|
|
|
|
|
|
Towards Relevant Research: Collaboration 101 Description: As
increasing numbers of schools and universities create programs for game
studies and game research, the gap between applied work and theory becomes
more apparent. What are the topic areas and research problems that developers
would most like to see explored? What should students and researchers
examine, measure, build and ponder in their stead? This panel of veteran
developers will discuss both technical and humanistic approaches to games
research, weighing the pros and cons of specific approaches. In addition to
evaluating current work, the panelists will discus their own pet projects and
failed experiments, sharing insights about the areas most likely to benefit
from extended, academic research. Discussion will balance "blue sky”
thinking about potential projects and collaborations with honest, no frills
talk about the realities of “keeping it relevant”. Initial Thoughts/Background At the Education Summits
and such, people ask “Why aren’t developers using more research work to their
advantage?” or “Why aren’t researchers doing work that’s more relevant to
games and game production?”… Depending, of course, on which camp they are in. One developer suggested
that it’s “a combination of ignorance, inertia, and some very real problems
to solve”. That seems true of… just about everything that doesn’t get done.
How can we get a clearer idea of what’s actually happening, and make some
concrete steps towards future collaboration? Here’s a short list of
some broad topics we might consider: Technical Research Tech R&D is a broad
and popular topic – covers things like (but not limited to): § QA and usability testing § NPC Behavior work § Parallel processing
techniques § Pipeline complexity
management § Tuning/design tools § Graphics research (i.e.
Real Time Global Illumination) However, there isn’t a
lot of communication about what’s being done. Researchers are generally
unaware of what goes on in a typical development houses; Developers don’t
often know about current research (graphics is the big exception here). Is
this from want of interest, lack of time… flat-out secrecy? Questions: § Why isn't there more visibility on both sides
of what the other is doing? § What things can occur
more easily in corporate space? In academic space? § What areas of research
are being explored in academia? What areas would we like to see? § Have you worked with
academia on tech research? Was it successful? Was it worth it? §
How can we "outsource" research areas to academia?
Is it expensive? Game Programs Clearly, games are “hot”
in academia: § Southern Methodist University’s new Guildhall
program plans to graduate 32 students from its first year (December 2004) -
eventually graduating 100 students a semester (!!). Tuition is $37,000 a
year. This program, along with Digipen, Full Sail,
the Art Institutes and Savannah College of Art and Design all advertise
heavily in Game Developer and on Gamasutra. § CMU, MIT, Georgia Tech and Northwestern
University are all developing programs – some (like CMU) focus on a
vocational approach, delivering Masters degrees and working with EA to
establish concrete placement commitments – while others (Like Georgia Tech
and Northwestern) focus more on the interdisciplinary arts and sciences
angle. General Questions: § Which is better, a specialized game school
(Full Sail 15-month program) or a broad education (4-year institution)?
What are their benefits/pitfalls? § Do they seem to be going
in a good direction in general? Are they creating good future game
industry employees? How could they do it
better? § Devs: Have you worked with
any games programs, or hired anyone from a game program? How did it go?
Are game programs producing people you would hire? § Acad: Have you worked
closely with any developers? How did it go? Who would you like to hire,
ideally, from the industry? What kinds of requirements are there for teaching
given a (mostly) professional background? From Academic Summits § What can academics do that industry will pay money
for? Anything? § What makes a good game
studies program? To what extent should it be focused on tech? § How closely should a
school curriculum be tied to commercial tools and dev practices? § How are we going to
teach this stuff? Where are the good books? Who's going to teach
it? § Is Ludology/Narratology
relevant to developers? How can we improve this critical
vocabulary? How can we encourage devs to be
more active in these conferences? § How can we encourage devs to go to non-industry conferences? Which
conferences are relevant? Students A lot of the potential
for progress in academia rests with people just now graduating from
undergraduate, masters and PhD programs. But many game students
are "newbies" – unaware of the
constraints of real development and full of novice ideas about games. While
these students are generally DIY (you have to be pretty creative to study
games within most schools), apprenticing to the community is difficult,
expensive, time consuming. A lot of them are still waiting/looking
for a connection. Here's a tiny sample of
the students in the Game Studies group on Orkut: · One student is in
Philosophy, (barely) getting by on government funding (European) and studying
“Game Definitions”... · Another was in
Psychology, but moved to CS to be able to do research on Women in Games. She
writes soap scripts to pay the rent (in · One member (an instructor
at Art Institutes California San Diego) is applying for an assistant
professorship and hoping to explore the connection between film and games. In
here copious spare time, she directs the Women in Game Development Virtual
Development Team… § Another, who interned at
NYU (and has an § I will graduate with a
PhD in Computer Science and AI. My funding, for the most part, came from TAships and fellowships in CS. My advisor could justify
some of my funding as part of the robotics research at NWU. From what I can
tell, this is rare. Questions: § What kinds of roles are there in your company
for students? Interns? Understudies? § How can we get students
the kind of data/code/artifacts they would need to do relevant, pointed work?
§ What do we recommend for
students seeking to work in the game industry? How about just
partnerships/information? §
Is it valuable for someone to study games in school? Why? Is
passion about games more or less important? Indie Dev There’s been lots of
talk about how “risky” and “creative” or “innovative” work is not supported
by the current publishing model. How
can the academy support innovative/creative research that’s relevant to
commercial games? Questions: § Is academia the place for disgruntled developers
to teach? § How can developers help
academia explore new and innovative game design concepts? Future Developments: § What are your forward-looking thoughts about
where we go from here, what we'd like to ideally see, etc? |
|
|
|
|
|