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When it's more than just a game The University of Southern Queensland will offer a degree in computer games design, the bachelor of information technology (games and creative technologies), from semester one next year. And in Victoria, RMIT University has recently opened a games laboratory. RMIT built its $200,000, 45-computer lab to cater for take-up in three new degrees: bachelor of design (games graphics programming), bachelor of arts (games graphics design) and bachelor of arts (digital art). Course co-ordinator Jennifer Lade said the laboratory allowed artists and programmers to work together on games. "Normally at universities you get either artists or programmers and they don't meet each other until they get out there in industry, and they do speak different languages," Ms Lade said. "The idea is that the groups be thoroughly integrated by the time they leave." USQ maths and computing senior lecturer Penny de Byl said her university's new degree responded to industry demands for better qualified graduates. "In the past you got a lot of graduates who were programmers and a lot of graduates who were graphic designers, but there's never been an overlap," she said. It's not all fun and games, however. "In first year, students have to do maths and physics, and I don't care what anybody tells you: you need to have those skills," according to Dr deByl. Job prospects and pay for graduates were good. There were about a dozen games companies in Brisbane and more in the games heartland of Melbourne, which meant local graduates did not have to leave the country. However, the huge games industries in the US and Europe also beckoned. The industry had evolved from a simple, individual-based one into a multimillion-dollar team-based industry that had placed designers "at the forefront of getting the most out of a computer", Dr de Byl said. Technology was expanding into mobile phones and on to the internet and was being introduced into education. "The way people learn is not linear," Dr de Byl said, "but textbooks and flat web pages tend to try [to] push a linear aspect, whereas games can give three-dimensional, virtual environments which allow students to practise things over and over and to solve problems in something that resembles the real world." In Smart Internet 2010, a report published last week, Swinburne University media and telecommunications academic Trevor Barr says the Australian games industry faces barriers to staying competitive in the next five years. Among other things, the industry needs "education pathways that simulate industry practices to develop an incubator model for university-industry collaborations", he says. Ms Lade said the only constant in the industry was change. (BACK) |