Ethan Wilde: Welcome everybody to one of our last for the year in our Game Views series. I'm very pleased to be joined this evening by David Goodwine, who is the Executive director at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco School of Game Development. He also, has another title Chief Academic Innovation Officer, which sounds very cool. Mr. Goodwine is
Ethan Wilde: 20 plus year veteran of film and video game industries. He's worked as a producer, a manager, and a director on game projects like legacy of Kane defiance. The Lord of the Rings. The 2 towers, The return of the King project snow, blind and tomb raider legend back in 2,009. Now, what is about? Almost 14 years ago he came back to Academy of Art to help start their school of game development. I can say that
Ethan Wilde: I have always been a personal admirer of David. I used to work at Academy of Art in the web design and new media department. And I was always impressed with the work that his students did. They have some amazing industry connections, and they just really push the envelope. So I hope everybody will extend a warm welcome to David Goodwine. Thanks for being with us, David. I'm gonna go ahead and stop my slide here.
Ethan Wilde: Turn it over to you.
David Goodwine: Thanks. Hi! Everybody like Ethan said. I'm David Goodwin.
David Goodwine: So yeah, I'm not gonna say my title again. It's too long, but so I've been. Yes, I've been at the Academy of Art for coming up on 15 years.
David Goodwine: I actually went to school at the Academy back in the nineties. got my degree in 2D animation.
David Goodwine: and started my career from that.
David Goodwine: I didn't start out that way. Originally. I you know, I graduated from high school in San Mateo
David Goodwine: and 81. I
David Goodwine: was thinking I was gonna go into science. I actually did get my first degree in exercise physiology from San Diego State.
David Goodwine: But that's not really what I wanted to be doing. I'd always wanted to be a animator, but in that, you know, late seventies, early eighties there, it really was a little hard to do that.
David Goodwine: So sorry with San Diego State. Got my degree graduate and 88
David Goodwine: worked in health and fitness for like 9 years not.
David Goodwine: I mean it was good, but it was just not what I wanted to be doing.
David Goodwine: so I just happened to see that the Academy had a twod animation degree starting that year, and I left my career and went back to school.
David Goodwine: So I went to school, the Academy of Art, and at that time it was called the Academy of Art College.
David Goodwine: I finished up my degree. I got an internship at a company called Wildbrain.
David Goodwine: They were in the city mostly a 2D animation house, and I started out doing 2D animation with some
David Goodwine: I don't know if anybody's ever heard of checking, but I had to do I checked everybody else's animations. so I had to go through all that, you know. We still flip paper then. So we were. I was going through, flipping all the all the drawings, making sure and drawing in where they forgot to do something.
David Goodwine: so I would do that for hours. But
David Goodwine: So as as I kind of went through my career I started out in film, and I'll show you some slides on a one that I when I get there. But
David Goodwine: you know I started out. I thought I was going to be in film forever. So
David Goodwine: you know, I did wild brain. And then I went to a small animation house called spunky productions. They! We were more of a startup at the time. This is like
David Goodwine: end of the 90 S. And then
David Goodwine: I left there, and I happened to get a job at Pdi dream marks.
David Goodwine: So I was in the visual effects side of things and working on I worked on evolution. I worked on the Mexican. I worked on
David Goodwine: a few other visual effects films, and then
David Goodwine: they closed that down. and I moved over to feature. And that's when I worked on shrek.
David Goodwine: So I worked on shrek for about a year year and a half, and
David Goodwine: then so the gate movie came out. Weren't quite sure what we were gonna work on next. We were working on strict 3D.
David Goodwine: But they couldn't figure out what they were gonna do next. After I left they started Madagascar, but I had the opportunity to go work at electronic arts.
David Goodwine: we were starting to Lord of the Ring series at that time. So I was working on 2 towers.
David Goodwine: and then when we shipped that I moved over the return of the king, and
David Goodwine: after I did that I left Ea, because at that time it was crazy.
David Goodwine: BA was nuts. So
David Goodwine: I left there to go to Crystal dynamics.
David Goodwine: and that's where I worked on a legacy. It came defiance, tomb, raider game called whiplash snow, and there was another one called Snow Blind. I was there for about 4 or 5 years, and left there to go to a company called double fusion we were doing in game advertising.
David Goodwine: It was new thing we were getting advertising into the games and make it look like it was supposed to be there and not just crammed in there.
David Goodwine: But after I did that for a few years I had the opportunity to come to back to the Academy part and help start the degree.
David Goodwine: So that's where I've been for the last 15 years. I'm gonna show a slide. That kind of talks about what
David Goodwine: what we offer as a degrees at our school, and then
David Goodwine: I'll go through that, and when we get done with that, then I'll take questions for that. Okay. so let me share.
David Goodwine: Thank you.
David Goodwine: Can you see that? Okay.
David Goodwine: that takes up the whole screen? I don't want that.
David Goodwine: Sometimes I hate this thing. Oh, there we go!
David Goodwine: There we go alright. So
David Goodwine: so these are some of the games and films that I've worked on. It's not all of them. but it's a chunk. So
David Goodwine: so when I started the department you know, we as a as a department we offer for either a second Bfa bachelors degree that kind of thing. It's so we offer a game art which encompasses concept art and art.
David Goodwine: So you would pick one or the other to focus on. So the the artwork that's up here is from students that have been in our program.
David Goodwine: So these are a couple of pieces that we work. We've
actually, both of these pieces are for students that just graduated.
David Goodwine: But this is in concept art for character.
David Goodwine: Then we also offer concept, art for environment. So these are a couple of pieces that our students did. For environment art.
David Goodwine: and we have prop. So usually, what ends up happening as an environment artist like a concept artist, you end up doing props as well as the environments right? Because those props populate that environment.
David Goodwine: So you know, building out
David Goodwine: motorcycles, cars, buses, whatever tanks
David Goodwine: potion vials and anything like that. That's part of the process for the props.
David Goodwine: Then we can move into
David Goodwine: character art, where? And and here's the thing with character art.
David Goodwine: Most teams don't have that many character artists, character artists. They may have a couple that do the character art.
David Goodwine: the thing that area that they have the most people on is environment and prop.
David Goodwine: So there, there have been people I know, that have made their entire career just making weapons.
David Goodwine: So they'll go through and make all these weapons cause. If you think, if you if you think of a game like call of duty. or any of those type of games. There are so many weapons in there, and someone's got to make them
David Goodwine: right. So in in this particular one, this is to soon work for the environment. And then these are a couple of props.
David Goodwine: So and and here's the thing
David Goodwine: we we make realistic
David Goodwine: assets. We make stylized assets. So it really depends on what you really like to focus on whether it's more stylized and cartoony and that kind of thing? Or or do you like to do more realistic or hyper realistic. I kind of work
David Goodwine: then, we also offer game design. So I think sometimes people get confused
David Goodwine: by game, design and game art
David Goodwine: game art is, you know, making it look good, and I know probably everybody in here you know this. But there are a lot of people like I talked to a lot of parents. They get that confused. That game design and game aren't are different.
David Goodwine: So game design, you know, you're actually making the game you're making. What's fun about it.
David Goodwine: You're making the puzzles. You're making the the levels. You're doing all that kind of stuff.
David Goodwine: So for this particular area is level art.
David Goodwine: So these are a couple of pieces. Once the one on top is a side scroller, and the one on the bottom is a
David Goodwine: or actually, it's a environment with characters that are in. And it's in a game called play
David Goodwine: that we just finished and showed at a Gdc. Game developers Conference Pax, East and comic con.
David Goodwine: So you know, we we do attend a lot of those kind of venues. We have booths at all 3 of those.
David Goodwine: So it's it's good for our students to kind of get to know the industry and get to know what's going on in the industry.
David Goodwine: So we also teach combat game design whether it's combat or combat.
David Goodwine: So we we go through that as well.
David Goodwine: we teach systems, you know, anytime that you're trying to figure out. You know you you have something you want to build out to change the clothing on a character, or do pickups, and have somewhere to store it, or anything like that?
David Goodwine: Those are systems. So we we build those as well.
David Goodwine: and then we have game programming. So this is on the back end of of any game in any engine.
David Goodwine: So you know they'll they'll learn that the programmers will learn their foundations. But then, once they get those foundations under their belt, there'll be areas of Morse that are more specific.
David Goodwine: So like triple a game engine architecture, artificial intelligence. And this is artificial intelligence. That's machine learning, not generative. AI.
David Goodwine: So you know how your AI reacts? Does you know. Do you shoot at it? And the AI tries to get away from it and come around and attack you. And right and it it kind of, you know, figures out what you're doing.
David Goodwine: That's that.
David Goodwine: We do network programming. So we can do multiplayer and we also do game and ui tools programming. So a lot of time the programmers will both build tools for, let's say, the animators so they can do their job easier. So they they build out these tools for them.
David Goodwine: and then they use them in whatever program they are in.
David Goodwine: And then we'll do procedural content generation as well. So that's and I think that's the one thing for our program is the people don't realize. II understand we're an art school.
David Goodwine: but having game design and
David Goodwine: and gain programming as part of our curriculum. It helps getting everybody to work together to make the games that we make. We we really can't. I mean, we can make a lot of pretty pictures as artists.
David Goodwine: but we can't, you know, make everything that we would like to make without the designers and without the programmers.
David Goodwine: This particular image is one that shows where our alumni are at.
David Goodwine: I have to keep changing it every
David Goodwine: I don't know. I usually try to change it every 6 months to keep up to date. But
David Goodwine: all the all the people that have come through my program. We follow each other on Linkedin. So II know when they, you know, go to a company. I know them when they get jobs, and they are, you know, going to these places a lot of times our alumni will come back and do talks for us.
David Goodwine: We have, times that we have talks with a lot of these different companies, whether it's on Zoom or it's on, you know. They come physically to the building.
David Goodwine: We just had
David Goodwine: a guy named Steve Grey. Come, I used to work with him at Ea. He was giving a talk yesterday on creating games with AI generative AI and then we've had other talks where, like Glenn Schofield, who was running striking distance.
David Goodwine: but ran
David Goodwine: sledgehammer before that, and then we work together at ea
David Goodwine: He came to give a talk on. You know what he does
David Goodwine: so, and then he and another Chris Stone is coming to do portfolio reviews next week.
David Goodwine: So our students get a lot of
David Goodwine: kind of you know they're out there
David Goodwine: seeing what's going on. And and the industry is seeing what they can do so. And then
David Goodwine: for some of our facilities, you know, we have our our classrooms.
David Goodwine: They all have alienware computers in them.
David Goodwine: So the one on that one picture on the top is one of our classrooms where we're collaborating with
David Goodwine: About 50 different students. Some are online, some are on site
David Goodwine: at this moment we're making about
David Goodwine: 5 different games work working with the company called Spellantis. They own, like 14 car companies. They they own Dodge and Maserati and pujo and
David Goodwine: jeep. And so we're making some prototypes for them. We've made about 8 prototypes we also work with the Norman Rockwell Museum, and we just built their museum virtually so they can
David Goodwine: either previz for their museum, or use it to have people, you know, come and visit the Museum without having to go all the way to Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
David Goodwine: which is out in the middle of nowhere.
David Goodwine: And then we've done some games for NASA.
David Goodwine: So all the students that are in these Co labs get the experience of creating a game. It's it's it's basically you're working in a studio.
David Goodwine: So the bottom image is of our Cintiq rooms. So our artists are drawing on the Cintiqs. In that room we have another room.
David Goodwine: We have 2 rooms like that.
David Goodwine: And then if you look at the larger one on the right here.
David Goodwine: that's our VR room. We're working with 2 treadmills right now that are for VR and we're working on a kaiju game, that is, a networked
David Goodwine: so that 2 players can play at the same time. And while they're in VR, and they can run in place on these treadmills. I know they don't look like the standard treadmill.
David Goodwine: So so we have that. And then we've we've created AR projects as well.
David Goodwine: And so we try to experiment with as many things as we can.
David Goodwine: We we funded the first.
David Goodwine: you know there was that whole startup part of Facebook or not Facebook, but oculus.
David Goodwine: Facebook bottom later.
David Goodwine: that we were working on the D ones for the headsets. And now we're up to Oculus threes. So which are a lot better.
David Goodwine: and
David Goodwine: I think that's enough. So thank you. I'd rather start answering questions, if there are any. So let me stop sharing.
David Goodwine: Okay.
Ethan Wilde: thank you, David. Thanks to David, Andrew and John for joining us tonight from Academy Art University.
Ethan Wilde: Be great to get some questions from the folks here live. I just wanna say just a few things about Academy of Art since I had
Ethan Wilde: the great honor to to work there for some time. Th! The scope and the breath
Ethan Wilde: of of David's department's program offerings is just really vast. I think you saw all those specializations. That he shared with us the level of detail.
Ethan Wilde: the facilities, the equipment, all top notch. And then they
Ethan Wilde: have really distinctive way of running a school at Academy of Art. There are so many working professionals who are teaching in departments like David's that they have a really uniquely deep connection to industry which in my experience, really elevated the student experience
Ethan Wilde: because you get direct access to folks that are really working.
Ethan Wilde: and many of them have great titles of their own that they've worked on, and it's just a great way to get into things, so I hope some of you might have some questions that you wanna share. I see some familiar names here from our own small game development program.
Ethan Wilde: Anybody have anything you want to share and please share your questions in the text chat, or if you'd like to get unmuted just use the zoom reaction panel to raise your hand, and I'd be happy to find a way to
Ethan Wilde: let you unmute your microphone as well.
David Goodwine: I mean, that's the thing, too, is our. You know everybody that works at the Academy that teaches that the Academy is all from industry.
David Goodwine: I keep. You know, we. We're an applied college. We're not a theory based college. So you know that we we create
David Goodwine: and we put out there what we create. So you know, it's
David Goodwine: I just enjoy it. So. Oh.
David Goodwine: if nobody has any questions, I mean, that's that's fine. But II have a couple. I'll try and prime the pump here. Sure.
Ethan Wilde: David, can you help kind of
Ethan Wilde: put in the, in the bigger context of what seems to me now to be just dozens and dozens of schools starting up game programs in higher education. It seems to be the latest fad is to get a game design or game development program running on your campus. Whether or not. You've got the resources or the faculty to do it. And how does Academy of Art kind of fit into the bigger picture?
David Goodwine: I mean? So a lot of schools will focus on one area, right? Whether it's game design like Usc. really, game design focused more on the programming side of things.
David Goodwine: but they really don't have the art side. And then there's other schools like Laguna
David Goodwine: that have really, you know, they have the art side.
David Goodwine: but they but they don't have the game design or programming, right? So they'll usually have to partner up with the school with another school if they want to do something larger.
David Goodwine: Whereas with us
David Goodwine: we we do all of it. And the and the nice thing is, too. You know we have what we have in our department. But we also have.
David Goodwine: you know, we partner with the animation department. So we have animators that are working on, that. We have the music people from, so they can do sound effects, and
David Goodwine: voiceover and and that kind of thing. We, you know, we work with the visual effects department in animation to do visual effects, and that and my one of my pro, one of my things that I've had to really push is, you know, in the beginning. We were the only ones using unreal
David Goodwine: right? Because it's a game engine, right? And we were the only ones using it. But now we've got more of the departments that are using unreal like the animation Department is using unreal. I have architecture and interior architecture and design using it. Fashions gonna start using it.
David Goodwine: there are a few other departments like advertising in that are looking at it, but there are so many different things that you can use the game engines for now,
David Goodwine: And and we try to. You know we've done projects with the fashion department. We've done projects with interior architecture and design we've done with
David Goodwine: industrial design. So you know we have. We have 22 different schools there. so we do. We try, you know, not all we can do. But even like photography in that, you know, we have a pretty good. We have a pretty big esports program that we run where we compete against other schools.
David Goodwine: For really like Valorin and league
David Goodwine: overwatch
David Goodwine: those, you know, and and it varies. Some of them vary from semester to semester. But some of the really larger teams are like Valerie and that kind of thing.
David Goodwine: But when we we do the competing, but we also do all the production right. So we'll
David Goodwine: we'll have the shout casters. We'll do all the recording. We'll we'll do all all that as well, so we? Kinda we kinda run the gamut.
Ethan Wilde: Yeah, there, there are a couple of things that you you touched on there that I that I'd like to
Ethan Wilde: go a little deeper on that one is, I think.
Ethan Wilde: the context of Academy like you said, you're there's 22 different schools of art and design that have all these opportunities for cross fertilization and collaboration, which I think
Ethan Wilde: is whether it's Academy of Art or or any school that you choose. I think picking an art and design school gives you a very distinct opportunity to really have these kind of
Ethan Wilde: cross discipline, fertilizations, and and collaborations, which I think is a really powerful way
Ethan Wilde: to develop artistry and to to leverage really expert skills in these other areas. So you're the games that you're producing have
Ethan Wilde: really very sophisticated and and very detailed
David Goodwine: assets and design and coding in them, because you can leverage all these different pools of talent. It's pretty extraordinary, exactly. And and that's the great thing about, you know, creating all this stuff is that we like we had a We have a particular game called play.
David Goodwine: That's a point click that we showed at
David Goodwine: like I said, comic-con
David Goodwine: game developers, conference and packs.
David Goodwine: And it I had so many people asking me how to buy it.
David Goodwine: And I'm like, Oh, that's not set up for that. So. But but you know, that's that's something else. Right? So we've had students that have started up games at the school
David Goodwine: and then they've gone off, and then they created more of the game, and they put it up on steam, or they put it out there in the world.
David Goodwine: We just had one of our alumni he was a blizzard and riot at Bunji, working on
David Goodwine: destiny. 2,
David Goodwine: and he started up his own company with some other people, and they just released their game called other nights
David Goodwine: a few months ago, and it actually is doing really well out there. And it's for the P. It's for every platform, for the most part. So you know, there's there's those opportunities when I got into this, that what you couldn't do that
David Goodwine: there were. If I wanted to game engine I would have to pay millions of dollars to at that time to get unreal.
David Goodwine: or or I'd have to write my own engine right, and that
David Goodwine: I don't do that.
David Goodwine: So you know, those opportunities are more so now, and you don't ever know what's gonna hit. I mean, some of these companies like super cell and rovio some of the other ones that you know, they kept making all these games, and they're they were doing okay, but then, you know, like angry birds hit
David Goodwine: clash of clans hit. And you know, when games are making 3 million a day.
David Goodwine: I think you're doing all right.
David Goodwine: So it's it's kind of nuts. But you don't know what's gonna hit. So
Ethan Wilde: no, II really like how you shared the examples of of students coming together, meeting each other at the Academy, getting the skill set taking the entrepreneurial spirit and going Indie. I think that's brilliant. And like you said, the resources
Ethan Wilde: digital distribution, access to game engines. The time is great for that kind of initiative, you know, on on that topic of game engines. That was other thing I wanted to circle back to. Just for a second you were sharing how you're seeing this growing use particularly of unreal engine across all these different disciplines. And there's this.
Ethan Wilde: there's this convergence of everything in the game engine. And and one of those fields is is this field of virtual production, where, like the mandalorian, and we see other examples basically huge led studios.
David Goodwine: They got unreal engine running the Cg scenery right behind the actors. And they're shooting everything in camera. Right? That's something that you see. Is that something that Academy is doing anything with, or I'm in the process of wanting to get that studio set up with that
David Goodwine: that's what I'm working on right now, cause it's it's it is. I mean, there's a lot of need for that. And there's not enough people that know how to do it.
David Goodwine: It's the. It's the one part of of working the the camera set up and and all that cause, you know, you're not using a green screen anymore. Now, you're using these screens. But when you move the camera.
David Goodwine: the background moves that everything, you know. It's all set up. It's a lot different than like when I started in this industry.
David Goodwine: But you know you need that setup for which I mean it's not an expensive.
David Goodwine: But but it's it's it's something that they really need out there for for students to learn how to do it
David Goodwine: so that they can go into these studios like Ilm and some smaller studios to
David Goodwine: to create this content.
David Goodwine: And you need to know how to work the unreal engine. If you're going to do that stuff.
David Goodwine: So
David Goodwine: really, at the end of the day, if you can learn how to work on unreal unreal 5.
David Goodwine: it's really to your benefit.
Ethan Wilde: That's that's a great recommendation for everybody listening.
Ethan Wilde: Well.
Ethan Wilde: I didn't see any questions come in from the from the crew here, but I see some emoji going on there. Smiley. Baby But again, you know, I really want to thank David, Andrew and John for taking time. I know we're getting to the holiday season. The semester's winding down. I see us, and up.
Ethan Wilde: This is good. Let me see if I can figure out now
Ethan Wilde: how to
David Goodwine: and do that.
Ethan Wilde: unmute them. Let's see what we do here. Come on, Wyatt.
Ethan Wilde: Do do okay in the mode I'm in. I'm gonna have to make you a Co. Host, Wyatt. Welcome to the Co. Hosting role. You should be able to
Ethan Wilde: unmute yourself. Now.
Wyatt: Wow!
Wyatt: I feel very privileged. Thank you. I figured my question might be a little specific, but since nobody else is asking questions, my, I have a bachelor's degree already I have in asthma musicology.
Wyatt: And I'm wanting to come back to school because I, even though my bachelors, is in music, I've been working as a software engineering manager for the last several years, and I've been teaching myself how to make games
Wyatt: because I have a background in parts. I've been putting it all together. I wanna go back to school and actually get a degree in this.
Wyatt: I've been exploring options with getting an associates degree related to it, or a bachelor's degree related to it, or trying to push right into a master's. I honestly I'm not exactly sure where to go, but I wonder. I know that the Academy of Art University has a couple of different masters programs, or a couple of different options for its bachelors programs that they focus in a particular area.
David Goodwine: We do, we do. So here's a couple of things. So when I went back to school
David Goodwine: I didn't get a Master's degree, I got a second bachelors. So cause at the time the program had just started and they were offering a Master's degree. But I felt like I needed more time. So
David Goodwine: II got a so my first degree is a bachelor the BA,
David Goodwine: and so this one would be a bfa, right? So II did that instead of getting the Master's degree.
David Goodwine: But either way for us. We have the Bfa. Too, but we also have a mfa and an ma.
David Goodwine: So if you're really looking to like.
David Goodwine: build your portfolio and and do that kind of thing, that's the ma
David Goodwine: the mfa is more about you know, building your portfolio, but also doing a thesis project.
David Goodwine: So like today, I just had 11 people pass their
David Goodwine: their their Mfa for their program. You know, it was designer. It was game designers. It's game artists that we, you know, for for the Mfa. And the ma. It's all about
David Goodwine: Concept, art 3 DR game design.
David Goodwine: So if you're you know, let's say you're interested in like creating the games, making the games in that game design.
David Goodwine: we have an Mfa for that. We also have an Mi, it just really depends on what you want out of it.
David Goodwine: So it and you know, and it and it really depends on how long you can. If you have 3 years you can get an Mfa.
David Goodwine: You have 2 years anime, but
David Goodwine: you know you you really all you're working on your portfolio. You really have to focus on your portfolio for the ma cause you already have a degree that's kinda in that realm
David Goodwine: we do get. Students are people coming in that have? Let's say
David Goodwine: they have a degree in finance, and they hate it.
David Goodwine: I didn't want to do that, and they wanted to come and get a degree in. You know, they've always played games. They love playing games, I mean, don't get me wrong playing a game and making game
David Goodwine: way different.
David Goodwine: But but it's something that they really it was like a call right
David Goodwine: and that's
David Goodwine: I didn't think I'd ever be making games. I always thought I'd be making films and working in that part of the industry, but once I got into games I loved it
David Goodwine: so you know. Yeah, it's a lot of work.
David Goodwine: Yeah, it is. But but II get to see
David Goodwine: my result right? And and it goes out there in the world. People play it.
David Goodwine: Okay, so and it's the same thing with the students. Now, I you know, since I'm here at the school.
David Goodwine: I have alum people come in. They go through the program. They get out of the program. They go out and work in the world, and I could see what they do
David Goodwine: right? And and they're everywhere. So you know, it's really depends on what you
David Goodwine: you know. Could you go and get an Mfa. Sure.
David Goodwine: or an Ma or you get a Vfa or yeah, a bfa, 2. It really depends on. On.
David Goodwine: you know what what you want to do. But but we do have it in those
David Goodwine: in those particular areas of
David Goodwine: Concept, art came to sign. And then programming is a Bachelor of Science Degree.
David Goodwine: And it's only a bachelor science degree. I don't have an Mfa. Or sorry an Ms.
David Goodwine: For that degree. Yet
Wyatt: I really appreciate that. Thank you. my, even though I work as a programmer, and I oversee programmers.
David Goodwine: The passion for the design side of things and the artistic side of things, which is great. I mean, that's that's the thing. As a as a let's say, you're more of a technical game designer where you're doing more scripting. And you're doing more of that kind of thing.
David Goodwine: Hey? Those are those are areas that game companies need. So you already you already do the programming side of things. But you know, maybe you don't want to, and that's the thing for us.
David Goodwine: We only teach game programming. We don't teach
David Goodwine: any other kind of programming at the school.
David Goodwine: but as game designers you know I have. I have another gentleman that just started in the program. He was a programmer before.
David Goodwine: and now he wants to be get his masters in game design. And that's that is what he's been working on. And then he's working with a couple of other people that are artists. And they did a game jam
David Goodwine: a few weeks ago, and they just built out this small game. But it was. It looks good. It plays well and they had a finite amount of time to make it in.
David Goodwine: but they did a great job with it. So he, you know, they already have one game done
David Goodwine: so, and in our department for a game design. there's a lot of classes like
David Goodwine: a rapid prototyping where you're making a game every other week.
David Goodwine: And in some cases you're making a game a week.
David Goodwine: So it's really like looking at the mechanics, how it's working maybe it's maybe it's only a one button game and trying to figure out how that's gonna work.
David Goodwine: we used to do a a wheel with a bunch of different words on it, and whatever it land on that was the theme, and everybody had to do that theme. But you know people people think differently. So whatever that theme was, we could have got, you know 20 different games out of that.
David Goodwine: So yeah, I mean that. And II want
David Goodwine: I want everybody working together. Cause when you go to a studio. You kinda work together just gotta get used to it.
Wyatt: Can I throw one other curveball question? I guess. What if?
Wyatt: What if? What if someone's end goal. What if my end goal is to contribute to the academic space around games and teach?
David Goodwine: Yeah, great everything you're talking about? Yeah. I mean, I think I think here's the thing
David Goodwine: I mean for us, we we if you're gonna come, teach for like
David Goodwine: where we are, we really require you to have about 5 years of experience in the industry before before you teach that. But that's not the case for every school, right? There are some schools that want to start up a program and have nobody that knows anything about. They they think they know.
David Goodwine: or they really focus on the theory of games and not how they, they play, how they they don't build them. They talk about right?
David Goodwine: That's just not our school, we it, we it's like being in a studio. So
David Goodwine: we're more like a trade school right where you're building it out. Learn your craft. You go out there into the world.
David Goodwine: so. But but I think we have. We have students coming in that they eventually wanna teach.
David Goodwine: So and we've had. And we've had a lot of alumni that have, you know. Some of them had graduated back in 2,011, 2,012 somewhere back in there. They're out there working. They come and and teach for me part time. And now
David Goodwine: with Zoom, the way it is
David Goodwine: that makes it a lot easier, because before I would either have to fly people up from La.
David Goodwine: They would teach for the day, and then they'd fly back. I mean it it it. And for some people they like doing that.
David Goodwine: But now we can. We can do it this way.
David Goodwine: right? So
David Goodwine: you know, if there's more opportunity for that now. And they and they need
David Goodwine: people that know how to do this stuff out there. So
David Goodwine: II don't think, did did I ever think that I was going to teach when I got out of the Academy. Absolutely not. I didn't think I was gonna do that. I was. I was just gonna work right. And then I had this opportunity. And
David Goodwine: yeah, it's been great.
Wyatt: Well, thank you for that. Yeah, I really, I know I want the experience of working for quite a while, but that is a passion that's always going to be in the back of my mind.
David Goodwine: I mean, some high schools have game programs. I don't know if you want to teach high school level it kind of crazy. for a little bit. And
David Goodwine: that was crazy enough.
David Goodwine: So yeah, but but there are. There are opportunities at the college level.
David Goodwine: so I would just I would really keep that in the back of your head. for sure.
Ethan Wilde: There it goes. Thank you. Sure you're welcome. II jump in on the end of what you all were saying to to circle back and say the obvious. David was a student at Academy of Art, like he was saying, and he came back. And now he's the executive director of the program. But why? It's why, it's
Ethan Wilde: dream pathway. You're living. It emphasize what you said, David, about the need to to have a collaborative studio environment cause because games are these complex works of art that have computer programming and all those different forms of art that you shared with your overview of all the different specializations you have
Ethan Wilde: and so I really think that's one of the distinctions of Academy is the way schools like yours run themselves like a real world creative academy, a real world studio, and with so much industry connection, it just it just
Ethan Wilde: feels like you're working
Ethan Wilde: in a studio. It doesn't feel like you're going to school quite the same way.
Ethan Wilde: Might, if you're up here in Santa Rosa, where we're worried about them
Ethan Wilde: doing whatever they do besides making games. So I think that's important.
David Goodwine: It is most definitely.
Ethan Wilde: Can I ask you one last question, and then we'll then we'll try and wrap it up. Are there ways and a. And I. And again, I wanna I wanna recognize
Ethan Wilde: John and Andrew for for for being here as as resources to get people onto campus to look around.
Ethan Wilde: Are there other ways like one thing that always stood out to me about Academy? Is the spring show.
Ethan Wilde: I love going to the spring show, because all the schools of design and art are there, and your your department has a very strong presence there. And you just feel like you're in this amazing. I feel like I'm at the you know, the Venice biennial arch.
Ethan Wilde: There's there's all these amazing works of creative art architecture. Fine art, you know, web and new media, the game stuff and and the departments just go on and on. Are there? Are there other venues besides, spring show where they can connect with you.
David Goodwine: Yeah, I mean. So now, so here's a couple of things. So spring show is still up
David Goodwine: at 601, Brandon.
David Goodwine: So yeah.
John Belardo - Campus Tours: I'm sorry. Actually, we we just pulled it down I was, gonna say.
John Belardo - Campus Tours: well, we're supposed to be pulling it down. Well, we're switching it up to the winter show. So I'm yeah in that address. Did you say? 601 Bryant Street?
David Goodwine: So. But but here's the thing. The best way to do this is to contact John
David Goodwine: and and find out about that cause the the winter show starts on the fourteenth great December
Ethan Wilde: should run. At least
John Belardo - Campus Tours: I I'm guessing, into January. So just just send me an email if you're interested, because
John Belardo - Campus Tours: if you don't want to wait. I can show you the game design school
John Belardo - Campus Tours: and probably we'll run into David, just depending on what day you you come in but yeah, any questions about campus tours. Please, email me anytime. And that, the game design schools. Actually, one of those tours that we have daily. They start at 10 am. But like I said, if you wanted to come at a different time, just send me an email and a lot of times we can make accommodations for you.
Ethan Wilde: So with spring show, I mean, spring show is something that we run every year
David Goodwine: our students. We have them submit. We have to have everything in by April. We have to go through
David Goodwine: all the pieces in a lot of instances, let's say for concept art. We'll get 400 pieces in
David Goodwine: and then we have to go through. But we don't have enough room for that right? Exactly so. And if if I can get industry to come in, I'll have them jury if I can't. My directors and I jury.
David Goodwine: So we have, you know.
David Goodwine: concept art that we have to go through. We have 3D. Art, we have to go through. We have games we have to look through, for.
David Goodwine: you know, and we have to play through them. See if they're if everything works properly. But all that gets put up at the show, and then we have industry day, where industry comes, looks at all the work for all the different departments.
David Goodwine: And sometimes they hire from there. A lot of times they'll take business cards and and then call and set up time to talk to people about jobs
David Goodwine: so, and internships as well.
David Goodwine: So we we have that every year, and then the show runs for X amount of time after that. But we're starting up winter shows now, and I know some other departments had ran winter shows in the past.
David Goodwine: But over the last few years, with Covid in that we hadn't really been doing that.
David Goodwine: So that that's going to get started back up again.
David Goodwine: So that's always a good one. And the other thing, too, is I'm gonna put in the chat.
David Goodwine: so this site is a lot of our th. If there's about 20 games up there that we've created
David Goodwine: over the years, and some are playable. Some are not. But there's video up there about the game. And then also.
David Goodwine: did we put, did you? Did anybody put spring show? You didn't? Okay, good. The spring show links up there so you can see if you can go to any of the
David Goodwine: You know departments and see what they're creating. It's it's all of them. So it's good to see what the students are coming up with.
Ethan Wilde: It's inspiring. It really is.
Ethan Wilde: I hope so.
Ethan Wilde: Thanks
Ethan Wilde: to the 3 of you and and II hope we made some connections with with a few of the folks that are here live, and II know we'll get
Ethan Wilde: quite a bit of viewership from about the 75 or 80 current students we have in our in our handful of dedicated game classes. So and as well. The the meeting chat information will be part of the the Zoom recording so we can get that to them as well, II hope all of you have some some great holidays, and I and I do the winter show to check it out now
Ethan Wilde: on the winter show announcement when that's coming a little bit later. Sounds like about 2 weeks out or something. Huh? Oh, perfect. Yeah, wonderful.
David Goodwine: Alright, then. Okay, well, thank you very much. I enjoyed being here. and if you have questions about, just reach out
David Goodwine: absolutely. Thank you all.
Ethan Wilde: Great to see you. Take care, bye.