Thursday, January 14, 2010

CS depts. and the gaming industry

The concept presented in this article that surprised me the most was that "the demand for computer scientists capable of building games is high, with large companies like Electronic Arts reporting that 65% of their hiring demand is for programmers skilled in building games."

Two points: first, I agree that the traditional CS graduating student is not best equipped for a career in the game industry. Second, I'm not really sure Electronic Arts is the best company to use as an example of anything these days. Weren't they the focus of a coalition put together by wives of employees to tout about the horrible working conditions? They also announced a pretty large round of layoffs last year. Check out google for lots of interesting stories on them.

Despite the example used, I agree with the point that today's CS curriculum does not prep students for jobs in game development. We focus on prepping students with the skills that are required for the majority (and also most lucrative) of careers in CS. Of all of the possible jobs one can obtain with a CS degree, game development is not anywhere near the top of the list. I think we would be doing a large disservice to the majority of firms that hire computer scientists if we start incorporating game development into the curriculum.

But, I can easily take the other side of the argument. Consider how many more students would be interested in a degree in CS today if we could talk about our opportunities to develop games! Attracting student interest and dealing with retention are two hot topics in CS academia. I think there can be a balance, where some aspects of game development are used in some earlier courses, perhaps up to the point where data structures are taught.