G U E S T E D I T O R ’ S I N T R O D U C T I O N

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6942.). In addition to the game industry’s demand, thereis additional demand from government and nongameindustry corporations for the new area of serious games.

As the industrial and governmental demand grows,the requirement for intellectual property generated byuniversities and university graduates increases. An indus-try that doubles in size in two years creates a huge newdemand for employees, and building game developmentdegrees to support that demand is quite important. Thehiring requirements at Electronic Arts, a game-publish-ing industry leader, are something on the order of 65percent computer scientists, 30 percent artists, and 5percent designers. So we imagine that game develop-ment degree programs that satisfy each of these demandareas are in order.

With computer science being the largest requirement,university computer science departments must begin devel-oping programs to meet that demand. Internationally,computer science has experienced a 70 percent decreasein undergraduate enrollments since 2000. Without somerefocusing of our educational programs, computer scien-tists may become a scarce commodity just at the time thegame industry has a substantial requirement. Several uni-versity computer science departments have begun to buildgame development degree programs, some creating wholly

To advance the state of the art of game technology, many universities have begun new

degree programs focused on game design and development.This special issue profiles four

programs that are exploring this emerging and important discipline and have proposed

similar—or even novel—solutions to the challenges it presents.

Michael ZydaUSC GamePipe Laboratory

T he current revolution in videogaming used forboth entertainment and serious purposes engen-ders a strong requirement that we advance thestate of the art of game technology and designthrough our university research and education

programs. To make this happen, many universities havebegun new degree programs focused on game design anddevelopment.

This special issue discusses the programs we are cre-ating, decisions we’ve made, challenges encountered inestablishing these programs, and actual results. Two arti-cles in this issue come from the game design side of theeducational equation, two others from the computer sci-ence side. If we feel so strongly that the creation of gameprograms is what we absolutely must do, we imaginethat perhaps other people and organizations will findour experiences interesting. Since there are no guide-books on this, we attempt with this special issue to detailour designs and the lessons learned.

THE GAME INDUSTRYThe worldwide game industry reached $33.5 billion in

size in 2005, with expected growth to $58.4 billion by2007, a near doubling in size in a two-year period(www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=

Educating the NextGeneration of GameDevelopers

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contained computer-science-only efforts, with othersbuilding more advanced cross-disciplinary efforts. Weexamine some of these programs in this special issue.

Game development has the potential to revitalize andincrease interest in computer science. Defense and NASAused to provide some of the larger driving problems forthis field. With basic research budget lines diminishingfor defense and space, this focus on videogame research,development, and education becomes quite important.Putting this into financial perspective, DARPA’s budgetis approximately equal to the available on-hand cash forElectronic Arts, and most of DARPA’s funding is forapplied, defense-focused applications, not for research.

A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY DEGREEIs a BS in computer science specializing in game devel-

opment a weaker degree than a traditional BS in com-puter science? No. The degree, in fact, should look likea cross-disciplinary double major in computer scienceand game development and be definitely harder.

Here, we use the USC Computer Science Department’sGame Development degree program as an example. As

Figure 1 shows, the program includes the traditionalcomputer science blocks of material—programming andsoftware development, theory, hardware and systems,and autonomy and immersion.

The only deviation from a traditional computer sci-ence program is that we condense the electrical engi-neering transistors and VLSI focus to a how-do-we-program-it, computer organization, and architecturefocus. So instead of learning how to build integrated cir-cuits, the students learn how to program novel architec-tures. This prepares them for the parallel programmingof game consoles and graphics processor units covered inthe game hardware architectures course.

An additional change was that we moved the compil-ers class from being a requirement to make it a highlyrecommended elective. We had no problem with mak-ing that change as the compiler course was removed asa requirement in the ACM computer science BS core in1979. We moved the design and construction of largesoftware systems into the highly recommended electiveslist as well, figuring that the yearlong final game pro-jects courses covered that material. So this degree defi-

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Figure 1. USC Game Development degree program.The program includes the traditional computer science blocks of material.

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Computer Science (Game Development). The goal ofthis degree program is to graduate professionally edu-cated students capable of engineering next-generationgames and their required technologies. With the gameindustry soon to become the size of the US Navy, webelieve that it requires an R&D capability of some size.Since our expectation is that game industry internalinvestment is small R and big D, we believe the univer-sity can become a venue for the creation of next-gener-ation game technologies.

The MS degree has a computer science core and agame development core. The game development corematches the BS degree so that students coming from theBS program have already taken 11 credits. The gamedevelopment core consists of the School of Cinema-Television’s game design workshop course, a course onprogramming game engines, and a course on game hard-ware architectures. Students then choose a concentra-tion area and complete two classes in that area.

nitely has computer science as its core. The BS degree ends with a yearlong final game projects

course in which the students propose, select, and build outa game for their graduation portfolio. This course givesour students a year’s experience in integrating the sum oftheir coursework in a team-based development effort.Building a significant piece of a game provides a readyportfolio for use in industry interviews. Figure 2 showstwo games built in the last semester in this course.

Students demonstrate all games built during the courseat a Demo Day event, where game-industry executivesevaluate the student-developed work. Representativesfrom companies including Electronic Arts, THQ,Activision, Disney, Sony Computer Entertainment,Emsense, Motorola, Midway Games, Microsoft, andNew Media BC attended the spring 2006 event.

GRADUATE DEGREE In addition to the BS degree, we designed an MS in

Figure 2. Final game projects. (a) Fish Quest, a serious game built for the UCSD Scripps Institute of Oceanography Digital FishLibrary.The game’s premise is that the player acts as a scientist in search of the habitat of a mysterious fish that holds the clue tothe cure for a disease.The player catches fish around the world and compares the anatomy of the different fish to decide where themysterious fish came from. (b) Tame Tom, a networked training game in which multiple players work together to train Tom, arowdy artificially intelligent dog.

(a) (b)

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Concentration areas correspond to the research direc-tions for the GamePipe Laboratory and include infra-structure, cognition and games, immersion, and seriousgames.

One of the oddest issues we had to deal with involvedestablishing the game hardware architectures course. Inthe traditional engineering faculty, we could not findready expertise in the new parallel architectures found ingame consoles. When we then sought an adjunct in thegame industry, several candidates indicated that they hadsigned so many NDAs from game console companies thatthey no longer knew what they couldor could not discuss with studentsworking on degrees of direct benefitto the game industry. We are stillworking on resolving that issue.

THE GAME DEVELOPMENT PART OF THE DEGREE

The game development part of thedegree is divided into three majorcomponents: game engineering,game design, and game cross-disciplinary. In game engi-neering, students learn the fundamentals of videogameprogramming, game engine programming, game hard-ware architectures, and the special requirements thatvideogame artificial intelligence and graphics have asdistinct from the traditional computer science courses,which all students take.

At USC, game design comes out of the successfulSchool of Cinema-Television’s Interactive Media pro-gram. We place our undergraduate computer sciencestudents into the game design workshop, intermediategame development, and intermediate game design work-shop courses of that program. These students learn theplayer-centric design principles of the game design work-shop series alongside the Cinema School’s game designstudents. So, the engineering program, in effect, cross-pollinates its students with the game design programstudents to produce graduates capable of designing andengineering games. This cross-pollination strengthensboth programs.

The game cross-disciplinary component of the degreeprogram contains courses that are not just computer sci-ence but rather are fundamental to game production,courses that engineers, artists, and game designers allcan take.

We begin with a survey of digital games and their tech-nologies to provide students an introduction to the lan-guage and a basic understanding of games and gameplay. In the Introduction to Videogame Productioncourse, we begin to detail the game production process.Pipelines for Games and Interactives teaches the studentsabout the processes and procedures required for the inte-gration of design, art, and software. The Introductionto Computer Animation course from the Division of

Animation and Digital Arts gives students a backgroundin animation for games. Serious Games Development isthe course in which we teach the students how to designand build games for serious purposes.

WHY A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PROGRAM IS HARD

Game development is inherently cross-disciplinary,but most universities are not set up to handle cross-dis-ciplinary programs well. Games are story (design), art,and software, but our new degree programs are only

cross-disciplinary in the design andsoftware domains. When we beganthe design of these degree programs,USC did not have a core effort ingame art. We also thought the fol-lowing: We can easily put engineersinto design courses as they are com-fortable with the fundamentals ofdesign, but they are not necessarilycomfortable with art.

During the process of establishingthese degree programs, we have begun discussions withthe USC School of Fine Arts. They are looking for guid-ance on how they can create a BFA/MFA in Fine Arts(Game Art & Design). Our initial suggestion is to joinwith the engineering students in the game cross-disci-plinary courses. Discussions about how to do this areunder way between the Viterbi School of Engineering,the Roski School of Fine Arts, and the School of Cinema-Television.

The main issue we dealt with in building this programwas the concern about which division received thetuition money from the courses. Our guiding principlewas that, for lab-intensive courses, the tuition moneyshould go to the department that provides the lab andthe instructor.

ABET accreditation presented an additional issue.Because it preserves traditional disciplines, masteringthis accreditation process is a difficult endeavor for new,cross-disciplinary programs that look like doublemajors. Fortunately, we had a strong and supportivedean who provided valuable guidance.

Other institutions exploring this emerging and impor-tant discipline have encountered similar challenges andproposed similar—or even novel—solutions. We profilefour such programs in this special issue, all of which seekto establish game design and development as an acade-mic field of research.

IN THIS ISSUEMajor universities around the world now offer degree

programs in game design in response to student demand;more than 80 such programs exist in North Americaalone. The International Game Developers Associationhas established a committee to help educators craft a cur-

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The game cross-disciplinarycomponent of the degree

program offers courses thatengineers, artists, and game

designers all can take.

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riculum that reflects the real-world creative process of pro-fessional game designers. Unfortunately, many such pro-grams address only the technical aspects of game design,preparing students for entry-level positions in the indus-try but depriving them of the liberal-arts-based criticalthinking necessary to transcend existing boundaries ofcontent and expression.

In “Play-Centric Games Education,” Tracy Fullertondescribes USC’s program in interactive entertainmentestablished in the School of Cinema-Television with support fromElectronic Arts. The new programaims to impart an understanding ofthe essential properties of an effec-tive and entertaining interactiveexperience as well as to teach the nec-essary technical skills to envision,design, and produce such experi-ences. The program’s emphasis onplay-centric design puts player expe-rience at the heart of the designprocess to create richer characters, more complex sto-ries, and more meaningful interactions.

The industry demands an increasing supply of gradu-ates trained not as generic programmers, artists, or pro-ducers, but as specialists in the particular technologiesand techniques that drive the latest best sellers.Universities have responded to this demand with pro-grams that fall into two categories: game productionand game studies. Game production programs focus onfeeding the industry and necessarily reinforce its currentpractices. Game studies programs, on the other hand,fall into the domain of academic researchers with PhDsin the humanities and social sciences. Oriented awayfrom commercial values, these offerings emphasize fun-damental questions of human experience and method-ologies that provide a critical and historical perspectiveon current cultural trends.

In “Game Design Education: Integrating Computationand Culture,” Ian Bogost and colleagues describeGeorgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communicationand Culture’s attempt to combine the strengths of bothapproaches. Georgia Tech’s program offers a range ofperspectives, emphasizing connections with poetry, artinstallations, human-computer interaction, interactivetelevision, film studies, science studies, informationdesign, and computer science.

In 2004, the University of Denver began offeringmajors in game development, with research and schol-arship directed toward “humane gaming,” a term thatincludes medical and socially conscious gaming. In“Building a Game Development Program,” ScottLeutenegger and colleagues describe their efforts to builda program that espouses game development as an inter-disciplinary field requiring some appreciation for boththe technical and creative, with a deep passion in at least

one area. This game development major has the goal ofproviding a humane emphasis and fostering “wholebrain education” as well as increasing enrollments incomputer science as part of a technically strong major.

“Evolving the Artist-Technologist” by Ian Horswilland Marlena Novak describes the Animate Arts pro-gram at Northwestern University. Begun in 2005, theprogram aims to provide students with an integrated,team-taught curriculum emphasizing basic literacy in a

range of disciplines—visual art, nar-rative and sound design, culturaltheory, and programming. To shapethis hybrid major, program facultycombine their expertise in art theoryand practice, electrical engineeringand computer science, music tech-nology and composition, and radio,television, and film.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTUREThere is clearly strong interest in

these new degree programs from incoming students.Some 80 percent of those admitted to the Viterbi Schoolof Engineering with undeclared majors have indicated tothe school that they plan on choosing the BS in com-puter science (game development). At USC, we antici-pate a 45 percent increase in the number of applicantsto the Computer Science BS program for fall 2006 aswell, and that is with a Web page that says, “We plan onrunning the BS in Computer Science (GameDevelopment) in the Fall, apply for the BS in CS.”Similarly, Denver University, a relatively small schoolthat enrolls about 4,000 undergraduate students and5,000 graduate students, expects 30 new game devel-opment majors in fall 2006, representing a significantincrease compared to its 10 incoming game develop-ment majors in fall 2005.

T he mission of motivating potential CS students andgetting CS grads to be more capable of building realthings looks readily achievable with our new pro-

grams, using our experience with the prototype coursescurrently being offered. It is highly motivating for us allas we look forward to participating in a brave newworld. ■

Michael Zyda is the director of the University of SouthernCalifornia Viterbi School of Engineering’s GamePipe Lab-oratory, a professor of engineering practice in the USCDepartment of Computer Science, and a staff member atUSC’s Information Sciences Institute. Zyda received a DScin computer science from Washington University, St. Louis.Contact him at zyda@usc.edu.

The industry demands anincreasing supply of graduates

trained as specialists in the technologies and techniques

that drive the latest best sellers.