Naticia Browder is well used to explaining to family and friends why her chosen college major is not the digital equivalent of basket weaving.
Earning a degree in video-game development does not mean sitting around a darkened dorm room on furniture made of pizza boxes and thumbing a PlayStation controller until 3 a.m. Browder’s major at the University of Denver is part of a growing movement among colleges to meet student demands and modernize computer science departments with popular — and rigorous — diplomas in the art and science of gaming.
“To actually have a running chance of success” in the burgeoning world of games, mobile-device applications and educational software, Browder said, “gaining a game degree under your belt is a must.”
“It’s not all ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ ” said Tim Chamillard, one of the creators of a new “bachelor of innovation” degree at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “People who don’t do game development don’t understand it’s an incredibly rigorous engineering program. The example I used is that making a movie is very different from watching a movie.”
From DU to Regis University to CU-Colorado Springs, faculty and administrators are starting to agree.
• Regis faculty are proposing a transformation of their single video-game development class into a multicourse minor within computer science. Students will also be encouraged to add “Intro to Electronic Imaging” to their repertoire.
• CU-Colorado Springs has watched its game development major jump from 12 freshmen in 2007 to 25 this year. The fast-growing school created a “bachelor of innovation” degree to cover subjects such as video-game development, intellectual property law and electrical engineering.
• Denver’s Kolbe Film School, named after a martyred patron saint of mass communication, will offer an 18-month degree in game creation and animation “that inspire a culture of life.”
“There’s a plethora of darkness in the gaming industry right now, and several of us are trying to work on that. Art and faith can co-exist,” said Kolbe founder Steve Baker, who teaches design software at Denver colleges.
The list rolls on: The Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design launched a game art major last fall that includes designing the look of higher levels in progressive games.
Metropolitan State College of Denver allows students to create an “individualized degree program” in game development and will consider minors or majors if demand increases.
Westwood College now has 200 students in game art or game programming, with a newly revamped curriculum of 20 core courses. When Regis polled its computer-science students on a new game design minor, 60 percent said they were interested.
Regis and other schools try to focus on fundamental skills rather than hot technology, the larger concepts that train students to think in any field they enter.
“When you’re teaching technology, the more things change, the more they stay the same,” said Patricia Litz of the Regis computer-science department. “The speed, the power, the bandwidth change, but underneath are the same concepts that have been around a long, long time. It’s color theory, perspective, what makes an engaging game, foreground, background, all those things that artists learn. You just have to balance that with the latest and greatest way to deliver it.”
Graduates outnumbering jobs
Hundreds of students seeking gaming degrees means hundreds of graduates seeking precious gaming-related jobs within a few years.
From budding designers like Browder, to between-jobs gaming graduates, to ivory tower professors, concerns about a flood of underemployed gamers are constant.
“The game industry is very robust, but the way we sleep at night is that there’s lots and lots of room for small, indie game developers,” said Chamillard, who teaches gaming at CU-Colorado Springs and develops games and applications in a private business.
“Most of our kids, we hope, are not leaving to go interview against hundreds of other people for that one job. Our students are supposed to go make their own jobs,” Chamillard said.
Colorado game developers who meet and greet once a month at the downtown bar Marlowe’s say they are striving to fulfill Chamillard’s predictions.
Some work for small gaming companies, some develop iPhone apps on a contract basis, and many hope to land work before they’re forced to leave Denver for digital meccas such as Seattle, Silicon Valley or Austin, Texas.
“There are a lot more people graduating from these programs than there are places for them in the industry,” said Brian Robbins, founder of Riptide Games and a board member of the International Game Developers Association, a nonprofit membership organization.
Robbins has blogged about exploitation of low-level game developers at sweatshop gaming companies.
Startups firms flourish
But game entrepreneurs also have a message for economic development officials who chase other high-profile business, from the film industry to tourism. Startup gaming companies can grow fast, pay well, link up with the local academic programs, and thrive on simple office space and fast Internet connections.
Scott Martins launched an electronic trading card company, sold it to Sony and is now ready to expand another one in Denver, Direwolf Digital.
“The industry generates a ton of dough,” Martins said. “I’m looking to hire 10 to 15 people in the next year.”
Martins will take a good look at gaming program graduates from universities and trade schools. Some are very good, he said; others aren’t ready no matter what field they would have majored in.
“As with most things,” Martins said, “the ones who really succeed are those who have a passion for it, and have been doing it on their own time anyway.”
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
