IGDA Academic Summit
Rhonda Schauer
The 2002 Game Developers’ Conference was
held March 19 –23 in San Jose, California. One of the many interesting events was the International Game
Developers Association (IGDA) Academic Summit, which took place during the
first 2 days of the conference. The IGDA Academic Summit provided a forum for
participants to examine the relationship between academia and the game
development industry, and to discuss how to make this relationship more
beneficial for both groups.
The summit was divided
into 2 parts. The first day the participants discussed past, present, and future
forms of cooperative research between academia and industry. Speakers discussed
why their projects succeeded and how they might improve cooperative projects in the future. The second day was dedicated to the
IGDA Education
Committee's curriculum project, which is a list of suggested topics for
study in a game-oriented curriculum. This project will be presented in a forum
at the
Educators Program at SIGGRAPH 2002.
Day 1: Academic - Industry Research Projects
The first panel was a discussion about the different
motivating factors and constraints placed on each of the two groups. During the
discussion, industry’s needs were identified as: code to make their projects
work and the people to write it, theory to apply to their projects, and credit
for their role in the work they produce or facilitate. Academia’s interests were
identified as the opportunity to publish and obtain grants, the opportunity to
exhibit work in galleries or other venues, and the need to offer courses of interest to their
students.
The next session was a series of 4 case studies, each
discussing a successful collaboration between academia and industry. For
example, one of the speakers discussed id Software and AI research. A graduate
student used the software code to finish his thesis on artificial intelligence.
The software company liked the results of the research so much that they gave
him access to more code and enlisted his help on other projects. Reciprocally,
the graduate student was able to finish his thesis on a working game engine,
which allowed him to focus on his AI work and not have to build a game engine as
well.
There were also collaborations discussed, such as that
between Carnegie Melon University and Angel Studios, that focused on
internships and the successful placement of students within industry.
The UC Irvine presentation brought up an idea that would
be relevant throughout the day, which was that academia can be used as a place to
try new things that may not necessarily be profitable, and the benefit of that
experience can be passed to industry. This coincides with industry’s current
need to broaden content and audience. Academia can apply theory from
disciplines such as behavioral science to ask the question “what is fun and for
whom? ”. Then industry can profit from applying those answers to obtain a wider
market for their product.
The “Building Bridges” Panel followed
with more ideas on academic-industry cooperation. Shared knowledge was
identified as one of the key ingredients to the success of many of these
projects. To proceed without some level of mutual information sharing was
generally deemed impractical. On the related issue of Intellectual Property rights and ownership, the consensus was to agree on
everything beforehand. It was also suggested that collaborators might consider
using lawyers to draw up an agreement both parties are
comfortable with.
There was also a mention of educational games as an opportunity for collaboration. One example
used was a project involving the Multimedia Innovation Centre at Hong Kong
Polytechnic. The project used an interactive game to teach English to Chinese
students. To succeed, the project required academics from many disciplines as
well as close ties with the production capabilities of industry.
The rest of the day continued the
discussion with additional examples of collaboration, comments from the
audience, and a closing presentation by Bill Buxton of Alias/Wavefront. By the
end of the day it was clear that it is worth the effort it takes for industry
and academia to work together. Academics produce results that are relevant to
industry and industry produces a product worthy of study by many disciplines.
The results of such collaborations will ultimately enrich the medium, while
mutual respect and small courtesies go a long way towards making that happen.
Day 2: IGDA Education Committee's Curriculum
Project
The second
day was dedicated to the discussion of educating students to become game
developers. The main point of
the first presentation was to highlight the need for higher education. In the
early days of computer games, many developers left college and didn't have any formal
training. Also,
many aspects of the game industry didn’t need the latest research results or even the
latest techniques, especially since the graphics hardware wouldn't support most
of them. At that time, education and hiring
practices reflected that state. Now, the medium has grown so complex that it is almost
impossible to build a successful career in games if that career doesn’t first
start with some form of higher education.
The next session was a
series of very diverse curriculum case studies. There were schools that gave
tenure based not only on publications, but also on industry projects as well.
Some had a programming focus and others were more heavily weighted towards art
or social sciences. Many had programs that utilized aspects of both. Even the
duration of the programs differed, with some as short as one year and others as
long as three. Regarding this diversity, the general consensus was to encourage
schools to decide their focus and communicate that effectively to potential
students. (For information about a particular school, see the links at the end
of this document.)
The rest
of the day covered the IGDA Education Committee's curriculum project.
The project provides a set of options from which educators can select appropriate elements that match
their personal, professional, and institutional goals. It is an attempt to
describe core knowledge areas and not to dictate content.
First, the
group presented the guiding principles that shaped the project. These principles
include the idea that gaming is interdisciplinary and that specialization is not
necessarily the way to get specialists. They also felt that the analysis,
practice, and context of the medium are all equally important. Although the
project is career oriented, the primary focus was teaching people to learn, and
not a purely vocational approach.
These ideas were further discussed during the
rest of the session and the following Q&A period. The idea that, although games
are an interdisciplinary medium, specialization is not necessarily the way to
get specialists initiated many comments. The essence of the discussion was
that education for games should provide a shared vocabulary and knowledge base.
Participants envisioned this to resemble the way a film school provides a common
context for film students. The consensus was that this shared
context should grasp the interdisciplinary nature of the medium, while allowing
for specialization. An illustrative example was taken from film, comparing the
work of Ford, who primarily learned on the job, to the work of Copola, who had
formal training.
Related to a shared context, was the issue
of archiving games. The need for a canon of games was identified as essential to
building this shared context. It was also deemed necessary to begin the work of
examining social context and history. Several members of industry commented that
they often have difficulty finding copies of the older games they've worked on.
It was also mentioned that Stanford is currently collecting games as artifacts.
The interrelationship between analysis,
practice and context brought up another important point, which was the need to
teach students basic production skills. Theory, history and even proficiency in
their chosen area will be of little use to students if they don’t have the basic
skills to apply them in production. These skills included finishing a project
and working on teams. The experience of creating a product and marketing it was
also identified as important. Several industry speakers indicated that they
viewed academia as a filter for those who couldn’t grasp these tasks.
The need to teach people to learn was also discussed.
Participants encouraged schools to focus on not just training employees that can
create content or write code, but to do so in a way that will enable them to add
to the discourse of the medium. The importance of autonomous behavior and
developing a strong academic foundation were the primary topics of this
discussion.
A final idea discussed was the role of
academics as diplomats between the students and industry. During this
discussion there was the suggestion of academic hires within the games
community. Also, most participants considered educators to be the primary
mentors for students, as opposed to developers performing this task.
The IGDA Academic Summit facilitated the ongoing
dialogue between academia and the game development industry. It was an honest
and respectful discussion that will likely result in significant progress
in the relationship between the two groups and also the medium itself.
Links
IGDA
Education Committee Outreach
IGDA Academic
Summit Schedule
Game
Developers Conference 2002: Summary & Pictorial
IGDA Education Committee
www.billbuxton.com
Curriculum Case Studies
Case 1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -
Comparative Media Studies Program
Case 2
Hong Kong
Polytechnic - Multimedia Innovation Centre
Case 3
Liverpool John Moores University -
International Centre for Digital Content
Case 4
Carnegie Mellon University - Entertainment
Technology Center
Case 5
DigiPen Institute of Technology
Case 6
Georgia Tech, Program in Information Design
and Technology, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture
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