What is the best university for game development undergraduate course

I won't be able to answer all the questions, since whilst I've touched in the gaming industry, I've not really delved into the academic side of it, like you're looking to do, but here's my 2 cents.

Game dev industry is very hard to break into. It is an extremely market driven environment if you're part of a small game production house, like an indie dev, and it even runs up to the biggest of gaming companies like Activision, EA etc. Not saying that you can't, but I always feel that in a field like this, what you have developed and learnt on your own and your projects are what gets you far, not your degree. The degree will help you get a base understanding but if you're really passionate about game dev then you should be working on it by yourself too and not rely on uni.

I'm not interested in the degree itself but rather the education and connections that can be made through it if that is possible.

Connections you can make outside the degree. Just sign up to meetup exhibits where game devs are showing off their work and you're sorted. It's an ongoing process.

Education - yes you'll be taught in a very structured way of game development, like the fundamental principles so if you have no idea where to start then getting a degree will be beneficial.

It'd be worth considering what field of game development you want to go into. An environment artist, technical artist, prop artist, concept artist, animator, FX, audio producer, ai programmer, gameplay designer, designer, QA tester, network engineer and sandbox designer all have very different roles from each other, and that's before considering that most AAA studios employ hundreds of people with dozens more job roles than what I just listed.

I can only speak for myself here, but my aim is to go into a games art role (Particularly in regards to weapons art) and I was told my pre-existing knowledge of 3D software (I have some moderate experience with Blender) and the Adobe Suite was good to see, as I already had some of the basic skills I'd need to be otherwise taught. If you aim to go into an art role, get drawing, painting or modelling (depending on your preference) and get the practice in. If you're more interested in code, start teaching yourself a code language - Python is a good one for beginners (I can't help otherwise, I'm not too big on code).

Personally, I've seen a lot of advice to stay away from a Designer role and try and specialise in a certain area. Find what you enjoy and interests you about games development and double down and make that as good as you can.

Also look at areas similar to your field of study. the portfolio and experience you develop doing a games art course could also be very useful if you decided you wanted to instead work on visual FX or animation for films/ TV.

So yeah. Decide what aspect of development you're interested in. Research it and see if it's right for you before jumping in. As the previous poster said, it's a difficult industry to get into so you want to get as much practice in as you can in whatever field you choose to go into.

In terms of studios, Traveller's Tales (LEGO Games), Rockstar Edinburgh/ North (Leeds) who do GTA and Red Dead Redemption, Creative Assembly (Total War, Halo Wars 2, Alien: Isolation) and Frontier Developments (Elite: Dangerous) are all fairly big name studios in this country, and that's just the ones making games I actively keep an eye out for and can remember at 00:30. There's a bunch of UK-based studios out there.

Apologies for the half-ramble. Hopefully you'll find something that helps you.

Is the game development industry in the UK good employment wise?

Is a game development undergraduate course worth it for the 4 years or is it a worthless education?

...don't go for a game development degree. If you want to do computer science, do computer science. But no employer is gonna look at a game development degree...

Which universities offers the best game development undergraduate course?

Dear INeedAnswersPlz,



There are more than 2.9 million jobs in the creative industries, a large chunk of which come from IT, Software, and Games. It is also among the fastest growing industries, with GVA increasing in the 2010-2015 period by 34% compared to the UK sector average of 17.4%. (Source: DCMA)

Here are some resources here that you may wish to review:

http://www.thecreativeindustries.co....s/infographics
http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/games

If you enjoy computing and software development, then it is a worthwhile discipline to pursue. As others have noted, securing a role at the game development company it is very challenging because of the competition for such roles. It is a glamorous industry, after-all. So, you must be very dedicated. However, even if you don't end up in games industry, there is a vast range of opportunities in IT and Software, so you may very well end up in a graduate role doing something that you enjoy.



It is a little more complex than just a name and/or subject area. The institution running the course, the nature of course, and the specific learning objectives are all key factors to consider. This makes some courses offer considerable value, while others offer little, even if they share the same course name. As the UK Universities & Science Minister, Jo Johnson, pointed out a few years ago: "standards of teaching are 'lamentable' at some leading institutions and too much is variable or patchy".



As stated above, the world is more complex. If you have the opportunity to study Computer Science at Oxbridge and/or Imperial, then sure. Employers rate graduates from such courses very highly, and the skills that students on such courses develop are applicable to a broad range of industries. However, outside of these elite institutions, things become uncertain. You will likely be surprised by the employability statistics regarding traditional computer science degrees. If you read the recent Wakeham review and the recent Shadbolt review, you will discover that traditional Computer Science courses have the lowest rate of employment of any STEM discipline (see http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-computer-science-graduates-what-does-the-data-say/ for a brief overview). At some institutions it is dire.

Yet, at the same time, the games industry is crying out that it can't find the right people! Indeed, the 2011 Livingstone-Hope report highlights a skills gap, and it was a prominent topic of discussion at last year's TIGA Education Summit (TIGA is the trade body for the games industry). I suspect the problem is two-fold:

(i) There is a brain-drain to other industries, in part due to better prospects elsewhere (e.g., £££) and quality-of-life issues;
(ii) There is a misalignment between graduate outcomes and entry-level job requirements.

Therefore, it makes sense that courses designed in partnership with a particular industry with employers on their advisory boards, such as computing for games courses, would not only improve this alignment but also foster a reputation for producing graduates with the right skills, who will stick around, and may perhaps even bring with them ideas that will help solve some of the challenges facing the industry.

It will also be worth examining the trends in employability statistics (from the Higher Education Statistics Agency) contrasting those courses with JACS code I6 (games programming) and G4 (mathematical sciences - computing). Though, public release is slow and the available data is a bit old, you may be pleasantly surprised at the trend.



Whether of not a course is the "best" entirely depends on your own goals and your own position, and is therefore subjective. You need to match what a course offers to what you want to get out of it. Games industry veteran Tom Sloper suggests the use of a decision grid in these circumstances to aid your decision making (http://www.sloperama.com/advice/m70.htm). However, a good place to start would be to examine courses with triple-accreditation (BCS, Skillset, TIGA) in computing and/or programming for games:

You may also be interested in researching Falmouth University's Games Academy, which launched in 2014. We have a focus on practical game development and studio-based practice. You make games in multi-disciplinary teams throughout the degree as if you were running your own indie game development studio. We offer a technical course that may be of interest:

BSc(Hons) Computing for Games - https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/computing-for-games

Employers and investors alike are impressed with what our students are achieving. Because they are in the studio nearly 9-5 making games, our students are developing strong programming and teamworking skills. Furthermore, our LaunchPad incubation scheme is already winning prizes in entrepreneurship (see https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/content/win-launchpad-guardian-awards) and my current second-year students are publishing their games on Itch.io (see https://d-tail-entertainment.itch.io/monq). However, as it is a new course in a new department, we don't yet have any graduates and so are not eligible for accreditation.

All the best,
Michael

Are game development """"degrees"""" just a scam to take the money of less-able students who want to play games for a living and think that a game-development degree would interest them, despite not at all being interested in computing?

Do you not feel that game design skills are best not taught at university - where students pay upwards of 9000 a year, for skills that can be self-taught.

Do you not feel that students, especially undergraduate students, who have just finished A Levels or BTEC are better off having a broad computer science degree which are marketable in a variety of sectors, [...] they also nurture soft-skills.

...and also are much more respected by employers for how rigorous they are and the fact
...They don't have to go to Oxbridge or imperial, there are many lower-level universities for them.

The evidence suggests a complex picture of the interrelationship between the supply of graduates (and their individual characteristics) from HE, the varying nature of the demand for skills from employers [emphasis added], and the role played by the professional bodies in helping to bridge two sets of interests. The story is not straightforward, and there is no single headline figure or data set that comprehensively conveys the graduate employment situation.

This is three questions so if possible please answer all three.

Is the game development industry in the UK good employment wise?

Is a game development undergraduate course worth it for the 4 years or is it a worthless education?

Which universities offers the best game development undergraduate course?

Thank you in advance.

PLEASE STOP THE GAME DEVELOPMENT MEME.
If you have a braincell in your body, don't go for a game development degree.
If you want to do comuter science, do computer science. But no employer is gonna look at a game development degree more than they look at a BTEC level 2.

Unity would almost certainly look for Computer science, or software engineering