Educating Game Designers - Too Much "Game" at Game Schools - Extra Credits
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- čas přidán 19. 04. 2016
- When students complain that their school didn't prepare them and designers report they give no special weight to job applicants with a design degree, something has gone wrong. A rigorous liberal arts education combined with ongoing project courses may give students the social and intellectual skills that systems and design courses alone cannot. Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday! bit.ly/SubToEC (---More below)
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I love the design used for the young game designer, its so adorable :)
I know, right? I just wanna hug her!!!
can we have her as a main character pls
+Ivan Garcia This.
I do really like the design of the character, and might like to see it brought back for future episodes.
Also, SHE HAS ARMS!! Given that the only other character to be drawn with arms is Dan, this is big news.
+LRFLEW I think she still doesn't have arms - all I see are dangling sleeves, and her hands are too short to come out their other ends.
Being a game designer isn't hard, you just have to tighten up the graphics on level 3.
You clearly have no actual idea what Game Designers do...
Which means they are doing a good job that you do not realise that. :)
Lars2Lars9Lars
Calm down bud it's a joke that clearly went over your head.
Lars2Lars9Lars Look up "tighten up the graphics on level 3" then apologizes
Just give up too much to learn man 🤣
hello, fellow meme person
1) Communication
2) Collaboration
3) A Love of learning
4) A Realistic Scope
5) Logical Thinking
6) Lateral Thinking
7) A Breadth of knowledge
8) Determination
tasoganedude GENJI a love this channel can you please do a history on overwatch and how to get Jon's in bizard and different big companies please?
How much basic psychology you know
James's proposed Game Design course sounds like it should be the system used in most education.
Not really, specialization is desirable in ways that can't be addressed by this course-load. A Criminal Law attorney doesn't need to know much about WW2 weapons or Math. A Medical Doctor doesn't need to know history, although an ethics course is desirable, philosophy in general isn't really needed either.
Intense specialization can be desirable, especially for something like a doctor or specific fields of engineering.
Oreki Houtarou Specialization is initially appealing, but has negative aspects. You cannot just teach “ethics” subroutine teaching history, philosophy, psychology, etc. Those things are integral to understanding basically everything
"my schooling didn't really prepare me for the life I wanted"
one could probably say that about education today in general :/
+Mr. Dumptruck, akatwitch Welol how about taking matters in your own hand? If you feel your education is lacking sdomething, educate yourself! Read, be part of a book club that discusses literary works, take art classes go to museums more often! Seriously, school isnt' there to hand EVERYTHING over to you, it should hand you the tools to educate yourself. No school can teach you everything you will need as the school can't know exactly what YOU specifically will need. Take some responsibility
89taklung except the gruelling education nowadays does its utter best to drain any passion someone has for that field. If you dont have a hardcore passion for your interest, and can acknowledge the fact that you just do your study for the paperwork to get in, you get away with either a large debt, or a cynical view on the world.
89taklung
By your logic, I should not go to school at all. Basically I can learn everything I think is best for me!
Please, go hide yourself somewhere.
I dont think there's anything you can do to completely prepare yourself for the life you want. Mostly because desires change and you cant really 100 percent predict what skills you're going to need. ect ect.
USA education at least. I'm in europe...
I was with you right until you said math, then my college trauma came back and I started muttering triangle formulas in a curled crying ball.
Me too :( I had a math tutor from kindergarten right though to graduation. A college statistic course left me in shambles. If math were to be a requirement for such a school, it would have to be taught in RELATION to game making, and not just mindlessly plugging numbers into equations and hypothetical problems. If you want open minded "artistic" people in the game industry, it must be noted that mathematics does not come naturally to everyone. Especially arts majors. Even with 12 years of tutoring, it's a struggle.
Sounds like my philosophy degree is more practical than I thought. ^_^
How many angles can fit on a tip of a needle?
+Luka Mihailovic 42
+Luka Mihailovic Mathematically infinite. Literally.
First, 42 is the answer of the meaning of the universe. About math, you say infinite, but there is a limit to how small something can be before it is considered non-existant. But the angel might just be a size of a human??
+Wyman Manderly 69
Can I just have James teach me?
ninja3212 That WOULD be awesome
"Class, welcome your new substitute, Miss Jaiden."
So basically you could roll your own by taking computer science with arts electives and meanwhile make a game.
+Raz Taz Better yet business for learning how to manage resources and work around problems.
+Raz Taz finishing my undergrad tomorrow and that's exactly what I did. Major Comp Sci. with history minor. 4th year project is a VR game in Unreal. Wasn't even intentional lol
+TeamRabbit Alec While Business sounds like a fine idea, business degrees of schools at and around where Im going to school are usually the "joke" major, and a few that I know have come back and said it doesnt really prepare you for anything, so obviously be sure your school has a good program for whatever your interest is.
AlkAndVeilyx If you can turn that into an MBA from a well respected university like Wharton or Harvard, it's extremely valuable later in life.
I'm a Game Dev professor at George Brown College in Toronto. I personally have a BFA in animation, an engineering degree and did my graduate work in digital character animation at Sheridan. I'm only mentioning this so you can see the route I took to get into game design. I have about 20 years work experience split between engineering and animation (yes, I'm old).
At George Brown we have 4 distinct programs in the Game Design faculty, a coding stream, a modeling stream, an animation stream and lastly a graduate program that is an actual game design program. The undergrad programs all focus on the particular specialty. I teach in the animation stream. My students learn animation (2D and 3D, environmental, character, procedural), as well rigging, a little level design, and make a few simple games. We discuss the difference between game animation and animation for other media. Our students use both UE and Unity and have learned how to import their game assets and test them in engine. I believe that it is imperative that students attending an undergrad program do focus on hard skills and actually use the software/engines they may encounter immediately upon graduation. To allow students to believe that after a 3 or 4 year undergraduate program they will be applying for a "game design" position is wrong. After completing their studies, undergraduate should be qualified for a junior art (modeling or animation), or a junior coding position (testing is a viable option as well). To lead them to believe that they will be level designers, or game designers (idea guy, pitch guy or even involved in creating a GDD) is doing them a disservice. When I was involved in the hiring process for various studios I worked for, I was interested in the animator's reel, and their knowledge of the particular engine the studio was using for the project I was hiring for.
The graduate program accepts students from various faculties, and is a true game design program. The grad students create a mock studio, go through the process of pitching and prototyping. Several games are selected (the number varies from year to year), management teams are formed and the grad students "hire" their teams from the various undergraduate programs in the George Brown undergrad Game Dev programs (if "hired", the undergrads are given credit towards their courses). Students in the graduate programs are learning to be game designers, rather than asset creators. They are strictly managerial (though I'm sure some do act as leads and create assets), focusing on running a studio and project.
The graduate classes often go on to create indie studios. 13AM Games, the creators of Runbow, were last year's graduating class. Previous graduates of the program have recently started a studio called Finish Line and will release their first title soon.
Those are pretty much the skills that make you employable in any industry nowadays, it doesn't apply solely to game design. Our school system is incredibly outdated.
It's interesting hearing about the things that goes into being a *games* designer. It's not to much different than being a (regular) designer. The breadth of knowledge, lateral thinking, problem solving, and technique to apply these skills are all difficult to pin down. It's interesting!
"My school didn't prepare me for ..." is clearly the catchphrase for technical jobs.
+Nils F In my experience it's the catchphrase for any job.
+Asgar Zigel I bet, though i didn't want to speak about fields i had no exerience in
2:50 i see an undertale reference there.
+Callum Staras Nice catch!
You don't say?
+Callum Staras At least it's relative to the discussion.
+Callum Staras dat smile dough .... gets mi evrytiem
+Callum Staras 2:09 Woah a kingdom hearts reference! Really hard to catch that one! A game video made by a gaming channel that has a reference to video games, sure is rare these days!
In the beginning of the video you can change game design for every other profession in the world and the phrase would still be true.
+Guilherme Araujo Nahh. software engineers should learn liberal arts instead of software engineering? I disagree.
Anton Adelson
What? I was talking about the phrase at 0:27 seconds
Ahhh, ok. Yeah, I agree with you here!
And now I'm SUPER excited about my upcoming class at Abertay University.
With almost endless game jams with a cross-disciplinary array of students encouraged, small classes with directed support from industry veterans, and a learning environment and course specifically directed at and informed by the industry.
You've inspired me to believe that I, an English major, can become a successful game designer.
+Samuel Owen The now head of From Software and director of Dark Souls was a programmer.
Are we teaching too much "game" at game schools? What should game design degrees really teach?
+Extra Credits I really want to thank you guys for these videos, almost all of them, especially this one makes me think critically about the important elements of game design,, and have influenced the game i'm currently making just as a hobby. So keep up the amazing work!
+Extra Credits What would you suggest as courses for someone going into college in the next few years as a start to game design?
+Extra Credits NO! There's still not enough "game" being taught.
+Extra Credits You need to teach more game DESIGN. Mechanics, mechanics, mechanics are the most important thing.
Be more expensive in creativity and be committed to show uniqueness in your ideas.
The only real problem I see in the suggested course is that if the rigor of the course will result in "failing not being uncommon" then having a group/team objective is very counter intuitive as you may find that you wake up and your coder dropped and now you are fucked cause he was the one who really had the know-how to make those mechanics function well or you might find that you're team is so bogged down with their actual jobs, plus the very rigorous courses that they are unable to really put in the time they need to and have semi-functioning lives so everyone passively shuffles arround responsibility and a minority of the members who are either more willing or less encumbered end up doing the majority of the work, because remember most of your students are going to be working to support themselves in some way as well as doing this course too so for many of them they may not have the hours in the day. The current system of over-working students is kind-of failing as is and making game design a doctorate level program in terms of rigor isn't going to result in better games, its going to result in less people with game design degrees.
The first part sounds like a normal day at the office of any... well... office. In my experience, communication and all the bla bla surrounding it is two parts: being able to express your ideas, for which a large amount of general knowledge and a scope of words can suffice. The second part is one huge excersize in dealing with dissappointment. People disappoint. Accepting that fact and still manage to get a somewhat workable product out of the mess of failures, now thats where training is needex
Believe me, making games = making mistakes.
A person who makes their own game isn't able to see the mistakes until they practice in doing that. That is why writing down every mistake is important during your study.
I think this is the problem with ALL education systems. Going through checklists, and not seeing the wood for the trees. Maths being probably the worst offender here :)
That is correct, son. This is because capitalism has created the "employment with out enjoyment". The teachers themselves just go in the class room, spew out what they nerded from the book, and then go for the coffee break. All this so they can get paid in the end. And the schools themselves cutting the materials financing for REAL practice(not just theories from books). Or atleast thats how it works in Bulgaria...
But I am pretty sure that it is basically the same even in USA, despite it being praised so much(commercial propaganda).
I wholeheartedly agree. I learned way more in one year of working full time for a software company than 4 years at a university about data analytics.
I want to take James's theoretical course plan. I would love it.
The pigtail girl is so cute!
>w
+Yanaka White I know, I hope we see more of her in the future.
+Yanaka White Cute but unemployed
When Chiyo-San goes into game design.
Her name is chiyo?
Azumanga Daioh reference. It's a manga that's already been around a while.
That course-load sounds horrible. Like, I'd expect at least a Masters, if not PHD with all that. My Comsci degree had nowhere near that much stuff. If that's what it took to develop games, not even the greatest game designers like Miyamoto would do it.
Agreed and no school could come close to executing it perfectly. It sounds like a degree from hell.🔥
After thinking on this a few days, I realized something. The changes suggested are mostly changes which address the current education system as a whole.
Like, I'm in the medical field now, and honestly for the most part the schooling I took to get my degree didn't help prepare me for the actual job process. The clinical rotations (essentially unpaid internships) is what did, and was a much greater help than the other 3 years I spent in college working for this degree.
"Math is universally used"
*Might have Dyscalculia*
FACK
U don't need math to became an abstract artist whitout the basic knowledge of proportions in general and whitout any qualifications
this sounds like what they should be teaching in secondary school, outside of the having to make games part
My school does exactly what the video advices at the end. I guess I'm in a nice one !
+Oswin Pond (John Smith) What School?
Isart Digital, but it's for french people !
Yes it is ! But sadly they don't have a Game Design course.
This really addresses the general shortcomings of the current university education format. Sheets with bubbles are for administrators to point to their overseers that there's measurable progress/results, they're not tools of teaching.
One thing I'd add is more statistics. Everyone says math, but I know plenty of great programmers who are only passable at math and a math PhD who is outstanding at math(surprise, surprise) but only passable at programming.
Statistics is a critically important/useful application of math and logic that no one seems to think is important to actually teach, even though it comes up constantly in games work(and even every day life).
For gameplay, the utility of understanding standard deviation is way higher than sin/cos/tan(though they obviously have uses, too). Advanced math knowledge deteriorates quickly and you usually only need specific things for specific problems. Knowing how to analyze and understand large amounts of data takes a while to get a handle of and comes up way more often in game design and systems programming.
As far as other math, none of it is bad and it all has an application. If you're concerned with something like physics, then stats is insignificant compared to vector calculus. It's all a question of what you're abstracting and what kind of math is ideal for defining it.
Also, lol@ 5:22 says scripting but shows web markup.
As a game programmer, I'd actually say that geometry (sin/cos/tan) is far more critical than stats, haha. After all, you're probably working in 2/3-dimensional spaces on a daily basis. However, you are right that stats would be a valuable addition, randomness and data analysis being a common occurrence.
Also, game programmers would do a LOT of good to study affine transformations and vector math (including the higher tiers of calculus.) Lack of Calculus will probably never roadblock you, but it opens up a myriad of creative options you would never have imagined otherwise. (I have actually used calculus of curves and planes fairly regularly.) I'm sure that stats could empower you in a similar way, especially when designing algorithms.
+Frizzil You're right. It depends what kind of systems you're programming, for sure. I honestly have used far less stats personally, but that's cuz I always do graphics stuff. I've only ever needed trig or some kind of vector understanding to solve problems(for content generation, I'm an artist, not an engine programmer). Most of the *gameplay programmers I know lean on stats. I updated it to clarify, because it was kind of ambiguous what I meant.
I've just personally known lots of people who knew calculus(because it's very present in typical education) but few that understood stats and how to apply them to gameplay specific problems. So I guess I was trying to encourage to cover the bases.
Also, in terms of audience I sort of just guessed that most people wouldn't be starting on low level graphics/physics problems. But more of something that was gameplay exploration in an existing engine.
Though I guess that's maybe not a safe assumption.
+Anguel Roumenov Bogoev Well, geometry is pretty basic stuff after all. For the record, I've done gameplay, systems, and graphics programming, and I'd say knowing trig functions is usual in all three! I've only needed stats in systems thus far (distributing replenishing, mineable ore throughout land on a server), but it was crucial and interesting when I needed it. Are there scenarios where stats are useful apart from predicting algorithmic behavior and analyzing user behavior?
Frizzil
Well, I was mostly thinking in terms of analyzing behavior and informing systems design. Active statistical models are definitely less common and probably completely absent from lots of large projects. Though I think of it as a very useful analysis tool that is surprisingly underused by anyone short of AAA studios. That's why I was emphasizing it's utility.
I do actually have another interesting use case that makes me assume they see use in other projects with more frequency than one would suspect.... but I don't want to overstep NDA >.<
I don't know how to refer to the ideas broadly enough without just babbling in a non useful way :/
I can point to the older Sims games, they did a lot of that. It's definitely less common now, and I wish I could explain the specific case because although I suspect for various tactical/strategy and online games, there's only one that I know for a fact.
omg the kid is sooo cute.
I'm going to insist in that you should make a "game" game. best gaem ever.
i like how of those qualifications, none of them including "liking games" or "being good at games"
+vietimports Poe's Law. Anyway, just in case: it's kind of assumed that somebody applying for a video game design course would like video games.
This information would have been very helpful 5 years ago. I just graduated from my Game Design school, and it fit the description of the "Teaches too much 'Game'" schools. A lot of our classes were defined by what program we used (ie: the Photoshop classes, the Flash classes, the Unity classes, etc.) the only class that really fit what was talked about in the video was Capstone, which required us to find a mentor from the industry to critique us on a project.
+Richard Dakazo That last one sounds super helpful, but not really practical. Not many people would be willing to take time out of their day for free to talk with some person they barely know and will, in all honestly, probably not hear from again. That would be an incredibly difficult class just on that premise alone.
+Templarfreak Yes, and it's a pass/fail class where you basically either get a 0% F or a 100% A, there is no in-between. I nearly failed the class because I couldn't find someone to be my mentor until almost halfway through the class and my project suffered through it. I still think they only passed me out of pity and the fact that the class was never being offered again at my school (it's in teach-out, preparing to close later this year)
This feels less like a commentary on game design school problems and more like a commentary on problems with school in general.
HR discourse... "we look for someone that is a team player and knows to work independently, a people person with strong analytical skills, a lateral thinker who can work within our strict process, a maverick who will fit in our pré-conceived ideas", yeah, right
4:16 THATS AN OVERWATCH REFERENCE YESSSS!!! whoooo Genji fte
This may be the single greatest video in "how to X" ever. As someone who has taught programming, game design, architecture, and more for 22 years, YOU ROCK. I always try to impress on my students the fundamentals and knowing a variety of topics are worth far more than knowing particular syntax or tools. Thanks for making a succinct and easy to grasp case for this thought.
I went through a game design degree at RIT. Even in addition to a pretty solid resume, I haven't really even been considered for programming positions at game companies.
If I have one regret so far, it's the amount of time invested in learning core DirectX and OpenGL. To be clear, the professors had the same mindset as EC did, that such APIs change so often that the only value to be taken away is in the core concepts: Things like matrix layering, memory management, and things that won't change. But by forcing us to make our games from "New Win32 project", we ended up spending so much of our time fighting the Win32 core library and finding sparse resources on how to do certain tasks in GLUT that very little actual "game" was demonstratable in the end; I honestly think I've learned far more about proper programming and engine design doing web development work in the professional space. I'm also hoping I didn't misinterpret my professors, because as a student I was told to avoid the "horribly slow" standard template library like the plague. Today it shortcuts my work by hours for literally *no* performance cost. It made me realize what a waste of time it was reinventing the wheel.
What my professors may not have anticipated was the situation today where you can't walk five feet without tripping over a game engine. It is of course valuable if you can change your mindset as needed to understand a new engine if a company needs it, but ultimately the likelihood that either a hobbyist, junior developer, or even senior developer is going to be changing low-level engine code has become more and more unlikely; it's a much more specialized job, and it pays really well. Knowing the workings of an engine at the low level can help you use the high-level concepts appropriately, but the value proposition for making all learning developers deep-dive it before doing anything else just isn't there. I'm a web designer who will pretty much never know exactly how all the modern browsers are coded at the low level, and I doubt very many coders will ever know how all the transistors in their circuit boards work.
I'm a high school junior who wants to work as a game programmer; I am in the process of looking at colleges and RIT is pretty high on my list (I'm going to visit it this Saturday, in fact). So let me clarify -- even after getting a Game Design & Dev degree from RIT, you were unable to secure a programming position in *any* game company, and are now working in web design? It sounds to me, then, like you got absolutely no value from your degree. Do you think a general computer science/programming degree would've served you better, even within the game industry?
the ability to take feedback. yeah this is lacking today.
+ferklk especially on youtube.
"oh you disagree with me? you must be a little kid then cause anything I say MUST be true!"
I get called a kid a lot when I disagree - then I slap them with my '34 on the ACT' accomplishment.
that usually shuts them up.
or you must be a sexist
Thx for using RobKTA's Mettaton remix!
Wow!
This has become my favorite Extra Credits episode in years. Brilliant work!
If/when I get a position in the games industry, I am going to owe so much to you all and your channel.
Keep up the awesome work, guys.
oopsie in the title, you wrote 'extra history' instead of 'extra credits'
+ZettaGale Sleeepy. Thank you!
James did suggest extra history anyway
+ZettaGale More extra history is never a bad thing
+Extra Credits more extra history plz!!!!
+Extra Credits Lol, it's true: someone had said that it seems you guys are doing more history videos than gaming videos. Not that many of us mind, we like both topics, though personally I was beginning to miss your gaming vids.
The course you described would probably be 25+ credit hours per semester.
Episodes like these are why i watch extra credits. I find a helpful reality check in content such as this.
4:07 - "So as utterly batty as it might sound"
I had to back that up and watch it again.
When I did my game-design minor during my software engineering college. Every semester we were put into groups of 4-5 where there usually were 1-2 programmers, 1-2 designers and a business-oriented person and have a game project to create. In addition to other classes (sound design, level design, game programming). We always had the freedom to use any other software than what the course suppied. If you wanted to create your sounds in a different application than what sound design was teaching you. Go ahead. It was the thinking, the progress and how you got to the result and the result that mattered most. not what software you were using to make it. It was only a minor so it wasn't a full 4 year education (i took it twice so it was 1 year total). but I think it was still a great experience and probably a pretty good game design course.
I'm currently attending Champlain College going for a degree in Game Programming. I'm not, as I mentioned, actually studying Game Design, but I can still see that our system bears an almost uncanny resemblance to the one you just described. Has James spoken to the people who came up with our core system?
I'm going there in the fall for the game design major,and I agree with you on the similarities
Sometimes when I'm watching these videos, I forget to listen and just marvel at the animation choices. Specifically in this video, I like the animation of the young designer's sleeves, but there are so many other examples. Great animation EC :)
I like how seeing important issues from a game perspective allows you to think so openly. That was a good analysis of education in general. What kid needs to learn what school teaches now? This program would be far more effective in schools than the one existing now, and most professionals in education have a vision like this, but it's hard to pull off.
I was at the GDC session that James talked at. Everything said by the educators that spoke hit hard. My friend and I that were there, talked to James afterwards, but still felt cheated by our courses that we are in the middle of right now. I would go back and get a degree in something else, honestly, if I had known that the industry treated degrees the way that they do. But hey, I'm gonna keep trying, and hopefully make it.
Please tell me about James and the nameless narrator i just heard from. Tell everything you know if you could.
+mkhpsyco Yes.
+Uzman Messi Ha, Dan wasn't there, but James was. He's a chill dude, very friendly, and was swarmed by people every time (two times) that I saw him at the conference. Honestly, it was just hilarious because the friend I was with was pretty star struck.
+mkhpsyco dan is the chosen one. Enlightened. Man, i would be a dozen times more excited if i could meet or even like talk to this nameless voice who has taught me so so much in just 2 years. It would be a privilege. Sadly though... No one cares. :/
ALL education courses would be better off like this.
NONE actually do this (excepting trade schools that don't offer degrees). Because it's hard, and requires actual effort on the part of the administration.
Yep, yep, yep. At least we are stating to reintegrate the idea of apprenticeship as an easy tool to help bolster what "formal" education lacks. We are doing this in the form of internships.
I just wish they were better integrated.
I'm really happy watching this and realizing that the degree that I am currently in college for follows a lot of the same aspects of what you guys described as the ideal course. There's a very large emphasis on group projects and a couple of upper level courses that get interdisciplinary, and a lot of the professors here talk about teaching basic concepts and fundamentals of good design thinking and communication rather than focusing solely on program knowledge. The course I'm finishing up now was completely focused on educating us on other avenues of design-based jobs such as simulation and data visualization; we only recently started taking those concepts and applying them to entertainment-related fields. Needless to say, I'm super happy with my choice of college and I hope other people can find avenues of education they'll be happy with too.
5:26 "And makes the jump to _scripting_ easier"
*_HTML shown in background_*
Now that I've gotten that nitpick out of the way, awesome episode! As someone interested in game design and currently going through university, this is invaluable information to have.
This is probably a good curriculum for almost anything. Being well rounded, understanding logic and thinking in new and interesting ways are qualities almost any industry wants.
Oh my goodness, this is golden. This will be useful in the future, if I ever come around to creating my own game design school ^^
This episode showcases how far the art has come. I have boundless respect for Dan Jones and Scott for the amazing work they do, the characters are colorful, expressive and have tons of personality, I especially liked the scene with the blue haired girl, I've come to call her Varonica because I don't know her name, is mortified at how the system she learned how to use had changed so drastically.
I'm glad the college I went to taught me a lot about communication and collaboration in its game design course. It really has helped me come out of my shell, and improve my communication skills.
seems like a game theory class would be a good addition to the new curriculum.
part math, part philosophy, 100% relevant.
That would be one of the maths subjects
Just make sure Matpat doesn't teach it ;)
Seth ノートン who's that? and what would be the problem?
weesh ful Game Theory CZcams Channel, he makes terrible puns
Seth ノートン sounds like my kind of guy
you guys should do an episode on level design
Your list covers literally every job I've ever applied for, whether it was engineering (which I'm in), or waiting tables.
These illustrations are killing me xD Awesome episode! :)
Wait a minute...that professional game designer in this video. He's the same guy who was depicted as the director of The Division. So what, did he get demoted down from director to just being a regular programmer?
prequels
I've been saying this for years now. "Game Design" schools cost four to five times more than a traditional four year college yet they end up giving their students a worse education. Get a good well rounded education with all the fundamentals and you'll be a better candidate than anyone coming out of a "Game Design" school.
I am currently in a game design class at a University where I am studying Computer Science and one thing we do that I find quit valuable is where we have mini presentations on our game and the other groups in the class critique it and help think of different things/ways to do things. That along with a trained eye beta testing your game is quite helpful.
just watching this is making my heart race. I love it I love it all. I've never had the opportunity to play games but I love them all the same. I would love to be apart of this gaming revolution but I know I lack many important details. Thank you for making these videos and please keep up the great work. You guys at extra credits are pushing video games to a whole new level. thank you.
Very intresting! For a starting indie group (just for hobby), it's really intresting to hear how the new "pro's" are not even learning everything correctly!
Given the announcement of Pyre I think you guys should do an analysis on the SuperGiant team and how well they work together.
This makes me feel so much better about not having a game design major at my university. I've been sort of crafting my own out of the computer science degree, music courses, and outside sources like this channel, as well as looking at the designs of things like tabletop games.
4:14 SURPRISE GENJI! great video guys, interesting look at something I never really thought about. It goes to show that some jobs require more than you normally think it would.
I am a sophomore at DigiPen, and I am really sick of seeing the school fumble over itself trying to adapt to ideas like this. Only one or two professors in the school really know how to teach game design effectively. The professor who took James' place here can't reasonably pace a course to save his life, and even when James was here, I have heard some horror stories from how he ran his classes. Having met James in person, though, I'm not sure how to take that, given they were anecdotes from a few senior students - he seems like a reasonable person from my experience.
As for the curriculum, I don't agree with the idea that running students into the ground with every topic ever right out of the gate is the right way to go about things. If James really does think that way, I'm inclined to believe some of the things my peers have said about his classes. Instead, I think that getting students to complete a bunch of smaller, faster design practicum assignments right away is the best foot forward. Get students to create a series of small demos their first semester, or even just teaching them to build individual components establishes a good feedback loop early on as to their design ability. This is something which nearly every other technical or creative degree program makes a priority, but game design students (At least at DigiPen) often have to wait quite a while to get any kind of useful practice by way of assignments, leaving us twisting in the wind while listening to lectures about concepts we already taught ourselves either before attending or in the first few weeks, since we receive basically zero technical instruction in game theory classes.
I don't know anything about DigiPen or James' classes, but I would throw a caveat out there: if there _aren't_ a small handful of "horror stories" about a professor, they probably suck. You always have that subset of students that resents high expectations.
Victoria Dominowski or instead of a thesis how about a demo or an example of a certain design philosophy made by the student?
I mostly apply lessons from this channel to tabletop and text-based RPGs that I play in, and most episodes do teach me something valuable to that. For that, I am very grateful. Even episodes that don't still give cool insights into the gaming industry that I love to see. But a question has nagged at me regarding this channel for a while...
How much influence are you actually exerting on the industry and medium? How many game devs reach out to you guys and say "Thank you" or ask for further assistance in some way.
It's mostly just curiosity. This channel is cool and I always click on this first when I see it in my feed(I binge watch Extra History after you finish "arcs"), so I wanna know how well you're actually doing at this thing you've set out to do.
Wow, you guys basically described the game development program I took at UOIT (Oshawa, Ontario). Glad to see I went through a course that taught game development in a mostly proper manner.
I started in a small studio a couple of years ago and recently managed to get a job as a game designer in a larger studio. I originally inteded to become an artist, but really enjoyed the design I was able to do in the small studio.
Anywho, I feel very fortunate to be in the position I am in and I wanna perform my best and ended up putting a lot of stress on myself and I really had to "Fake it till I made it". I have found watching the videos here on Extra Credit really useful and really relateable.
I agree with what you said in this video, I feel quite strongly that my degree was a waste of money and I've actually ended up relying more on my experience in retail (communication skills!!!).
Anywho, keep up the good work :D
If you guys haven't made an epsiode on programming, go right ahead.
+Raybox Razorblade They did a while back. It's an older video. "So you wanna be a Programmer" (or something like that).
TCMOREIRA Cool.
+Raybox Razorblade /watch?v=WCuUWGmatpU "So you want to be a Developer." Two-parter even!
+Raybox Razorblade I agree with this. They did episode on "So you want to be a Developer" but I would like to hear advice for Game Schools. They had "So you want to be a Game Designer" last time. Don't see why not? *fingers-crossed*
Shade
If you want to be a developer (programmer that is) get a Computer Science degree.
The lack of programming requirements make this seem a bit unviable as an idea. By requiring students to have a game done every single semester would imply that they have had some form of coding experience, unless you are expecting them to use a tool like Playmaker, which is probably not the best idea.
+Gammalad im currently a game design student and we use unreal 4 for basicly everything
we usually get 2 week or 4 week projects that involve making something like a short side scroller or small 3rd person level with whatever mechanics we can get working in that time
+Gammalad They probably expect you to learn the tools on your own, when I studied Systems Engineering we were initially only taught JAVA and we were expected to learn stuff like matlab and languages like PHP, C++ and C# almost on our own.
+TheCcrack Where are you learning at the moment? and do you recommend it? :OO
David Vino
UCLAN in northwest england
yeah its been pretty good. learnt the basics of 3d modeling and texturing with stuff like maya, couldnt imagine trying to lern maya on my own the thing is a nightmare UI wise
TheCcrack
Well, so is blender, but blender isn't mega-tough to learn xD
I wish I learned stuff like this back when I was attending junior collage for game degree courses, I worked really hard and rode it far but I wasn't fully prepared for the rabbit hole game design really was and this show actually made me realize that.....a bit to late as I had already been at it for 2 years and one episode in particular made me realize that having unique idea's is the last thing you need and all the knowledge on math, computer logic, lateral thinking, and many more things were far more important and I just didn't have grounded knowledge for all of that since I was struggling with every math course and it was daunting for me just to pass C programming.
so I hope this helps more gaming classes properly prepare students for the real mindset they need to have for all of this stuff so they dont feel the weight of their dreams crush them like it did for me.
I like your course suggestions, as those courses are usually taken more for passion than practicability. And passion is a very important trait for game designers.
I like this episode because it explains how a liberal arts education is actually useful in accomplishing actual tasks, something a lot of professors can't seem to manage. A friend of mine has had to take a lot of courses about teaching and he explained to me the differences between "training" and "education". Training is about teaching a student the actual skills they'll be expected to use every day while performing a specific job; whereas education is meant to expand a student's personal knowledge of the world and the variety of ideas in it. Colleges and universities sell their courses as training, promising students that they'll be prepared for high paying jobs (that will more than cover the cost of the enormous loans the students are expected to take out in order to attend these fine institutions), but call it education. Meanwhile, they've really failed at both. The actual skills required to do jobs in the modern economy change so quickly that no school can keep up, and the idea of learning in order to expand a person's mind and spirit has been largely abandoned as impractical and idealistic, when really it's the only form of learning that truly would retain value after school ends.
In case anyone wants to know wheter or not to go to a gamedesign school (this will be probably too personal, but.. fuck it):
I spent four years of my life getting a degree in game design from one of the best schools in the world. It was the biggest mistake of my life.
Not only did i waste massive ammounts of money, energy and time with it.. it's also a degree you can't tell anyone in the real world about because when people hear the word "game" you're done. "Thanks, you'll be hearing from us". I'm at a point now where i lie and tell human resource people that i went travelling for four years instead of me having a degree in gamedesign, because it has less of a negative impact. Yes, i have a university degree and it's better to hide it than to admit to having that one. And don't tell anyone in your social circle about such a degree. It only makes you look immature. You WONT get a job in any serious company outside of the games-industry with it.
And if you wanna work in the gameindustry.. yeah good luck. I've done that too for a while and it's shit. There are almost zero jobs for gamedesigners. Especially young ones. Wherever you apply, theres already someone there who does a shit job, but has friends there and wont quit anytime soon. Also you need at least hundred shipped AAA-titles and 20 years of experience. Which you'll never get because nobody hires a gamedesigner with no experience. And school doesn't count as experience. If you don't have a solid background in coding or 3D tools, don't even apply. And expect to be paid absolute garbage salaries for tons of overtime and never get anywhere in that company. Once you're older and no longer needed, you'll have nothing to stabilize your life and you'll regret every second you invested in this doomed careerpath. And don't get me started on the people you have to deal with in the gamesindustry..
So you think: "Well, i'm just going to create my own game." Yeah sure.. as if that's going to be succesfull. Kickstart and greenlight the shit out of your "revolutionary" gameconcept, it's not going to be able to compete with the big ones and probably going to ruin you financially. And even IF it does work out.. okay.. maybe you made a few bucks. On to the next title.. will you be that lucky again? Yeah.. play the lottery. You have better chances there. And once you're older.. what do you do then? You have nothing to fall back on. "I've been making games" isn't something you can sell in a CV. It's a reason for people not to hire you. You'll end up working at some shit job you can get without education.
Seriousely.. get a real degree. Gaming is a fun hobby. But don't confuse it with a valid career. That silly idea ruined my life and there is nothing i can do to fix it now. I'm mid 30^s, completely broke, i live in a tiny, shit 1 room apartment and desperately try to somehow deal with my bills. Nobody hires me with that shit education, i don't get any help from the state (because male and have a "degree", of course no woman would ever want to be with a loser like me and my family fucking hates me now. They all think i'm a fucking loser and the sad thing is that they are right.. I'm all alone, have nothing but a ruined, sad joke of a life to look back upon and no future ahead of me. Do you wanna be like me? Great.. go study gamedesign. If you imagine a future where you can afford holidays, have a family or maybe even own a car or live in your own house.. stay away from the gamesindustry.
But i'm sure someone here (that probably has no industry experience) will tell you otherwise. Believe whatever you want. As long you can deal with the consequences..
+EarlGrey Holy fuck, that is bleak. How about other people. Are you still in touch with fellows you graduated with? Is your story the norm?
A sad story but one that is important to hear, I'm glad you shared! My friends and I draw but I'm the only one going for a real education and planning on entering the corporate world. now that we are all graduating they have no jobs to find outside of simple 9/5. they always have me flak and kept saying they were chasing their dreams. now they have no money. people need to see that college is a bubble. many degrees are worthless
+RoonMian unfortunately, a ton of people who get degrees in competitive fields (make no mistake, game development is a competitive field) don't end up using it other than as a prequalifier for an unrelated job.
+RoonMian I think one of the 24 we were works in the games industry and "made it". Not a great company and not a great game. But i think he's doing okay. The others all went back to what they did before, got another degree (for those that could afford it) or just worked whatever they got. Two work at burgerking now.. Two of them made a job out of their 3D skills because they focused heavily on that aspect during their studies (smart guys) and i think one went on to study IT afterwards and can now combine the two degrees in a job where he develops some kind of gameified learning software and does all the coding and database stuff himself. One checks tickets on trains, one has tried to become a "CZcamsr", wasn't really succesful and works full time at a supermarket now and then there is the sad example of the guy who started his own company, wanting to make great games and now produces an endless stream of buggy farming simulators that are so shit that people make funny videos about it. And one of us commited suicide a few years ago. But as far as i know it's because of his ex, nothing game related.
Look.. i KNOW i'm frustrated and probably biased. I'm sure there are people who maybe got lucky somehow or just are happy in spite of it.. what do i know. I've never been the lucky or happy type. But i know that a lot of kids probably think that gamedesign is the dream-carreer. Just like i did, when i was young and naive. And i want to show them another side of that "dream". Not because i wanna ruin it for them. But because i want them to be happy and get to a point where they can be happy with their choices. That's all.
+EarlGrey the game design industry is a nightmare of crunch time and slave wages, and they literally pay as much as medium range help desk jobs
Really liked this episode! I'm still not sure if I want to get into game design, because it's such a crowded field, but episodes like these help me decide if I want to or not.
The "have a wide range of skills" is a universal trait. I work in theatre and film and that trait defines the best people I've worked with.
Why hasn't James founded a university yet?
+Leroy Jenkins $$$ and time
Classix Small details
I've got a game dev education, and the biggest problem with it was that there was too much theoretical stuff and not enough learning actual hard skills. If you want to make games, what you primarily need to learn is PROGRAMMING and GRAPHICS, and these skills take years to get good at.
Game developers should pick up 3d software on the job? The fuck? No, you won't get hired as a 3d-modeler if you don't actually have a lot of experience with, say, Maya. You won't get hired as a 2d-artist if you don't have a lot of experience drawing on a computer. You won't get hired as a programmer if you haven't had a lot of experience coding. You won't get hired as an animator if you don't have a lot of experience animating. You need experience and you need a strong portfolio. Your portfolio isn't getting you anywhere if it just has clever game ideas in it.
Tools get swapped out with time, but a lot of the underlying patterns stay the same, and so knowing the old tools will make it much easier to learn the new ones.
And frankly, I don't think you can really teach logical thinking. Some are just born better at it.
Of course, Extra Credit is a highly theoretically focused channel, so if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Even the fact that you frame this as "educating game designers" points to this, as game companies are much more prone to hire programmers and graphic artists than game designers. My impression is that you don't really get hired as a game designer, you get hired as a programmer or graphic artist and work yourself up to game design. So if the school is focused on teaching game design, it's probably not going to land you a job in the industry.
But hey, the video got better towards the end where you focused on actual game development.
+lee comstock Most indies game maker actually start with an idea and design. Many of them went into making games when they don't even know how to program and they learn as they go.
Same with mod'ers in nexus community. You start with what you want. make forums and ask around how to get it done. read up on it and learn as you go.
After you have prototype or alpha, you can release it to gain attention. then you collaborate with artist that are good at 3D meshing and what have you.
End product is mod that you wanted to create or close to. It wasn't done solo but you would have learned much from it and it can be used in your resume.
Its very helpful to have programming background, but its not even essential in making of video games. In past, C, C+, C++ were big deal but no one ever used them in real applicable setting. Your company most likely had their own engine. Back ground would certainly help you relearn new system but sometimes its also harmful because you get locked into style of thinking.
you can literally learn the tools as you go. Just remember to start small and simple and work your way into complex and pretty. Making simple jumping 2d game is ok. After you made that, add traps or obstacles. learn as you go, imagination and design more than game engine and graphics.
Granted these games indie are making is basically RPG maker or using existing engine, but point is, you can make games and be fairly successful at it with next to no programming and graphics skills. just need to learn what tools will get the job done and learn to use those tools.
Well, I guess, if you want to make games in RPG Maker.
+lee comstock Let's look at this one step at a time. First of all, theory is the foundation of application. Would you ride a bike across the country without knowing how the bike works? Of course not; when it breaks down, you need to have an understanding of how a bike works if you're going to fix it. Same goes for any programming language. You can't hope to solve problems in effective, creative ways if you don't know the theory.
Software changes too fast for it to be worth teaching. Trust me, you don't want a professor who learned techniques from even as recently as 5 years ago teaching you how to use this software. You need to pick that up in your free time. There are so many free resources at this point that you're wasting your tuition money if you're spending it on software training. My classmates and I are studying in a different program than any of this is applicable to, but we are constantly learning new tools outside of class and adding to our portfolios.
Instead of asking classes to teach tools, learn approaches and mindsets. Learn many different approaches so that you can have the flexibility to adapt to many different situations and toolsets. I guarantee you the tools you use on one project will differ greatly from the tools you use on another one. Nowadays, the availability of quality tools is so high that tools adapt to the flow of the project rather than the other way around.
Logical thinking is very much teachable. While it is true some people are born better at it, pretty much nobody shows their full potential in logical thinking. There are hundreds of ways to improve one's logical thinking, such as exercises in computational theory, working through understanding fallacies in logical thinking, and so on. Logical thinking is a muscle that most people who think they're bad at it think so because they expect to be buff before they've worked out at all.
I don't know what the state of the industry looks like, but your attitude here is kind of depressingly defeatist. If you apply yourself and make a strong case that you should get a game design position straight out of school, you can find that. Ask a program adviser to help with your portfolio.
Getting hands-on experience is incredibly helpful. It forces you to fail over and over again, learning new ways to get around hang-ups, and at the end, you've actually made something. I agree with you there.
I don't feel like answering all that, I'll just say I strongly disagree.
I'm curious why you disagree. I can see reasons I actually agree with some of what you've said, but I'm curious what you have to say.
A fundamental problem with many game development and even "game design" curricula is, there's no faculty who have much of a clue what game design is actually like. They're mostly artists, programmers, and other developers. I hear from people who took "game design" degrees but learned little about actual game design.
Of course, few game designers are hired straight out of school, and in that sense we can understand the schools tending to ignore game design.
I love you guys, and I just wanted to say, bonus points for the "overall(s)" visual pun in there!
i know how to teach game design
just show everyone extra credits
+Nikola “Derpface” Pavkovic I know you're being facetious, but seeing even half the stuff on here would go a long way. I haven't even taken a game design course before, and yet I already feel familiar with many of the terms.
Setting aside the math; this all sounds a lot like a Communications, Media Production, or Film program at most major American universities. All those desirable traits are taught in those sorts of courses.
thanks for making this videos this is helping me create a game design team in my school ,i hope we can use this knowledge to make a great game
I love the character design you used for the little game designer girl, and hope she shows up in more videos! :D
Good luck telling Gamergate and their heroes that game designers need to be well versed in "liberal arts."
One of the points for which they mock Anita Sarkeesian is her "communications degree", one of the core capabilities you mentioned. I'm surprised they haven't already flooded the comment section and upvote bar like they did when you had MovieBob on the show.
+RoonMian Liberal arts degrees at most public universities are cruise control degrees that are impossible to fail if you do all your work. There exists a hybrid degree that's kind of milquetoast called MIS for business and computer science, I think a liberal arts/computer science hybrid might be good for game design
+RoonMian the big problem is, for day to day life, liberal arts are seen as a completely useless skillset and in a lot of ways they are, because its less leaning liberal arts, and more what you learn while learning them that matters (if that makes sense) and that is far less tangable and obvious from the outset where people just see shakespier and great artists and such which, speaking honestly are pretty poor value.
kekkres "which, speaking honestly are pretty poor value."
We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
RoonMian as a skill you use knowlage of the liberal arts gives you self betterment, but In my honest opinion self betterment isnt worth a collage tuition. and most schools teach it as a free class that requires no effort, leaving you with a basic knowlage of dead famous people, and various theorys, and maybe your better for it, but it provides little that is practical.
kekkres We'll still have to agree to disagree on that.
Well the primary issue is you said that you have to hire people with experience and knowledge to lead these courses. Sure, but if you can't pay them well, why would they leave industry for academia? Industry has a large tendency to hoover up such people since they can afford to pay better.
+CommissarWallace Academia could appeal to older developers who just don't have the energy to keep up with the rat race anymore.
+CommissarWallace Absolutely true.
While the life of a professor can seem glamorous to a student. It can easily translate to "early retirement" for those working in the industry. The advantage I see that COULD convince a few decent professors to teach, would be the promise of working on experimental projects, the likes of which they would not get the option to do otherwise. That would rely on the school providing the freedom and the tools to make it happen. Which is hard to get done.
Well put and excellently delivered, as usual :)
This is actully super helpful, I'm currently studying games at university and I'll defiantly be keeping these things in mind.
That girl is the most adorable thing ive seen in weeks.
i was thinking the same thing
I got misty from Pokemon vibes from her ._.
imskiller99 I never liked misty :/
I am a high school student in my first year. So far I've learned how to code in Java, HTML, and now picking C++ up to play with unreal 4 and i would like to thank you guys as you've helped me think in new ways about game design and was a driving force to push me from focusing game design and game ideas to thinking and actually turning to animation as my passion. While I may not be experienced in any way and I do not claim to be a master of any language i would like ask those of you reading if you can give any advise as to how i should start animation (i have the animators survival kit in amazon ready to buy) and what programs are really beginner friendly. While i have looked up some beginner friendly animation programs i want to the opinion of those here as well.
Although it has a higher barrier to entry I would recommend learning Blender for 3D animation. It's free, there are loads of tutorials online to to learn from and it is very powerful. For animation specifically get a Blender plugin called "Human Meta Rig", this will alleviate the tedious task of getting a model rigged and ready to animate. MakeHuman is another program that is nice to generate people that you can animate.
A lot of animation concepts are transferable so starting with something akin to flash with 2D could also be a starting point. Sprite animation is a whole different beast, I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner. Learn the basics like key frames, interpolation and follow along with tutorials first.
The hardest thing about animation in my experience is that you have to do it a lot to get decent. After you learn the basics about key frames and the 12 principles you'll need practice. A lot of animating is sorta feeling things out, tweaking and iterating until it feels right.
Dan is also doing a series on ExtraPlay, the sister channel to Extra credits about the 12 principles of animation, check it out!
Good luck!
I'm really glad I found this video, pretty much answered my questions as to which university I should attend. (Either going for the "game design" school or the general university for a more rounded education. Obv I'm going with the latter of the two.) Thanks guys!
My intention to have the knowledge base I have wasn't game design, but it's assuring to see it be so highly needed (among other things [logic, ability to pick up on new things, love of learning, etc.]) as a skill in game design.
I really want a gif of 1:52 . Gotta love blue-hair-girl stock character.
I'm pursuing a games degree at Rensselaer (which James actually spoke at, last year. Was nice to meet him!) and we do three semester-long courses focused on team-based game development experience. There are some other 'game' courses the likes of which you described, such as game production and level design, but they're both optional.
Otherwise our curriculum is built around concentrations, such as electronic arts and computer science, so we have a fairly interdisciplinary class. There are some very good ideas here, particularly classes built to promote communication skills, logic, and lateral thinking, three subjects which can be points of weakness for game design students, in my experience.
Our curriculum is currently being re-organized to better streamline the electronic arts classes as well as to introduce our project-based game development classes earlier, as they currently begin in Junior year. A universally required class dedicated to scripting for games is also being added. It'll definitely help develop logic and an idea of how exactly the construction of games works for our students, I think.
I don't think that's a stock character. I think that's actually somebody on the Extra Credits team.
+innegativeion Here you go: imgur.com/Uglw2yE
I used GifCam (here: blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/) to make this. It is my new favorite thing.
Although there are many good thoughts in this video, it sets up a difficult scenario. It states that students should make games constantly, and with students in different roles, yet the video is very critical of teaching engines and tools. Ultimately studios hire based on portfolios and proficiency especially with software.
Ideally students are learning teamanship, roles, creativity, and learning how to learn all while they are building familiarity with engines and tools. The tools and engines just become another medium for working out problems. We try to do this in my program. This video downplays the importance of game theory, or at least assumes that just making bunches of games is an efficient way to learn.
OMG "Overall" Nearly drenched my monitor. Loved it, Thanks EC!
Extra credits, I think you just described how to get ANY job, add a touch of understanding in your target position and done
+AruthaSilverthorn but game development takes a lot more of this