Topic: GameCamp Scholarship Contest

[SS4Gogita]

Want to work in the video game industry?  GameCamp will help you out.

GameCamp! Announces National Scholarship Contest for  College-Prep Summer Video Game Development Program

Thursday, February 17th, 2005---Austin, Texas--- GameCamp! announces their national scholarship contest for two lucky winners to attend the GameCamp! summer program for teenage students interested in video game development careers. GameCamp! focuses on teaching students about leadership, team development, technical excellence, game industry production and business practices through actual game design and development planning projects

 The GameCamp! scholarship is being offered to student contest entrants throughout the United States. The full scholarship will be awarded to the students that write the best 500-word essay entitled “Why I want to work in the video game industry.” Two winners will receive free tuition, room and board, and educational materials for the intensive two-week summer camp being held July 10 to July 24 at Texas State University in San Marcos, just south of Austin, Texas. Deadline for essay submissions is April 30, 2005 and winners will be notified by May 10, 2005. A panel of game industry leaders will handle the final judging of the essays.

 GameCamp! has been developed to help teenage students learn about the growing career opportunities in the video game industry, while also giving them the resources for planning that career path. “The Interactive Entertainment industry is growing by leaps and bounds, says Robin McShaffry, V.P. for Mary-Margaret.com Recruiting and Business Services. “New, upcoming talent will need passion, great skills, and great training. We think GameCamp! is a super way to start kids on the road to success at making games for a living, and we are excited to be involved."

 Students at GameCamp! will participate in a project and seminar-oriented curriculum taught by experienced game industry designers, artists, programmers, and other developers. “Of course they will also play a lot of games,” says Brian Urbanek, Creative Director of Ninjaneering, LLC, an Austin-based game development company. “You have to play games to know how to build games, plus it’s a great way to teach the skills needed for succeeding in a career as competitive as the game development industry.  

 Outside of the video game industry, game design and development processes are revolutionizing a variety of business and educational products and services, while also driving universities and technical schools to create degree programs and specializations in game development. Notes GameCamp!’s Director, Spencer Zuzolo, “Kids interested in game careers have few resources to help them with their educational goals or developing a career plan. GameCamp! helps students bridge this growing knowledge gap by giving them a real world perspective on what it takes to succeed in the game business and how their skills can be applied to other industries.”  

 GameCamp! has partnered with game industry recruiting firm Mary-Margaret.com, Texas State University, the Center for Advanced Computers Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Austin Community College, and game developers from Central Texas to help develop a project-based curriculum that gives a real world understanding of how games are created. In addition to the two-week camp, GameCamp! is offering two other summer sessions: a week-long commuter camp hosted at Austin Community College (June 20 to June 24) and a week long residential and commuter camp at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (July 31 to August 7). For more details regarding GameCamp!, visit http://www.gamecamp.org.

[3rdrocket]

*sigh* why couldnt they have done this a few years ago. -_-

[Robageejammin]

yea, I feel your pain. These workshops are really turning up all over the place now. I have a strong feelling that you wont have to go to DigiPen or Fullsail to learn videogames in the near future. Its eventually gonna be a standard in every university. I'm actually an assistant teacher for a class for kids and teens on making 2d videogames now. Well, I actually did teach it myself. The real teacher had some nervous breakdown cause she didnt know how to teach it and I ended up just teaching the kids what I know and the program I'm using. It turned out pretty good so far. All of them went home with more than one of their own games and one kid liked it so much that he got the program for christmas. Anyway, yea, it is cool that videogames are finally being considered for real time schools but I definitely wish it coulda happened a few years back.

[KnowsNothing]

500 word rant comin liek what

[Ian Sane]

Yeah too bad they didn't have these years ago.  Not to sound like an old fogie or anything but back when I was in high school gaming was still pretty fun and innovative.  In the last few years things have become much more corporate and mainstream and thus younger people aren't being exposed to truly great games as often.  And if people who are influenced by EA games or generic first person shooters become the developers of the future things are just going to get worse.  I have a friend who is currently learning videogame design and she tells me that literally every guy in the class (there are only 2 or 3 girls or so) wants to make an FPS.  That's it.  They have no other ideas and their ideas for an FPS are just clones of games like Halo, Counterstrike, or Unreal Tournament.  We really needed this sort of thing back when gaming was less mainstream and thus creativity was more widespread.  Though ironically it's only because gaming has become mainstream that we're seeing game design related scholarships.

[Caillan]

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In the last few years things have become much more corporate and mainstream and thus younger people aren't being exposed to truly great games as often. And if people who are influenced by EA games or generic first person shooters become the developers of the future things are just going to get worse.

To me, the problem with what is considered good Western design is how incongruous it is with good games. There was an article on Gamasutra about music, which stated all game music should be recorded and never loop. I've also read at various times that the player's 'immersion' should never be broken (no referrences outside the game world should be made), and that cut-scenes should not be used as a major part of story-telling. The problem is all the awesome games that openly break these rules and yet are better than what the theorists make anyway.

I just put my Fable-loving little cousin in front of Ikaruga last night, and even though it was too hard for him he was pretty impressed.

[Ian Sane]

"all game music should be recorded and never loop."

How the hell is anyone supposed to never allow music to loop?  It has to loop because in a game you never know how long a player is going to remain in one area.

The only rule of game design really is that it has to be fun to play.  Just like how the only rule in music is that it sounds good.

[nemo_83]

so this is only for high school kids?

[dafunkk12]

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Originally posted by: nemo_83
so this is only for high school kids?

Unless you're a kid genius already in college anyway...

[Caillan]

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How the hell is anyone supposed to never allow music to loop? It has to loop because in a game you never know how long a player is going to remain in one area.

Yeah, its meant to die down into ambience after a while or something. That's fine for a game like an MMORPG, but Zelda or Mario like that would suck. From the article: "From the dungeon music in Final Fantasy to the Overworld theme in The Legend of Zelda, from the eighties through the new millennium - we've constantly used this technique. There are so many reasons why this is a bad approach."

[KDR_11k]

So, um, what's the point? I'm going to a university to get my MSc of media copmuter science soon, that entails coding and graphics. Only thing left is game design and you can't really teach that because there are no absolutes in game design and any attempt at creating rules would just make games more similar to each other.

[nemo_83]

i feel the first zelda is the rock that all present game design should be built upon

[ThePerm]

"Just like how the only rule in music is that it sounds good."

ooh theres much more rules then that.....the rules of why music sounds good...iv been taking music appreciation. lol.