Case Study – MA Digital Games

1. Case Study – MA Digital Games International Centre for Digital Content Liverpool John Moores University Matthew Southern - Lecturer m.southern@livjm.ac.uk Simon Redman - Course Leader s.redman@livjm.ac.uk

2. Contents Overview of ICDC Summary of MA Digital Games Course History and Rationale Challenges Advice

3. Born 2 ½ years ago from the ‘Learning Methods Unit’ (LMU) A collaboration between 2 JMU schools, and Mersey TV Tries to combine commercial and academic research and development Reasonably autonomous from JMU

4. www.icdc.org.uk ERDF Objective One funded Remitted to support the region Three main activities: teaching, research and production The teaching / research ratio is ‘reversed’, which is nice

5. JMU - Vocational focus A polytechnic until 1992: “Preparation for work is part of the JMU ethos, and one which defines our teaching activity; relevance and experience in the work place are underlying themes. A degree from JMU will help students to progress in the job market but not at the expense of solid academic grounding”. www.livjm.ac.uk

6. 3 postgraduate programs MA Multimedia Art & Design MA New Media Production MA Digital Games as well as training on ‘Connect’, some undergraduate support

7. MA Digital Games 1 year f/t, 2 years p/t, post-graduate programme 14 full-time and 6 part-time places Wide range of student backgrounds Receives increasingly tangible and substantial industry input

8. A ‘Vocational Arts Degree’ Art, design and theory aspects of game development: not programming Producing ‘Game Designers’ from day one is extremely difficult We tend to produce texture, model and concept artists

9. Aims and Objectives Provide high level practical skills in modelling and animation Enable students to articulate and communicate their ideas, both visually and verbally Expose students to the game design theories and production methods unique to development Develop their critical awareness to investigate issues that affect the future of the industry Enable students to produce an innovative portfolio of work Provide a stimulating environment Produce graduates who are able to enter the industry

10. Course Content: An intensive series of taught practical, team based and theoretical modules covering: History and cultural significance of games Gameplay analysis Game design 3D modelling and texturing Animation Game development: teams and processes Management and planning The games market

11. Theoretical approaches ‘Digital Games: Research and Critique’ ‘Game Design’ ‘Applied’ research The two approaches are not mutually exclusive – and the industry finds the theory fascinating Freud, Gramsci, Marx, Barthes, McRobbie, Mulvey, Hall, Adorno, Pilger, Jenkins, Turkle, Poole, Herz, Althusser, Schiller, Greenfield, Kinder, Crawford, Wright, Spector, Miyamoto, Nagoshi, Hitchcock, Eisenstein, Orwell… Deus Ex, Custers Revenge, Desert Strike, FFVII, Zelda64, Mario Bros, Super Monkey Ball, Spacewar!, MULE, Defender, MGS, Seaman……

12. Industrial Input is vital The biggest struggle will be recruitment of appropriate staff Many developers are quite happy to visit Provided they recognise a ‘pro games’ ethos There is a great deal of justified scepticism Codemasters, Rage, Infogrames, Blitz, Criterion, MathEngine. AMD provide kit, academic licenses are great It’s a recruitment ground!

13. ‘Gameplay is king’ But that doesn’t help anyone Industrial input is most useful in any attempt to define gameplay There is no ‘bible’ of good gameplay – there probably never will be So a broad range of definitions is attempted… We argue, analyse and compare until we have knowledge of what gameplay might be Combining industrial approaches with ‘play theory’ – Huizinga, Caillois

14. History and Rationale ICDC Director initially approached by industry in 1998 A demand was identified through the presence of the games industry in the region Growing belief that studying game development could lead to employment in the industry Games require serious study as a cultural form

15. Validation ICDC recruited from industry to develop the programme Developed in consultation with the regional games industry Research began in mid 1999 Design and preparation of documents carried out over a 6 month period Approval and validation process took upwards of 6 months Validation panel comprised University representatives, external academics and an industry expert

16. Content and Structure How do we keep the curriculum coherent, relevant and up-to-date? Interfacing modules – Seeing the programme as a whole Regular revisions to take into account changes in the industry Ongoing internal revision Student/graduate feedback External consultation Identifying appropriate literature for a new discipline Lack of formal academic references

17. The One Big Challenge: Is to gain credibility with industry Scepticism is utterly justified: “We have one lecturer with games industry experience, which isn't really enough. Getting lecturers with experience has to be hard” “So anyway ___ is a terrible university. We had a 3D animation module, and the teacher arrives. It was his first class teaching here. He was supposed to be teaching us 3D Studio Max, and he was like "What? I only know Poser and Flash..."

18. “We had a supposed Art & Graphics module! and the teacher arrives. It was his first class teaching here. He was supposed to be teaching us 3D Studio Max, and he was like "What? I only know Director!!!” …But I've been working with Max for under 2 years before I started the degree so I was lucky in that respect (I even organised to teach some tutorials to people who wanted to start out in Max, I prepared hand outs and all!) “We also had a creativity module, which was taught by a web designer, so he turned it into a web design and database module.”

19. “We occasionally get guest lecturers but they aren't very often related to games.” “We had a level design module, taught by someone who has clearly never made a level in his life. That was pretty painful I can tell you. Our coursework was to create a level... out of cardboard. This kinda stuff isn't really funny when you're paying for your degree.” http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php? threadid=2414&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

20. Grim Advice Please don’t be a bandwagon-jumper If your course is about ‘broad academic study’, then don’t market it as vocational And actually have academic knowledge of games! Not multimedia, virtual environments, screen studies, animation, geography… DO NOT use existing modules for the majority of the degree

21. Grim Advice Liase constantly with local and international contacts Don’t let the ‘theory’ suffer – we can give the industry something different They have some appalling practices And if we are going to produce curriculum guidelines (IGDA, TIGA), then we need to ensure that they are not abused. Because they will be. Play games!!

22. Thanks Please check out the ICDC student show-reel: AMD Developer’s Lounge ECTS