Topic: Would you take a "Intro to Computer Game Development" course?

[matt oz]

This is kind of a long post, but just bear with me here.

Registration for the spring semester at my school started in early November.  I registered as soon as I could (of course), and signed myself up for four classes, three of which are required business classes, and one elective.  The elective I selected was a course entitled "Intro to Computer Game Development."

Now, as you may know, I enjoy playing video games.  I think the video game business would be a fun industry to work in, so I decided I would take this programming class.  I took a programming class in C++ my junior year in high school; I enjoyed making games (though they were mostly dice games, or blackjack, or tic tac toe, or some other really simple game), and I got good grades in it.

So, this Intro class is a 100-level class in the Computer Science department, meaning there are no prerequisite courses, and I assumed I could learn video game development in a semester.  Now, here's where it gets good.  I walk into the computer lab on Monday, and the teacher comes in.  He's this skinny little dork, but that's okay.  Imagine my surprise when he announces that "Intro to Computer Game Development" is not a programming course, but is in fact a video game HISTORY course.  And our textbook is none other than The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven Kent.  A book that I had already read over the summer.  I had inadvertently signed up for a video game history course, using an 800-page textbook that I had already read.

I'm the type of student who likes to challenge myself, and so I dropped my Video Game History class in exchange for Cultural Anthropology, which I must say is very interesting, and a much better choice.  I don't really think there's a lesson here, but I just thought I'd share.  

[Pale]

I vote... Youre CRAZY!

[Shift Key]

In my opinion, a more practical choice is some sort of software engineering course. At least you'd learn something useful

But in all seriousness, I'm curious as how you'd be assessed on the history of video games. Sounds like a real waste of a semester to me.

[couchmonkey]

I think historical courses can be of considerable value to someone interested in game design.  If you want to program games or manage art direction, etc. I think it would still benefit you, but not nearly as much.

What would make it useful?  The exchange of ideas and knowledge.  Design is an art and art isn't something you can pry out of mathematical formulas.  I believe coding is also an art, but it has a much larger logical component to it.  Of course, you can learn from reading the book alone, too, and since you'd already read it I think it was probably a good choice to drop the course.  I guess the course's final value would depend on the quality of teaching and whether or not the class was open for discussion.

It could also help you gain a perspective on the business side of the gaming industry, though again, that depends on the quality of teaching and discussion in the lecture.  If the quality is poor,  you might as well just buy the book and drop the class.

[matt oz]

The teacher for the course was a 24-year old guy who just graduated from a tech school in Georgia.  The way he explained the course was that it was strictly a history course, and he would bring in a bunch of old systems and games for us to see the evolution of games or something.  So, with his age and his course description, I gathered there would be no disscussion of the business side of games.

The whole reason I took the class was to get some programming experience, since the video game industry is something I'm interested in.  I don't want to actually be a programmer, but if I were to work at a development/publishing studio, it would be helpful to have an idea of what the programmers do.