Mothers, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Game Developers

Thanks for the plug, Greg. I have not yet taken a stand officially on my campaign website, as I've been busy addressing other matters these past few days. I'll be posting something soon-ish about my QoL stance, although I have made myself clear on the IGDA forums. The short of it: the IGDA should be condemning 40+ hour weeks except in limited, predefined sprints ("okay, we're working 50 hour weeks for the next four weeks to meet this milestone, then it's back to 40 hour weeks").

Sure. As I've said before, there's crunch at the end of any software development project. The job of the producers is to ensure that it lasts 6 weeks, not 6 months, and certainly not, God help us, 6 years.

You should make a game about that, just like Mac Donalds Video-game. I imagine a room full of exploited designers, profits raising as they work extra hours, and you have to fire the ones that became least productive due to burnout, and then there is another screen with a board of directors and all the options to keep fooling the organizations that fight against exploitation, such as having Mike Capps in their pockets, and if your profit goes down it's game over for you.

infoblarg.rg3.net

We joked about doing a game industry game at work, basically the designers would be exploited by having their IP rights contractually divorced from them and the nature of their work commodified from holistic art to craft, like "here's a license, design something that isn't shit for this" or "here's an idea management had, make something workable out of this" and then on the programming side you've got a more linear exploitation of hours.

Incidentally, the IGDA hasn't done much for the prior issue and I was even told that it isn't an issue they can broker, which correlated roughly with my cessation of dues payment.

http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/tagd

I don't disagree with anything you guys said, and personally bitch and fight any attempt to make me work over 40 hours a week that isn't necessary (mostly because I usually some in a little early and leave on time anyways), but this is (sadly) endemic of American work culture. Honestly I don't even mind working overtime if I'm paid for it or comped, but I'm one of those "exempt" people with a flat hourly wage. This is despite all my time being client billable.

Many people, including my wife who is an accountant, actually embrace working overtime until it becomes obviously excessive (and then put up with the excessive hours anyways). I'm pretty much a work widower for about half the year.

I'm not sure the solution is to go to French-style working hours and such (as a matter of a fact I'm sure it's not), but I honestly don't even think my 40 hours a week are all productive. Then again, I am pretty lazy. I do think that corporations should not be allowed to mix billable time with exempt payscales, as this attracts exploitation (the more hours I work, the more money the company gets without having to give me an extra cent), but I don't think that applies to how games industries work (I could be wrong).

As stated above, this is representative of a problem that nearly all salaried workers in America face. From the games industry to retail management, it's the American way for your employers to take advantage of you.

Greg, as for your comment on Digipen/Full Sail students...most of them know what they are getting into, and deserve to be taken advantage of. If any student manages to make it through a program like that while remaining blissfully unaware of the long hours that the industry expects, then they have been sleeping through class. From my experience in a similar education program, the labor issue really isn't something that's covered up.

While this attitude towards overtime/QoL may be endemic to our country's work culture at large, I think it's worth noting that the game industry does seem to uniquely attract -- and at times intentionally pursue -- people who are predisposed to not caring about life outside of the studio.

Being a newlywed myself at the time, I worked only briefly (2-3 years) on a large studio project before burning out after "crunching" (ha ha, 8 month crunch...) from March to October my last year there before being laid off when the project got sold to a different publisher. Through it all, I noticed that the majority of my co-workers seemed to thrive while I languished. There was the usual grumbling in the break room, or the death-march atmosphere when everyone slogged into a meeting, but like a fraternity hazing ritual the pain elicited competition rather than sympathy. It became a pissing contest, who could live the most abject life and still show up and get some work done. Hard to compete, then, against the miserable 42-year vets with terrible marriages or the perpetual man-children with no social or personal life.

Not everyone fits that mold, obviously, but HR knows the score. The high level positions can be filled by the bitter vets, and they know better than to spit in the wind on QoL issues. Meanwhile the grunt jobs have no shortage of doe-eyed Digipen-type applicants, who may have been told indeed about the overtime in the industry but who then either don't care or can't appreciate what they're agreeing to give up.

The yardstick is the 23 year old kid in the cube next door who has his mom drop him off and pick him up every day; or the socially maladjusted guy in his 30s who hasn't lived in the same city for more than 10 months at a time from project-hopping; or the gang of recent grads who all got hired at the same time, work in the same cube block, carpool together, and share an apartment. Even if there are a few holdouts in each department, the pace is set by those folks who don't seem to value their health or a balanced life, and management knows it.

The practice of expecting massive, protracted overtime seems doubly exploitative within this industry especially, since gaming traditionally seems to appeal to those already prone to isolation and escapism.

On a converse note: shouldn't the development community, as primary advocates for games-as-medium, be embracing the recent shift away from the basement-dweller target audience towards a more universal appeal? If so, shouldn't that be reflected first in the hiring practices and workplace values within the industry itself?

Nice to see more people, especially people like yourself Greg, call the IGDA out as a group for this kind of bullshit.

I have a hard time convincing myself to participate in the IGDA with these antics. A significant number of people that ran for the board last go round aren't even developers, but instead companies that serve developers, so their main motivation is to make contacts by being on the board - they're inherently less motivated to improve the state of game development because it's not what they do (and even if some may be, it's not communicated in their platforms when running).

Like yourself, I have real trouble understanding why the board can't take a stand here - sure people people Capps opinion may be involved in the board (were, in his case), but still.

It concerns me that places like Epic are studio members - how much of the board's opinion is influenced by the fact that they don't want to piss off people who are giving them money?

Quite frankly I'd be willing to pay much more in member dues if they simply didn't allow studio members unless they subscribed to things like quality of life & crediting policies. That's the one thing the organization can do to enforce it's standards to improve the industry and no one seems willing to go even that far.

Borut

It's funny how for all that text in the IGDA memo, it really doesn't say anything. Empty words from an organization that cares more about not pissing people off than standing up for its members.

Hi folks,
I'm a sociologist that researches web agencies primarily, but I check in from time to time on the IGDA's QoL issues.

I focus on the culture of billable hours -- the same in agencies that build sites for BMW, Citibank, Nokia...the list goes on.

Check out my blog on this subject:

http://agencytime.wordpress.com

I just posted a paper about billable hours and "hiding" time. I've also written about excessive overtime and the fact that salaried workers rarely get overtime pay, yet each minute of their overtime is billed to a client.

Also of interest is a paper about EA in particular and the EA Spouse phenomenon of excessive overtime:

http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1771/1893

I agree 100%.

IGDA Mission Statement:

"To advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community." (emphasis mine)

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

This is a serious issue. It's exactly the reason I've stayed out of the industry. I love games, but I've seen too many friends get wrecked by their jobs. To take the most recent example, I went out to dinner with my best friend last Friday. That was the first time he'd left work in three days. He'd been sleeping on couches and hadn't yet gotten to see his wife or take a shower. He's crazy, and absolutely the worst case I've seen, but that's ridiculous.

In general, American culture is too in-love with long hours. Weekends and long days are pretty common in non-game industries. Still, the gaming industry has it way worse, to plain unreasonable levels. Crunch time is understandable, 100 hour weeks aren't. Yet I don't know a single guy in the business who hasn't pulled a 100 hour week.

In fairness, they've been in the industry for ~5 years each, which makes them senior/lead/director level employees, while I'm still a Software Engineer 1. So there's always that. If it doesn't kill you, you can sure get ahead. :P

...

Cojack you've certainly found a big source of the problem. As long as there's a supply of willing labor, businesses will continue to exploit it. I don't see the well of labor drying up any time soon, so unless organizations like the IGDA, or perhaps something with more teeth, push for change it won't happen.

What do you guys think, will the industry mature on it's own? Is long hours just going to be a fact of the industry forever? Or will the labor eventually get wise and push back in a meaningful way?

Honestly I think all gamers have an invested interest in improved conditions for developers. Personally I care about my friends, and would like to be a part of a non-destructive industry, but I'd also like my games to be made by people with more than a year's experience. What other creative medium relies so heavily on such under developed talent?

After reading the memo, I thought I'd note that my friends don't enjoy the hours. They do them because they're given unreasonable deadlines by the publishers, or because they work at a company that actively tries to squeeze every last ounce out of their employees. Varies, but generally amounts to people at the top asking for too much from the people under them. If you want to work in games, you generally have to put up with it. (There are some people like Greg who push back and still keep their jobs, but even he got some grousing.)

It saddens me to see a stigma associated with DigiPen that people push without having actually talked with anyone who's graduated from it. When I see stuff like this: "And for the youth reading this post, this is why you are an IDIOT to attend Digipen or Full Sail -- get a generalized CS or art degree, so you can get a job somewhere else when you get burned out on the industry. Do NOT get a degree that ties you to the medium for all time to come.", it makes me sad inside.

I graduated from there two years ago and have been working in the games industry since then, but I've also worked in non-games industry related programming and can tell you that when you get out of DigiPen, not only are you capable of going into the games industry, you're MORE than capable of working in any other programming related field.

You're in no way locked into the field of video games as a career path. Video games are some of the hardest applications to program and using that knowledge in another field is fairly trivial. You get both the theory and the application training in DigiPen.

I'm not going to say the school is perfect, it's far from it actually, but it does do some things extremely well. If you put in the effort (and there are some that don't, and it shows), you'll be able to use that knowledge in almost any programming job.

Video games are some of the hardest applications to program and using that knowledge in another field is fairly trivial.

Games are bleeding edge as far as realtime graphics and gameplay, and generally trailing edge technology everywhere else.

But when you really get down to it, if you make a crappy, buggy game, you made a crappy buggy game. Nobody dies.

The people writing code where failure means human lives are lost, for my money, they are the ones writing the hardest applications out there.

All that aside, I wouldn't recommend anyone get a "game specific degree", and I said that while I was on the curriculum advisory board for one of them. You want a broad education, and a diploma that is widely valued. And sorry, none of the undergraduate game degrees have that, at least not yet.

You get three things at a college. An opportunity to learn, an opportunity to network, and a credential. A good student at a mediocre school may well learn more than a mediocre student at a great school, but the latter will still end up with a more valuable credential. Life isn't fair that way.

Those are the words I wrote when I invited people to join the CGDA, 15 years ago. The libertarian-minded game developer very much dislikes anything that smacks of unionism, and many of them expect to found companies and become CEOs themselves in due course. The IGDA is a professional society, not a labor organization. It should, by all means, support decent working conditions for developers as a matter of general principle. However, it must NOT involve itself in particular labor disputes. That would destroy its credibility and also its appeal to a good many developers.

If you don't like the position taken by a particular director, by all means withhold approval from that person when his seat is up for election. But if you demand that the IGDA get involved in labor activism, the IGDA will surely die.

However, it must NOT involve itself in particular labor disputes.

That boat has already sailed, and did the moment the IGDA chose to weigh on publicly and loudly on the issue of credits and the denial of credit to people who leave before shipment.

Now, I am glad the IGDA has chosen to be a vocal defender of better crediting standards.

I am disappointed that it has chosen not to do so in the matter of working conditions.

I am not aware of anyone who has posed a threat to others because they were uncredited, but I have lost track of the number of times I and other developers drove home so tired as to be threats to anyone else on the road.

I am also unaware of any marriages that have failed because of poor crediting. How many have failed because one spouse was in the office continuously?

No one is arguing that the IGDA should block companies from demanding crunch hours, even though a century of research shows it is counterproductive.

No one is arguing that the IGDA should block developers from working for companies that think the only proper answer for "what do you do outside of work" is "sleep".

But a number of us would like to see the IGDA publicly condemn it as loudly and as fervently as it did the issue of undercrediting.

I've always thought there's an inherent conflict of interest in the IGDA in that it's a employees *and* employers' association (ie studios can be members). Having the head of Epic in a leadership position in the IGDA was like having the fox in charge of the chicken coop. I feel that as a developer I have more in common with the employees of publishers, retailers etc as far as my interests are concerned.

Ernest:

As a libertarian myself, I agree that the IGDA should not act like, or become, a union. (Although I'll note I'm about as pro-union as libertarians get -- I've often argued with other libertarians that unions are in fact expressions of the right to free association and can be useful and productive.)

As for "not becoming involved in labor disputes," I'll suggest that IGDA could, in fact, behave in these cases in a fashion akin to SFWA (the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America). SFWA runs a Grievance Committee, to which members may apply when they have a dispute with a publisher or agent. GriefCom acts behind the scenes, that is, without publicity, to attempt to resolve the grievance; only if it is unable to do so does it publish the grievance and its opinion on the merits of the matter. Its only stick is publicity, and once a grievance is publicized, no effort is made to sanction a publisher against whom a legitimate grievance is announced. This has been highly effective as a mechanism for dealing with issues like unpaid royalties or short story payments. SFWA, I'll note, has quite as high a proportion of libertarian members as IGDA.

But in this case, I'm not particularly calling for the IGDA board to single out Epic in particular; rather, because of the questions raised by Capps's statements, as well as his former participation on the board, I think it both appropriate and essential for the board to take a public stand in favor of the findings of the organization's own QoL white paper, by stating that IGDA as an organization believes that requiring employees to work more than the statutory 40 hours is both unethical and bad policy as a matter of workplace efficiency. This does not require singling out Epic; it strikes me as obvious and correct; and it would defuse much of the controversy, which centers on the board's perceived unwillingness to say anything on the issue.

On a going-forward basis, clearly we need to pay more attention to candidates for the board, particularly those who work in a managerial role, and be willing to vote and work against the election of those whose studios do not conform to best practices as regards both crediting and hours.

But my primary focus is on hiring world-class developers, keeping them happy, and helping them make better games more efficiently. I accepted this nomination because I think that's the IGDA's job as well -- grow the industry, help us maintain better quality of life, and help us make better games, more efficiently.

The recent media attention on quality of life means that new people are listening to that dialogue, and we've got to take advantage. We're in the middle of a console-cycle transition, and the spiraling costs of next-generation development are the perfect forcing function for improved hiring and development practices.

Those paragraphs are from Michael Capps' candidacy statement for the IGDA Board of Directors in 2006.

I'd like to comment that going through these specialized Game Development Schools does not mean you cannot transition to a different industry. I took Game Design and Development at Full Sail and I have worked for various companies inside and outside of Games.

Granted the focus on these courses are games, they do teach you programming fundamentals, data structures, etc ... college courses that they normally teach in 4 year universities.

In fact it actually even motivated me more to learn how to program because I was working with a subject I am passionate about.

Please don't trash on people who went through these schools as being stuck in one medium. Education does not stop after graduating anyways, and it applies to both CS and Game Design Students.

But I do agree that Game Developers are worked harder and paid less. That is why I have been in and out of the industry.

Thank you

Kim Swift is an idiot, now?

In this regard, yes. Please consider the educational hierarchy, as perceived by prospective employers:

1. Ivy League/Stanford/MIT/Other highly regarded private university.
2. UMichigan/one of the better UC schools/SUNY Stony Brook/Second tier universities.
3. Second tier public universities/third tier private universities.
4. Vocational schools
5. Community colleges

Digipen and Full Sail are vocational schools. Do not assume that because they are vocational schools for the game industry they are somehow superior. If you have the option of attending a real university rather than a vocational school, you should do so. If you do not, of course, then more power to you, a degree from a vocational school is definitely superior to not having one, and go for it.

If, for some reason, you absolutely want to take a degree of some kind in games, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, SCAD, RIT, RPI, Parsons, and the Copenhagen ITU all have excellent programs. And that degree will be somewhat more trnasportable than a degree specifically from a vocational school aiming at the game industry.

Even that, I believe, would be less preferable than a CS or art degree from, say, MIT, Stanford, RISD, etc. And while in the past a negative connotation might be attached to game work at such schools, I doubt there are many that would today discourage a CS student from pursuing studies in the sort of programming best suited to game development, or a graphic design student from building a portfolio aimed at a job in game development.

The choice of university is based on many factors, including what you can get into, cost, proximity, etc., etc. But the fact that a school has "games, games, games!" attached should be viewed as a negative, not as a positive, because even if -today- what you most want in the world is a position in game development, the realities are that in a few years, you are likely to want something else.

I speak as a dweeb who has been doing games for more than 30 years now. And, by the way, has a degree in Geophysics. Hah.

Have you looked at the classes we're taking at DigiPen? Do you know what we actually even do at that school? You sound as if you really have no idea and are making vague generalizations.

Your one main contention is that the school itself doesn't fit onto your hierarchy of schools that you think prospective employers look at. I say that if an employer is hiring based solely on the school someone went to, they're missing out on a lot of people that are likely to be better. That's incredibly elitist and honestly short sighted in my opinion.

I'm curious what you think someone is going to learn at a traditional CS school that they won't be able to learn at DigiPen? Yes, it's a vocational school, but that doesn't mean it's absolute trash. Around 30% of the people who come to DigiPen already have computer science degrees from traditional colleges; that wouldn't be the case if it were a bad school.

Also, you seem to keep harping on this: But the fact that a school has "games, games, games!" attached should be viewed as a negative, not as a positive, because even if -today- what you most want in the world is a position in game development, the realities are that in a few years, you are likely to want something else. We don't just learn video game related material at DigiPen. It's a huge four year program in which you learn computer science, physics, math, art, sociology, english, etc. Yes, it's still a vocational school, but no, you don't only learn how to make games.

Lastly, if all of these other computer science degrees are so good (and good for games as well), why is it that DigiPen has won best student game for the past three years running? There's a reason for that, it's a damn good school to learn how to program.

Sure, there are probably programs that try to get a quick buck by saying they're for helping someone learn games. They might even suck. Please don't lump DigiPen (at the very least) in with the rest of that crowd. Once you get your first job, the college doesn't even really matter anymore. And again, if it does, the employer is doing something wrong.

Sure. Okay. I agree. No problem. Case closed.

There's a reason for elitism. It has merit.

Again, one of the things you get when you graduate is a credential. The value of this credential is based entirely on what other people (largely hiring managers) think of that institution.

No matter how much you think they are undervaluing your credential, that doesn't change their opinion of it. Reputation is a very trailing indicator.

One of the sad facts of life is that what you can do is less important than what people think you can do. As a fairly recent graduate of Full Sail's Game Development program, I can say with confidence that it does teach you a lot about game programming. Certainly not everything you'll ever need to know, but the list that makes up "everything you need to know" changes so frequently that you never really catch up with that one. I can also say with confidence that it means exactly two things to non-game employers. Jack, and something else. Jack has skipped town, and taken your credibility with him.

To tie in to the quality of life discussion, the reason I'm not working for a game studio right now is that before you are offered a job, they always ask you if you're "passionate" about working in games. Not everyone uses the same word(s), but they always ask a question designed to determine just how far over you're willing to bend. I take my work very seriously, I am competent and dedicated, I work hard, and I strive to work efficiently. When the situation calls for it, I will work until the job is done. What I will not do is allow myself to be used like a five dollar whore until I burn out, or until my handlers have the opportunity to replace me with a two dollar whore. Odds are I will be perfectly willing to treat myself like a two dollar whore, but I don't want that decision made for me.

So after several months of searching, and having every single negotiation break down over the subject of average hours worked per week, overtime, crunch time, sick days, vacation days, and how much did you say you're going to pay me to put up with these conditions... I took my show on the road and started talking to non-game companies.

This is where credibility comes back into play. While I have personally managed to overcome that challenge, many of my classmates have not. They're either working 60+ hours a week, or flipping burgers. The difference between those classmates and myself? I'm at least ten years older than most of them, and have a number of non-gaming items on my resume. I had to minimize anything dealing with the word "game" and heavily play up my other experiences. At one point I wanted to omit those sections entirely, but then I'd have a two year gap in my chronology, and I'm just not willing to falsify any of my information.

Were the industry's expectations more reasonable, I would say Full Sail and (I assume) Digipen are great choices. I didn't have any trouble getting the HR folks at gaming companies to take me seriously, and if you don't mind being exploited, you can potentially do very well after graduation. Otherwise, you just might be an idiot for going to either of those schools, or any other game design/development school.

I don't think the credibility issue is as much because of your degree being from a vocational school as it is that you have a degree in *game* blah blah... I put emphasis on game and finish with blah blah because they zero in on that one word and stop reading. The former may come into play at later stages, but the latter definitely draws attention first. Both will disqualify you if there are any other applicants. I have been told as much directly from one HR rep who was, despite being a complete douchebag about it, refreshingly frank in his explanation of why he wasn't interested.

I think when you wrote:

There is no contradiction between "We do not believe that unreasonable working hours are both wrong as a matter of ethics, and unproductive as a matter of fact" and "People are free to do as they wish."

You meant to say: "We believe that unreasonable ..." instead of "We do not believe...".

Thanks for writing on this, I hadn't heard of this bit of hypocrisy. I'm already out of the industry but it's nice to have some Big Picture things like this to pass to my students.

Great post Greg, and great comments.

Just a quick remark for JoeHonkie:
1. The French work week is not 40 hours, it's less.
2. The French crunch a lot.
3. French employers, of course, find ways around the 35 hour work week.
4. AFAIK with some variation it's like this in most European countries, and I've been an employee in several.
5. Not all methods used by European employers are legal, and not all employees complain about this.

I doubt this is very different in the US (especially in, say, California). But of course I am not a lawyer, specifically not one who specializes in labor law.

Thanks for the info, Jurie. I certainly have no idea how it works in practice. I'm not fan of legislating hours (especially if people will just work around it), but I'm also against actually regularly working more than 8 hours a day without monetary compensation or later comp time during a slow period. It's tough, because I've seen slave driver companies, but I've also seen lazy slackers who won't get a job done because they won't even put in time when it's required. I'm sure if people were more directly compensated for their effort, this wouldn't be a problem. (all of this is in general IT, because I don't work in the games industry)

I'm not sure I implied that the French work week was 40 hours, as I certainly know it isn't. That's just the theoretical standard in the US.

The Labor law here (I'm in California) can be summed up pretty simple:

Employers can require any number of hours from employees. Employees paid by the hour get compensated for the extra time (and get 50% more pay for hours after 40). Employees who are salaried just have to work more.

Somewhat longer summary:

Firstly, anyone can be required to work any amount of time by their employer. Technically there can be restrictions due to safety, but really if the boss says "Work 80 hours" that's totally legal and if you don't like then you can find another job.

If you're hourly (which most game designers are, but not all people involved in development are) then you get paid for each hour worked, and the rate is higher for hours after 8 in one day (CA specific) or 40 in the week (CA and Federal).

If you are salaried* then there is no relationship between hours worked and payment. IE employers can require you to work any number of hours they want and still pay you like you worked 40. As a result, most employers push for more hours from their exempt employees.

* Technically the relevant adjective is "exempt", but most salaried employees are exempt and few hourly employees are. So the terms are used interchangeably. If you want to understand what exempt means, I encourage you to do the research, but in practice salaried employees are usually treated as exempt and we can just go with that.

On the role of the IGDA: They aren't a union and shouldn't be. That doesn't preclude them from taking public positions. I like what I heard about the SFWA, that's pretty cool. They're an advocacy body, and they should advocate.

Still, I'm thinking there's a compelling argument for unionization in general, and think that actual unionization or the threat of unionization is an important bargaining tool toward improving the QoL situation.

As far as DigiPen and Full Sail go, I'm sorry AustinMcGee but you still don't get it. Greg knows what he's talking about. I'm not evaluating the relative worth of the educations, but the fact is that a DigiPen degree won't help you get a job outside the game industry to the extent that a normal CS degree would. It doesn't matter how qualified an applicant is, only the perception of the prospective employer.

That doesn't mean you can't get a normal job with a DigiPen degree, or that you can't prioritize a game job over a normal job. However, Greg's point is that the majority of developers leave the business within 5 years if you're a part of that statistic then a DigiPen degree is clearly less valuable. Also, given the title of this post, the recommendation against DigiPen is hardly surprising.

Thanks for the kind words about RIT Greg. Some quick but rambling points/thoughts re the discussion...

What We Do at RIT

When we speak to visiting students we stress the difficulty of the curriculum (this ain't about playing games,making them is different and waaaayyy harder). We constantly refer to the actual size of the industry vs the number of people who wish to work in the industry and the probability of getting a job in the industry. We also point out that one of the most, if not the most important aspects of applying to positions in the industry is a portfolio of work and that a specialized degree is not needed, though it is one good way to get a good portfolio.

we still have something like an 8-1 or 10-1 application to acceptance ratio. This is offered not as "yaay RIT" data but as a guage of the desire of students to get educated in (or at least work) in this field.

Students take a significant load of liberal arts courses, science, etc. They take a special version of CS 1-4 that covers the same concepts but uses game related assignments so that there's a tie to what they are learning with what they want to do. They actually take more credits in programming than the CS students do.

RIT is a coop school, which means students need to get real, full-time work as part of their degree. Can't graduate without it. SInce we're in Rochester, NY instead of Silicoln Valley, most of them do get coops in "straight" companies to balance their experience.

We designed our degrees with industry partners and continue to get their input.

This mix is designed to create a well rounded student and grad. Not all of our grads are going to get industry jobs and some have opted out at graduation or left the industry after a couple of years but don't seem to have trouble finding work, even at places like JPL and Livermore.

Without commenting on anyone else's curriculum or program, our folks are portable because of that mix and we're happy that this is the case.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the education spectrum

I have seen the dark side though. Two years ago a colleague and I were at a well attended, non-GDC conference. My colleague had spoken on the range of degrees out there and warned the students in the audience to be careful in their choices.

We were approached afterwards by a group of 6-8 students from a new 2-year "game degree" program in the midwest; they were afraid they'd made a bad choice. They were right. Their instructors had only marginal competence in the courses they were teaching and the students had actually been sent by the school to recruit new faculty for their program at the conference. Additionally, because they were from a two-year school that was career oriented instead of academic, none of their course credits would transfer to an accredited university. Many of them were at that school because they couldn't get into a 4 year school though 2 had left 4 year schools to pursue this apparent fast-track into the industry.

Not my most pleasant or rewarding discussion with a group of students.

This is, unfortunately, emblematic of any new degree program in any "new" academic field. We saw the same kind of thing happening when we had the first Information technology degrees in the country. A flood on the market of degree programs of all shapes and sizes. Eventually there was a shakeout. Good programs turned out good students and had good reputations. Others improved or died. Unfortunately they took students down with them.

Please join the conversation at the Ed SIG

As a member of the IGDA education SIG (and yes, this is a crowd of people doing positivethings, like putting curriculum designs, course descriptions and syllabi "out there" to help grow strong programs and create industry & education partnership experiences like the global game jam) I can tell you there's another discussion making the rounds and that is on the unfortunate number of programs that rest primarily on one or two faculty. The discussion began with the subject "Man Under a Bus Survey." :-)

There are also active discussions about redoing the "Breaking-in" part of the site, assembling a list of on-line articles to help prospective students choose appropriate schools, etc.

The Ed SIG has an active group of folks who care about these issues and actually want to serve kids (ie faculty) vs just take advantage of the current academic gold rush (read college upper administration and finance officers)

To join the Ed SIG you just need to join the mail list. If you are passionate about these issues I urge you, as a member of the SIG exec committee, to join up and give us the benefit of your experience and constructive criticism :-)

http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

Darius Rocks. 'Nuff said.