintaining this requires active
  participation from both the academia and
  industry.
• I have highlighted some aspects to be excited
  about, some aspects that could be problematic and
  some possible action points to consider to make
  game teaching a success.
• So I believe, the future holds a very promising
  prospect for game teaching.