College Times

Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Jim Barcus – MCT

Menacing, metallic and mega-gun brandishing, the cyber super soldier looms over Richard Fleming's desk.

Not exactly stereotypical for a professor's office?

This professor under the "Halo 3" figure teaches video game development. So lock and load, zappers of Nazi zombies or the locust horde. All those hours wearing out your thumbs in front of "Halo" or "Gears" actually could mean a college degree and fast career path.

Before you drop your joystick, remember a degree in video game design is math and science laden. Or it could involve serious art skills.

This year, 254 of the nation's colleges and universities in 37 states have such programs, up 27 percent over the year before.

At first, computer information science program leaders resisted bringing in video game courses, recalled Jeff Huff, assistant professor of graphics at Missouri State at West Plains.

"They didn't see them as worthy," Huff said. "It was real easy to dismiss it by saying, 'They are video games, how important could it be?' "

According to the Entertainment Software Association, which monitors the game industry, video game design is the fastest-growing industry in this country.

"A generation that has grown up playing video games is entering college," said Rich Taylor at the association. "Schools are responding to that."

Besides a favorite pastime, video games are developed for use in military training, education, Hollywood, and for virtual training in a variety of fields, including medicine and mechanics.

"In the last 12 years, software sales have quadrupled," Taylor said, taking video game sales with it. Last year, games and game consoles reached $22 billion in sales.

At a time when students are graduating into a shrinking job market, this industry is flourishing, Taylor said.

More than 80,000 people are employed by the video game industry, said Taylor. "It is indicative of schools realizing that video game design is a viable industry."

Most of the schools with video game programs are in New York, Texas, North Carolina and California, with the University of California-Irvine recently establishing a center for games and virtual worlds research.

A lot of schools began adopting video game design programs to offset the decline they saw in the number of students interested in the traditional computer information science courses, said Dale Musser, director of the information technology program at MU.

Musser's program is five years old and includes a sequence of video game creation courses. "That's one of the things that makes our program affective," Musser said.

Out in the world, video game design is deemed recession resistant. And the pay is great.

The average video game designer job starting out pays about $55,000 a year. With five years of experience, young designers make in the range of $90,000 a year.

"And it is not a bad way to make a living," Taylor said. "It's fun, it's exciting and you are only limited by your imagination."

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