Colleges consider video gaming majors

CHICAGO -- Promising it as a way into the future -- and maybe stoking the worst fears of college parents -- Chicago's Columbia College will decide this spring whether to let students major in video games.\nAs early as next fall, the school could start the course program -- for designing games, not playing them.\nThe curriculum would be similar to a major in film studies. History of Games 204? Believe it. Don't forget Selling Your Game 406, either.\nQuick as a mouse click, Columbia hopes to cash in on the gaming industry's winning outlook.\nAcross the country, schools have added courses and even academic majors in video game design. The academic offerings have joined a $7 billion industry in which single games can have budgets up to $30 million and creative staffs of 200.\nThe proposed major has been in the works for two years at Columbia, long enough to be the main topic of conversation among students nearing -- and even second-guessing -- graduation. \nInquiries about the games major have been steady at the college admissions office, said admissions executive director Murphy Monroe.\n"We are confident that this would become very big for us," he said. A final decision is expected as early as March.\nTo the strumming of classical guitar recordings in Columbia's Interactive Media studio, one young woman shuffles game elements around a screen. Another man glares with open animosity at a shoe reluctantly taking shape on the monitor in front of him.\nStudent Peter Martinez builds his perfect woman.\nShe has blue hair and red eyes. She fights unjust authority. Her name is Reflex, and she has the ears of a mouse.\n"It's a story I've always had in mind," Martinez said, his words hurried and his slender fingers a rapid blur.\n"A lot of comic book guys have that, where they have a story in mind for a long time."\nGrowing up in Chicago, he knew when he was 6 that he loved video games. At 10, he knew he could make them better than anyone else. At 22, he is about to graduate with a degree in interactive multimedia.\n"At the time, it sounded like the closest thing this school had to a game development curriculum," he complained.\nNo more.\nAs gaming's star has risen, a whole field has built up around it, said Reilly Brennan, director of media relations for Midway Games, Inc., the Chicago-based company behind Mortal Kombat, MLB Slugfest and SpyHunter 2.\n"This industry is growing every day," he said. "It was a learn-as-you-go thing. People got into it because they liked video games."\nNow, the games are more complicated, the applications more widespread, and the appeal to create them more broad-based, he said.\nAcademia has taken note, and colleges and design schools around the country have added courses devoted to video game design.\nThey can be found at the University of Southern California, the University of North Texas and Westwood College in DuPage County, Ill., among others.\nThe University of Illinois at Chicago offers a video game design course, while the Illinois Institute of Art offers a bachelor of fine arts. DePaul University started offering a game design major last fall.\nA master's program in gaming is available at Georgia Tech and at Carnegie Mellon University.\nIn the bigger programs, the course load is technical and broad, and needs to be, say game designers.\n"I know the tools. That's no problem," Martinez said. "But a lot of the important things -- like tweaking your game, where to start from, what people to pick to help you on a project -- I didn't know any of that."\nUntil final approval is given, the details of Columbia's curriculum are secret, but the gist isn't:\nIt's going to be hard.\nDiscrete math. Physics. Music theory. Programming and game development, plus animation and business skills. \nColumbia faculty supporter Dave Gerding sums it up in two words -- "crazy hard" -- and therein lies its appeal.\nThe payoff is a crack at an industry already infiltrating everything from Hollywood to education to business training seminars, and the mounting complexity of new games has made a well-rounded education essential, said Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association.\n"You're not picking up kids off the street to do that. You need people with specialized knowledge and experience and a certain level of education," Della Rocca said.\nColumbia's proposed curriculum closely follows the association's suggested course outline.\nThe idea has been to foster games that are beneficial to education or that build problem-solving skills -- though shoot-'em-ups like the one starring Martinez's mouse-eared vixen will not be discouraged.\n"With any luck," Gerding said out of Martinez's earshot, "Peter portends the future"