Taking on Tiga

In May of this year, Tiga boss Fred Hasson hit the headlines for questioning whether games degree courses are producing graduates with adequate skills.

Speaking at the Northern Exposure conference he said, "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.

"In fact one quote we had back from a company was, 'We don't know if we'd even use them for QA'... Basically, these courses are a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but no basic foundations for a skill set."

Amongst those who contacted GamesIndustry.biz following Hasson's comments was Lol Scragg, CEO of Cohort Studios. Here, he puts the case for the defence - and Hasson gets a chance to respond.

Lol Scragg: So, Tiga's research is apparently telling them that "very few of those graduates that come out of 'so-called' games courses are fit for purpose". It makes you wonder who Tiga are actually surveying to get such comments; most companies that I know are quite happy with the standard of graduates from games courses.

Maybe we are just lucky up here in Dundee, as we have two of the four Skillset accredited courses right on our doorstep at the University of Abertay. But maybe the reasons go a little deeper?

What, in this context, does "fit for purpose" actually mean? Having heard some graduate horror stories, it does appear that some developers really need to re-evaluate their graduate programs.

These are people (usually) straight out of University and heading towards not just their first industry position, but maybe their first full time job. Think back to your first day of employment, for your first few weeks it was probably pretty hard to adjust.

Graduates come out with skills and talent but it is up to us, as developers, to nurture that talent. University can teach all the theoretical skills possible, but we all know that you learn more during your first month in a career than during those three or four years at University...

Some developers just think that dropping a graduate into a team with no support is the way to do it - sink or swim. But they need to be gently placed into the right team, one that can assist them and ease them into the fun and games (pun intended) of this constantly changing industry of ours.

They need guidance, mentoring and patience, but soon enough most of them will greatly enhance any team they are working with. Their lack of industry experience makes them far less cynical than those of us who have been pumped and dumped, and this enthusiastic attitude along with fresh ideas can deliver great dividends to a project.

There is another potential reason for the results however. One that makes me as an independent developer smile and pull tongues at 'the big guys'. Maybe Tiga only approached the larger developers to conduct their research, which the more I think about it, makes sense.

If this is indeed the case, then I can only presume that the better grads have all decided to join a forward thinking developer and not become another initial on a Gantt Chart (if they are lucky - don't get me started on what some devs try to call Agile Development!). Maybe they actually want the mentoring and support that the smaller independent developers can provide, rather than becoming employee 13452.

So, what is our experience of graduates? Being based in Dundee, we are fortunate in that we have some great graduates coming out of Abertay which we try to recruit (before the larger guys get hold of them, give them a number, squeeze them dry of any creativity and turn them into cynics years before their time - and before spitting them out to indie devs like ourselves).

Indeed, more than 10 per cent of our current 31 person-strong workforce are recent grads from Abertay, and we are more than happy with them.

Comments like those offered by Tiga could also have a serious negative effect on our talent pools. Hearing a 'supposed' voice of the industry stating that their research has shown that most companies don't rate graduates too highly has to be a kick in the balls. And let's face it, anyone joining this industry already has a lifetime of such pain to look forward to anyway...

I am sure that Tiga have done their research correctly, but it does go against what I hear myself. Let us not forget that there are some fantastic graduates coming out of education at the moment. We should encourage them into our industry, as it is only with fresh faces and ideas that we can continue to re-invent ourselves - and keep this little island of ours in competition with our worldwide industry colleagues.

Lol Scragg is CEO of Cohort Studios.

Fred Hasson: Lol's comments are welcomed. Its about time the sector took this subject more seriously. Actually, we do not disagree much, if at all. But here's a few remarks on what he says:

Where do we do our research? In this case it is the wisdom of the Tiga board (on the website for all to see) which includes large and small developers and a piece of work we did in one of the UK's larger clusters which also included large and small developers (a total of 14 companies surveyed).

So where are we seemingly disagreeing?

Most 'games' graduates 'not fit for purpose': well as he says, they get theirs mostly from Abertay and as he says they are one of the few to have industry accreditation. I would concur that Abertay is an exemplary university for serving the games industry.

But I stand by what I said that most developers worry about the standard of graduate courses relating to 'games' and prefer to recruit graduates in maths, physics and computer sciences. I have no hesitation in asserting that some 'games' courses are clearly not delivering - then again, there is also evidence that some which are not yet accredited ARE delivering.

It is possibly frivolous of me to use experience in film and TV some 15 years ago where something similar happened with 'media studies' graduates (in film and TV), where the production companies preferred 'philosophy' and 'English' grads. So I see it as important not to let our increasingly supply side university system deliver similar consequences in the games sector.

We agree that some developers need to spend more time on their graduate development programmes but some, such as Blitz, do a particularly fine job and I am sure reap the benefits.

I can't agree that what we have done is to only consult large studios, nor that it's only in small studios that you get well looked after. I suspect there are good'uns and bad'uns in both categories - but slowly there are more of the better ones as the less good ones disappear partly through inability to deliver due attention to these issues.

Finally I thank Lol for not writing this thoughtful piece purely to pitch his company in a roundabout way to potential recruits, nor to promote the Scots versus the English!