Tag Archives: game design

UT Dallas’ ATEC program was named by the Princeton Review as one of the top graduate game design program in the nation. The University was ranked 11th. Read more here.

THE PRINCETON REVIEW NAMES TOP UNDERGRAD AND GRAD SCHOOLS TO STUDY GAME DESIGN FOR 2013:

U-Utah #1 On Undergrad List / U-Southern Cal #1 on Grad List

NEW YORK, March 12, 2013 — The Princeton Review (www.princetonreview.com) — one of the nation’s best-known education services companies — today issued its fourth annual report naming the schools with the best programs to study video game design.

The report, “Top Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2013,” is based on a survey The Princeton Review conducted in 2012-13 of 150 programs at institutions in the U.S.A. and Canada offering video game design coursework and/or degrees.

On The Princeton Review’s list of “Top 15″ undergraduate schools to study video game design, the University of Utah is #1. The University of Southern California is #1 on the companion list of “Top 15″ graduate schools. The Company gave Honorable Mention designations to 20 additional programs—15 undergraduate and five graduate. Overall, the report salutes 50 game design programs (30 undergraduate/ 20 graduate) at 35 institutions. (Lists follow.)

The Princeton Review’s 50-question survey for this project asked schools to report on a range of topics from academic offerings and faculty credentials to graduates’ employment and professional achievements. Among criteria The Princeton Review weighed to make its selections: the school curriculum, faculty, facilities, and infrastructure, plus career services, student scholarships, and financial aid.

The Princeton Review’s full report on this project — accessible at www.princetonreview.com/game-design — includes profiles of the schools with application information and links to the school sites.

This year, The Princeton Review partnered with PC Gamer, a monthly magazine published by Future US, as its reporting partner on the project. PC Gamer has a special feature on the list in its May issue. It is available online tomorrow at www.pcgamer.com, arriving in subscriber mailboxes this week, and on newsstands on April 2. The feature has information on the schools’ degree options, class offerings, prominent professors, and alumni, plus fun facts about the school programs.

The Princeton Review’s “Top 15 Undergraduate Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2013″ are:

• University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
• University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
• DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
• Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
• Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
• Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, OH)
• Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
• The Art Institute of Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia / CAN)
• Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)
• Becker College (Worcester, MA)
• New England Institute of Technology (East Greenwich, RI)
• North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)

The Princeton Review’s “Top 15 Graduate Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2013″ are:

• University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
• University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
• Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
• Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
• University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL)
• DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
• University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
• Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
• Southern Methodist University (Plano, TX)
• The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX)
• New York University / NYU-POLY (New York, NY)
• Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
• Parsons The New School for Design (New York, NY)
• DePaul University (Chicago, IL)

Honorable Mentions – Undergraduate Schools (alpha order):

• Bradley University (Peoria, IL)
• Champlain College (Burlington, VT)
• DePaul University (Chicago, IL)
• Ferris State University (Grand Rapids, MI)
• Full Sail University (Winter Park, FL)
• Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
• Miami University (Oxford, OH)
• New York University / NYU-POLY (New York, NY)
• Northeastern University (Boston, MA)
• Oklahoma Christian University (Edmond, OK)
• Quinnipiac University (Hamden, CT)
• University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
• The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX)
• University of Wisconsin – Stout (Menomonie, WI)
• Vancouver Film School (Vancouver, British Columbia / CANADA)

Honorable Mentions – Graduate Schools (alpha order):

• Full Sail University (Winter Park, FL)
• Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
• Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, CT)
• University at Buffalo (Buffalo, NY)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)

Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s SVP/Publisher, noted the burgeoning interest among students in game design and the exceptional study options available from specialized college majors to concentrated graduate degrees. “We salute the schools on our 2013 list for their commitment to this professional field. We hope our project will guide students considering careers in game design to schools best for them on our lists and on to companies at which they can apply their creative ideas and skills for the next generation of game players.”

The Princeton Review is also known for its annual rankings of colleges, law schools, and business schools in dozens of categories which it reports on its website and in its books including The Best 377 Colleges and The Best Value Colleges.

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University and it is not a magazine.

About The Princeton Review
Founded in 1981, The Princeton Review (www.PrincetonReview.com) is a privately held education services company headquartered in Framingham, MA. The Company has long been a leader in helping students achieve their education and career goals through its test preparation services, tutoring and admissions resources, online courses, and more than 150 print and digital books published by Random House, Inc. The Princeton Review delivers its programs via a network of more than 5,000 teachers and tutors in the U.S.A., Canada, and international franchises. The Company also partners with schools and guidance counselors worldwide to provide students with college readiness, test preparation and career planning services.

About FUTURE US (publisher of PC Gamer)
Future Plc is an international media group and leading digital publisher, listed on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR). It has operations in the UK, US and Australia creating 200 publications, apps, websites and events. It holds market-leading positions in Technology, Gaming, Entertainment, Creative and Sport & Auto sectors. Future attracts 50 million monthly global unique users to its websites, which include techradar.com, gamesradar.com, bikeradar.com and musicradar.com. Future sells more than 24 million magazines every year, that’s 45 magazines sold every minute. Our most well-known brands in the US include Mac|Life, Maximum PC, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. We deliver over 100 digital editions, selling over 2 million products in the last 12 months through Apple’s Newsstand for iPad. Future exports or syndicates over 200 publications to over 90 countries. Future is currently Consumer Digital Publisher of the Year for both the Association of Online Publishers and the Professional Publishers Association.

Arts and Technology Ph.D. candidate Bobby Frye and ATEC faculty Kyle Kondas were featured on local radio station KERA for their work on Tiny Thumbs, a new organization looking to build up awareness for the indie game scene and showcase some of the best talent out there through pop-up arcades/art shows.

Read the entire article on Art and Seek.

Join Tommy Tallarico of Video Games Live for a question-and-answer session Friday, Jan. 25 at 4:30 p.m. in the Jonsson Performance Hall.

Tommy is a composer for games, co-creator of Video Games Live, and world record holder for most video games worked on. Tony will be here the day before Video Games Live to talk about the show, his experiences, the video game industry. and answer you questions.

About Tommy Tallarico

As one of the most successful video game composers in history, Tommy has helped revolutionize the gaming world, creating unique audio landscapes that enhance the video gaming experience.

He is considered the person most instrumental in changing the game industry from bleeps and bloops to real music now appreciated worldwide by millions of fans. Tommy is the founder, CEO and Chairman of G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting excellence in interactive audio (www.audiogang.org).

Tommy was the host, writer and co-producer of the award-winning, cutting-edge television shows Reviews on the Run and the Electric Playground. An accomplished musician, Tallarico has been writing music for video games for more than 22 years. Tallarico was the first musician to release a video game soundtrack worldwide (Tommy Tallarico’s Greatest Hits Vol. 1 – Capitol Records). Tommy was one of the first person to ever use live guitar and 3-D audio in a video game (The Terminator), and was instrumental in bringing true digital interactive 5.1 surround to the gaming world.

He has won over 50 industry awards for best video game audio and has worked on more than 300 game titles. His score for Advent Rising has been noted as “one of the greatest musical scores of all time” by websites such as Yahoo, Gamespot and others. In 2008, he was enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records with a two page feature article and interview and currently holds 3 Guinness World Records including the person who has worked on the most commercially released video games.

For more information about Tommy please visit www.tallarico.com.

Dr. Ian Bogost, award-winning designer, media philosopher and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will discuss Humility and Ordinariness, or the Future of Video Games on Thursday, March 29, 2012 at 3 p.m. in Texas Instruments Auditorium, ECSS 2.102.

About the talk

Everyone knows how to use videogames for entertainment and distraction. For years now, many scholars and designers (Bogost included) have advocated for using games for other purposes—learning, politics, advertising, exercise, and others.

Often described under the title “serious games,” such games were supposed to offer radically new and measurably effective ways of carrying out such goals. Bogost’s talk will discuss some of the reasons why that radical change hasn’t happened, and why more humble design values offer both a possible solution and a likely obstacle to the advancement of games outside of entertainment.

As a primary example, Bogost will present one approach to using games in journalism, a new game authoring system developed thanks to funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

About Ian Bogost

Dr. Ian Bogost is professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (where he is also director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media) and founding partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative practice focuses on political games and artgames.

Bogost is author or co-author of many books, including Unit Operations, Persuasive Games, Racing the Beam, Newsgames, How To Do Things with Videogames and the forthcoming Alien Phenomenology. Bogost’s videogames cover topics as varied as airport security, disaffected workers, the petroleum industry, suburban errands, and tort reform.

His games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally. His most recent game, A Slow Year, a collection of game poems for Atari, won the Vanguard and Virtuoso awards at the 2010 Indiecade Festival.

Ninja Nuggets: Kamikaze Kapers — a strategic, turn-based puzzle game developed by Arts and Technology students Steven Foskett and Chris Krueger — has been released on Apple’s App Store.

The game features a scientist captured by a clan of sentient chicken nuggets and forced to undergo rigorous training to help them fight a war against their ancient rivals. The player’s job is to deploy the clan’s secret weapon: honorable kamikaze warriors who explode into highly volatile sauce, “the deadliest substance known to nugget-kind.”

The project began as a class assignment in spring 2011. “The process of development started very informally,” said Steven Foskett. By fall, Foskett and Krueger had designed the core game — although some refinement was needed.  “I asked Dr. Monica Evans if Chris and I could use it as our capstone, and she gave us the green light,” notes Foskett. “Most of my free time that semester was spent frantically programming, fixing bugs and implementing new features like a store to upgrade your character and the explosive nuggets he lays.”

The game was released on Feb. 17, 2012 on the Apple’s App Store and requires iOS 3 or later.

The team also has Ninja Nuggets t-shirts, bumper stickers, keychains and pillows available on Zazzle.

Honor is Arts and Technology Research Project’s Third National Honor in 2 Years

For the third time in two years, the First Person Cultural Trainer (FPCT), a research project from the UT Dallas Arts and Technology(ATEC) program, has won a national award for serious gaming.

The First Person Cultural Trainer game designed by ATEC simulates the challenges a soldier might encounter on patrol in a village.

FPCT received the Best Game award in the Government Category of the 2011 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge. FPCT is sponsored by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command G-2 Intelligence Support (TRADOC).  The Serious Games Showcase is part of the Interservice/Interindustry Training and Simulation Education Conference (I/ITSEC), and was held in Orlando, Fla., from November 28 through December 1.

Earlier in 2011, FPCT earned first place in the Innovations in DoD Gaming Competition at the GameTech Users’ Conference  in Orlando. In 2010, FPCT won the cross-function award from the National Training and Simulation Association (NTSA).

FPCT is a four-level immersive game that allows Army leaders and other appropriate personnel to practice culturally correct ways of interacting with different populations around the world.  The game features a variety of innovations, like a branching conversation system and methods for displaying nonverbal communication and environmental perception. The program can also be ported to different game engines with minimal redevelopment.

The video game simulates conversations with people that a soldier might meet, in this case a village elder.

More than 50 games were entered in the I/ITSEC Serious Games contest, which had five categories – government, business, student, mobile and a special category, adaptive stance.  The work was reviewed by a panel of military, academic and industry gaming experts.  About 20,000 government, business, military and academic total registrants attend I/ITSEC every year. The conference is widely considered to be the largest and most competitive worldwide in modeling and simulation.

“This honor and the overall visibility that FPCT, UT Dallas and ATEC received at I/ITSEC this year is a real tribute to our sponsors at TRADOC, students,  faculty, project staff and administrators who have nurtured this project for going on four years,” said Dr. Marjorie Zielke, ATEC assistant professor.

Zielke is the associate director of the Institute for Interactive Arts and Engineering (IIAE) and principal investigator of the FPCT project.  Other faculty co-investigators on the project include Dr. Frank Dufour, assistant professor and director of the ATEC PhD program; Dr. Gopal Gupta, professor and head of the UT Dallas computer science department; and Dr. Thomas Linehan, professor and director of ATEC and the IIAE.  More than 20 students,  staff and faculty worked on the project for this development phase. The project has employed many more undergraduate, masters and PhD student developers over its four-year life cycle.

The FPCT captures the sights and sounds of life in a specific deployment area.

As part of the award, the development team received a kiosk display area at the conference where live gameplay was demonstrated to the large conference delegation.  Key developers from ATEC serious games projects gave demonstrations throughout the entire conference.

The developers were able to show the game to key government and business entities involved in modeling and simulation, including a representative from the White House, who visited the Serious Games pavilion to learn about national and international research in serious games.

In addition to winning the award, Zielke, Dufour and ATEC  Research Manager Gary Hardee presented a paper titled  “Creating Micro-expressions and Nuanced Nonverbal Communication in Synthetic Cultural Characters and Environments,” which highlighted some of the new FPCT development recently completed in October.

Five graduate students in the UT Dallas Arts and Technology (ATEC) program will present their work at this week’s Global Conference on Videogame Cultures (VGC) at Oxford University in England.

The conference, to be held at Mansfield College July 8-10, 2011, aims to explore the issues and implications created by the mass use of computers and videogames for entertainment.

Participants will focus on the impact of innovative games for human communication and culture.

The students and the papers they will present are:

• Jumanne Donahue, “The Cultural Connection: Capturing and Applying Cultural Values in Games with a Purpose.”
• Julienne Greer, “Digital Companions: Analyzing the Emotive Connection Between Players and Non-Player Character Companions in Video Game Space.”
• Lily Ounekeo, “Driving Forces of Narrative in Video Games.”
• Sherri Segovia, “Brave New Media Games: Digital Play with Real World Outcomes.”
• Jacob Naasz, “The Rapid State of Mind: Rapid Prototyping and What It Has to Teach Us.”

Arts and Technology faculty members will also participate in the conference.

Dr. Monica Evans will present a paper reviewing UT Dallas' Values Game Initiative.

Dr. Monica Evans will present “Exploring Issues in Bioethics Through Digital Game Development,” a paper that deals primarily with UT Dallas’ Values Game Initiative. She will also lead a workshop session on “Gaming Literacy.”

ATEC lecturer Tim Christopher will present a paper titled, “Is it a Game Yet? Using Game Theory Concepts to Create Educational Games.” He will also lead a workshop session on “Analog and Digital Prototyping.”

“VGC is one of the premiere game studies conferences in Europe, and submissions this year were quite competitive,” Evans said.

EMAC Professor’s Research Finds Online Games Can Promote Socialization

“Get off the computer and go play outside.”

So go the words heard in homes around the country as parents and children clash over the social benefits of video games.

Dr. Cindy Shen

But parents needn’t worry so much, according to Dr. Cuihua (Cindy) Shen, an assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communication at UT Dallas. Her recent research article in the Communication Research journal argues that online games can actually bolster family communication.

“Even though most people think that spending large amounts of time playing online games can be harmful to one’s social life, if people play online games with their existing friends and family, game play could actually enhance their social experiences,” Shen said. “An online game thus becomes an additional venue, albeit virtual, for socialization.”

Shen surveyed more than 5,000 gamers about how they use the Internet, their specific activities in the virtual world and their psychosocial well-being for the article, “Unpacking Time Online: Connecting Internet and Massively Multiplayer Online Game Use With Psychosocial Well-Being,” co-written by Dmitri Williams.

The most popular massively multiplayer online game (MMO) in terms of subscriptions is World of Warcraft.

According to the study, online games engage 76 percent of all teens and 23 percent of all adults in the United States. Of these games, networked games known as massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) are growing in popularity. The content of these games is based largely on social interactions, which supports the argument that new technologies create social augmentation, as opposed to displacement: “Not only could the Internet enhance one’s everyday communication with family and friends locally and over a distance,” wrote Shen, “it could also enlarge one’s existing social network by bringing together people with shared interest and values in virtual communities.”

Aion is another online game with a sizable following.

However, there are many who feel video games create time displacement, causing users to spend more time in virtual worlds and thus becoming physically and socially disengaged. But MMOs can also “foster informal sociability and cultivate virtual communities,” according to Shen, and her article illustrates more and more gamers are playing with family and friends they already know online, as opposed to playing with new acquaintances in the game. This helps strengthen the sense of family community, which many didn’t believe possible from the Internet.

Shen addressed this dichotomy thusly: “Whether Internet and MMO use were associated with negative or positive outcomes was largely dependent on the purposes, contexts and individual characteristics of users. The Internet is a comprehensive technology that affords a wide range of functionalities. MMOs also offer extensive opportunities for exploration, socialization and achievement. To a certain extent, both the Internet and MMOs are what you make of them.”

Princeton Review Bases University Rankings on Survey of Academics in Field

The University of Texas at Dallas has been included in The Princeton Review list of the “Top Schools for Video Game Design Study for 2011,” based on a survey of administrators at 150 schools offering video game design programs or degrees.

UT Dallas made the list of top 10 graduate programs for its innovative Arts and Technology (ATEC) program.

The Princeton Review – in conjunction with GamePro magazine – started ranking video game design programs last year after recognizing a surge in the number of options available at schools. This marks the first year The Princeton Review ranked the top graduate programs for video game design.

“I am particularly pleased by this recognition of one aspect of our comprehensive program,” said Dr. Dennis Kratz, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. “In addition to designing games, we explore the philosophic and practical implications of games and all aspects of digital technology for human life and culture. We emphasize and plan to be an international leader in the development of ‘tough content’ games for education.”

Said Robert Franek, senior vice president and publisher of The Princeton Review, “It has long been our mission to help students find – and get into – the schools best for them to pursue their interests and develop their talents.  For the burgeoning number of students aspiring to become game designers, we highly recommend The University of Texas at Dallas as one of the best and most innovative places to study and succeed in this exciting field.”

The complete list will be featured in the April issue of GamePromagazine.