The Truth About Game Design Education

Submitted by: Wisd Ooi

If you think pursuing game design education is about getting that piece of cert to proof that you are a degree holder then you are not only wrong but wasting your time and money as well. When a person is seeking for game design education it is about the desire to improve ourselves in the art of games design and development.

In general game design education is about our character rather than going to some university to get a game design degree and hoping to acquire a game designer’s position after graduation. Unfortunately many people do not have such mentality and thought that he or she will automatically master game design once they completed their university course. That would surely work in the world game where we can just spend money to upgrade an ability that we want but in reality things are not that simple.

To have a successful game design education you must first be passionate about games. I’m assuming this should not be a problem for you or else you would not be reading this article. Then you must always be hungry for games related knowledge and see how you can improve things further. You can easily acquire this by reading books, searching information on the internet, experience gain from game projects and even playing games itself.

Even for world class designers like Sid Meier (Civilization), Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Zelda, etc) and Will Wright (Sims) are still learning and improving themselves. That is one of the reasons why they are very successful as it helps them to develop fun and profitable games.

The reason why we need to have such character is because the game industry is very volatile and ever evolving. If you compare games in the 80’s, 90’s and now, you will realize that they are so different thanks to technologies and gamers expectation. Every time when a new technology is introduce game designers will need to crack their head to produce a fun game with the use of that given technology. That is why there are many games developers’ events like GDC (Games Developers Conference) to share knowledge on the latest trend and technologies.

Designers that does not fancy game design education will not last long in this industry as they will be left out sooner or later. This is usually cause by the lack of passion for games or simply being too stubborn and arrogant. Lack of passion is usually not a big problem for most game designers or they will not be in this industry in the first place but arrogant had killed a lot of game designers’ career. This usually applies to senior game designers where they think that they are the oracle that knows everything and can do no wrong. As a result they rarely accept new knowledge and become stagnant; a classic case of a cup already filled with water could not be fill anymore.

So make sure you have ‘game design education’ in you and you will surely fit in nicely in the game industry.

About the Author: Wisd ooi, a passionate game designer had been working in the game industry for several years ranging from big company like EA to smaller start up companies. You can read more about his opinion on game design education at his website at

gamedesigneducation.com

Source:

isnare.com

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