Livingstone: Graduates don't know how to make games

Eidos' creative director Ian Livingstone has shot out at games specific university courses, claiming the graduates they produce are not fit for purpose.

"Universities are not producing enough of the type of people we need," he told Crain's. "The industry needs mathematicians, physicists and artists."

"There are something like 81 courses in the UK dedicated to computer games," he added, "but universities get paid for putting bums on seats and they're turning out students who know all about the history of games, but they can't make them."

His comments echo those of other industry veterans, such as Frontier Development's David Braben, who warned of the irrelevance of much being taught in games courses.

"One of the things that is very worrying is there are over 80 games courses in Britain and the sad thing is they aren't really teaching what we need for games at the moment, which is a frightening thing," Braben commented in 2007.

Braben went on to say that he estimated only 25 per cent of graduates would be able to find work in the games industry. These comments were in line with earlier ones made by former Tiga boss, Fred Hassan.

"What companies have been telling us is that very few of those graduates that come out of 'so-called' games courses are fit for purpose," said Hasson. "In fact one quote we had back from a company was, 'we don't know if we'd even use them for QA'."