First International Gaming Education Conference Paves The Way For Industry Engagement & Co-Operation
GAMESEDU06, the inaugural conference for games education, offered the games industry great content as well as lively debate in Brighton this summer.
Ian Livingstone (Eidos) provided an impassioned call to arms for educators to create the UK's next big talent, while Fred Gill (EA) offered an in-depth introduction into EA's development pipeline and highlighted the challenges facing EA in terms of attracting and retaining new talent. Charles Cecil presented his alternative view of small project based teams based around specialisms and talent.
An animated Q&A session, led by Michael French (Develop Magazine) and featuring contributions from Ian Livingstone, Charles Cecil, Jason Avent (Climax racing) Jenny Brown (EA) and Orla Byrne (Activision) provided a lively debate and really got to grips with the need for more games specialism subjects becoming integrated into current and new degree courses.
Spotted mingling with a number of game developers, the UK's leading universities and new entrants in the industry were Ken Perlin, Jason de la Rocca, Ernest Adams, Phil Harrison, Miles Jacobson and with more delegates than places, next year's conference is a definite date for the games industry diary.
Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries, presented higher education establishments with certification of their newly accredited courses at a heady drinks reception on the Thursday night. These accredited courses include:
BA (Honours) Computer Arts, University of Abertay Dundee BSc (Honours) Computer Games Technology, University of Abertay Dundee BSc (Honours) Computer Games Technology, University of Paisley BA in Computer Animation, Glamorgan Centre for Art & Design TechnologySkillset also sponsored a series of workshops on the disciplines which are currently being taught and how with industry involvement these disciplines can be better suited to industry needs, the overall aim being to develop the UK as a forerunner in the future of gaming.
GAMESEDU06 was brought to close with a keynote speech from Dr. Peter E. Raad, Executive Director for The Guildhall at SMU, the world's premier education and training centre for digital game development, which aims to serve as a focal point for the digital game community. ( www.guildhall.smu.edu)
Planning for GAMESEDU07 is already underway. Suggestions for content topics can be submitted at the GAMESEDU website. ( www.gamesedu.co.uk) Practitioners wishing to present at next year's event should also get in touch via the website.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
GAMESEDU is co-ordinated by Pixel-Lab, a computer games and digital media development agency working across the UK's computer game and digital media industries. Pixel-Lab advises, develops and delivers strategies to support growth in the games industry from skills development to support infrastructure. Pixel-Lab also works with organisations outside the industry, enabling them to harness the power of games. www.pixel-lab.co.uk Skillset's key actions and initiatives are set out in Creating the Future the UK Skills Action Plan for Interactive Media and Computer Games Industries. This plan sets out the issues facing the games industry as it continues to grow and mature. Importantly the plan outlines activity which Skillset, guided by the Computer Games Skills Forum, will undertake to support the UK workforce's development and help ensure that the UK continues to be one of the best places to make games in the world. The first key initiative from this plan to get underway is for the games industry to take an active role in the assessment and accreditation of degree level courses in games. Extensive industry consultation was undertaken resulting in a series of recommended criteria. See www.skillset.org/games.