I will. I'll steal some of his thunder in the
introduction and say when I when I went to learn
more about their program, it's really an
outstanding program. Um, as the slide here says.
And as you can see on their website, too, uh,
their program is ranked, uh, number one in England
for game design. Uh, I'll share the link for this
landing page as well as part of my introduction.
And, uh, now I want to turn over the zoom session.
Um. To him and and, uh, turn off my screen sharing
for now. There'll be time for questions. Um. You
can also type into the meeting chat at any point
if you want to share anything. Um, and with that,
uh, no further ado. Welcome. Thank you for joining
us today.
Thank you. Am I am I audible? Can you hear me? Yes.
Very good, very good. So I'll go ahead and I'll
start sharing my slides here. And, um, let's take
a look here at a shared screen. Screen. It's going
to be a bit of that inception effect as everyone
sees the, uh, the zoom window until I open up the,
the PowerPoint slide and begin from the beginning.
Um, and, uh, before I start, I want to explain why
I was particularly excited to reach out to Santa
Rosa Junior College. You can tell by my accent.
I'm not originally from the UK. I'm originally
from North Bay, and I went to high school in, uh,
in Sonoma County and would actually go to Santa
Rosa Junior College to play Dungeons and Dragons,
of all things. Um, so it so it means a lot for me
to be able to, to, uh, come back and and talk to
the students who are studying games there, which
was not an option for me. Uh, back in the time. So.
So you're very fortunate to be able to, uh, study
games. Um, so I'm going to tell you about the
Games Academy at Falmouth University. And first, a
little bit of context and who I am. I'm not
William Huber, I'm an associate professor of game
studies, and I'm also the course leader in game
development. Uh, a little bit of, um, uh, uh,
change in vocabulary. It helps. What we call a
course in the UK is what we would have called a
major in the United States. When you say that I'm
a course leader. That means I'm. I'm leading up,
uh, majors and majors. I was for a number of years
the president of the GRA, the Digital Games
Research Association, which is the world's primary
academic body for the study of digital games. And
I'm a researcher and the history and and, uh,
theory of games. Uh, my short explanation is that
I am two games. What an art historian might be,
the painting and sculpture. So there's a link to
my own profile. You can see my my research, my
teaching and my writing, and I'm sharing my email
with you here. I'll also share it at the end of my
short talk before we go into questions. And if you
have questions about anything related to what I'm
about to present to you, please feel free to get
in touch with me. So first, let's start off with
what and where is Falmouth University? It's one of
the top creative universities in the UK. It
started as an art school and then became a
creative university. It kind of exists in the the
crossover space between creative practices of all
sorts and technology. That's kind of where where
our focus and emphasis is. So games are very
natural, uh, place for us and, and uh, the games
program there is the largest program they have.
It's located in Cornwall, England. And the images
here are some of the images of Cornwall. It's um
it is a coastal region in the the southern tip of
the, uh, United Kingdom. I it's I like to say it's
in the pointy bit the points at the United States.
So if you look in the little blue square in the
bottom there, um, that white region is the part of
that's Cornwall. And we are located in Falmouth,
which is the kind of in the bottom middle of this
map. So it's a very it's a coastal environment.
The North Coast has, uh, the best surfing in the
UK, which is quite an active scene, while the
southern coast, where Falmouth is, is a bit more
tranquil, it's better for paddleboarding and that
sort of thing. There's a lot of natural beauty
there. Uh, there's a lot of rich culture and
history. I don't know if you've seen Poldark. Um,
that's that, that that series was filmed in the
Cornwall region. So it's, it is, um, quite a
lovely place. Falmouth University is on one of the
top three arts and created, uh, creative sector
universities in the UK. Sometimes number one,
sometimes number two, sometimes number three. Um,
but we're we're consistently up and at that top
region. Um, we have uh, uh, courses. We have
degrees and majors in fields like graphic design,
a very strong film program, theatre, architecture,
um, uh, illustration, and of course in games and
related fields, um, the Games Academy. Is a school.
It's an entire school within the Faculty of Screen
Technology and Performance. So we are at the same,
uh, faculty as the film school and the theater and
music school. But we are our own school, uh, unto
ourselves. Hundreds of people studied two
different aspects of game making at a time. Uh, in
our in our studios, in our facilities. Um, we've
been around since at least 2010, and we're
prestigious. We are the best game design program
in England and the second best outside of the
United States, according to the Princeton Review's,
uh, findings of this year are programs led both by
veteran game developers have come out of the
industry, both the triple A major industry and, uh,
independent studios, as well as academics and
researchers in all sorts of disciplines, from
computer science to to arts and design. We have a
good connection to industry, but we also have a
very strong in the ethic. And our students make
games in all sorts of modes and all sorts of
voices and styles. So, um, a little bit of kind of,
uh, information about what it means to study in
the UK. In England. An undergraduate degree takes
three years rather than four. So if you entered
from the, uh, the from the from the ground floor,
you would have a bachelor's degree in three years
with a high school diploma from the US. Um, but
with an associate's degree and what we call, um,
uh, progression awarding and mapping, we, we would
look at a degree that you received at Santa Rosa
Junior College and let you come in between the
second and the last year. I mean, between the
first and the second year. So we would let you
complete in two years. And it's important to know
that financial aid from the United States can be
applied to study in the UK, thanks to an agreement
between the United States, United Kingdom. So any
loans that you get to to complete your studies,
you could apply them to a degree that you would
get at Falmouth University with a student visa.
You would then be eligible for a period of, uh
post-study work in which you'd be able to look for
a role, permanent role in the UK if you such as.
So I'm going to walk through some of the, uh,
programs that are available, and it gives you a
flavour of how multidisciplinary we are. We really
do kind of crossover, and we really are about
integrating all the the components. I don't know
if Ethan has told you about what we call the holy
trinity of, uh, game development, uh, art
programming and design. Uh, but they're all
represented and represented at some detail in the
different programs here at Falmouth. So we have
three different subject areas, three different
departments relevant of departments, um,
represented in the Games Academy. The first is a
computing, uh, the uh, Department of Computing. We
have six different majors that you can take in
that program. Um, some are very close to
traditional computer science, but with a games
flavor. So you're still learning the philosophy of
computer science. And it's accredited by the
British Computer Society, which is kind of the the
austere body which looks after the a computer
science in the United Kingdom. Um. But if even
that program, uh, it's very game flavored. So
you'd be doing things like graphics, programming,
kind of shaders and that sort of thing. We have uh,
also, uh, program programs that are more focused
on different aspects of competing for games, like
one called computing for games. It's more of a
generalist program. Another that's on immersive
computing, focusing on virtual reality, um, uh,
augmented reality and other programming
technologies and these kind of emerging, you know,
new fields. We have a robotics program, Software
Engineering, which overlooks kind of the the large
group loop development. And then we have a, uh, BA
in game development programming, which focuses
more on what it's like to program, uh, as a close
part of a design teams, kind of the crossover
between programming a design that's you kind of be,
uh, a technical designer or a programmer who's
particularly sensitive to to the, the, the needs
and goals of the design team. So.
Um, I have more slides that if you have specific
questions about specific courses about specific
majors, I can zoom into them a little bit more and
give you detail. But first I'm going to give you
this overview and then kind of open it up for Q&A.
And if you have more specific questions on what
you study in each of these, these courses, I can
answer them. Um, we have two. Uh, majors in the
arts program. The game arts program. One is, uh,
the, uh, the Bachelor in Game Art. The other is a
bachelor in game development art. And the primary
difference between them is if is specialization.
If you kind of want to do a little bit of
everything, you would take the first program. You
had it. You you would the first. Of course you do
a little bit of concept art, a little bit of 3D
character art, some environment art. If you
already know what specialism you would like to do.
You say, uh, if you know I really want to be a
character artist, I've already kind of have the
foundation for that. I have the fundamentals for
that. Um, and you really want to focus on building
a portfolio that, um, uh, that will showcase your
work as a 3D character artist, uh, get right to it.
Working on a team as a 3D character artist. You
choose the second program, which is, uh, game
development art, uh, and all these courses, you
learn a lot of art fundamentals, um, things I
think so many of you who any of you who are
artists are probably already doing. Um, you work
with industry standard software like Maya, ZBrush,
which in the UK they call ZBrush. Um, well,
substance with, uh, you know, working on Unreal
and Unity and so forth. Um, and again, it's very
multidisciplinary. So throughout all the years of
your study there, you're working on teams with
designers and with programmers.
And then finally, these are the courses that I
myself am the leader for. I'm the one who who runs
and organizes these courses. We have a BA and
e-sports and live streaming. Um, I'll explain that
a little bit more detail. What the what what's
involved that. We have, uh, bachelor in games,
animation, uh, in game design, and, uh, pretty
unique offering in game writing. So game design is
kind of the, the, uh, the parent field, uh, of, of,
uh, game making, if you will. It focuses on rules
and systems and puzzles and challenges. We like to
say that the designer is a person who advocates
for the player's experience. That's that's their
their function. And someone who goes through the
program will graduate with a portfolio of
completed publisher games in which you've already
worked with people who work in the other
disciplines as well. Uh, we are pretty unique.
There's not a lot of, you know, of universities
that have, uh, bachelor's degrees focus on writing
for games. And this one is, uh, we deliver in
coordination with our School of communications
that has a creative, right writing degree. So
you're taking some classes in creative writing
while also taking, uh, classes on the specific, um,
the specific techniques and methods of games
writing. We focus on things like narrative design
and story arcs, dialogue quests, uh, quest texts
and backstories and the like. And again, uh,
throughout your time there, you're also working on
teams with other developers. We have an animation
program and, uh, animators. Uh, one thing that I
like to, to clarify is animators don't actually
model. So an animator will take a model that the
game artist has made a 3D, uh, character artist
has made and then bring it to life. That so
there's a lot of work in motion studies and
character expression, and they work closely with
artists, designers, uh, programmers and sound
artists. So this, uh, this little GIF that's
running now, um, during the pandemic, Sophie
Shepherd, one of our students who's now a lead
animator at Respawn Studios, um, was completing
her studies at home during lockdown, and so she
decided to make a recording of herself, um, firing
a hairdryer as if it were a laser pistol. And then
she used that as a reference model for the rigging
of her for animation, as it was very cool. We're
still very proud. And finally, our newest program
is on esports and live streaming. Um, even though
e-sports is the first word we're actually focusing
on. Live streaming, live events and content
creation. And increasingly, we're working with our
theater program because there's an element of
performance and theater production, uh, in live
streaming and delivering this. We do have esports
activities as part of part of our university. And
that's the context in which a lot of this, these
productions take place. But we don't teach you how
to be good at League of Legends or Call of Duty.
Um, we are instead teaching you how to share the
experience of play with audiences at large. And
increasingly we're working, um, uh, with, uh,
influencers and streamers who come out of that
program to help market student games as a way that
a lot of the way that a lot of people know and
audiences discover games is through people
streaming them, or content creators sharing them
on YouTube. Um, kind of high, uh, high, um,
engagement influencers, um, will play the games
and talk about them to their audiences. And that's
actually more successful in, in marketing games
than the traditional route has been. So those are
some of our courses, um, in all of our courses.
Teamwork is essential. We are we focus what we
call building the T shape employee or the T-shaped
creative worker, someone who can do a little bit
of everything and a lot of something. This is
especially important in small indie teams, where
you're often are going to be be called upon to
kind of fill in for, for gaps in your, in your
team. But it's um, even if you focus on
specialization throughout your career, being t
shaped lets you be a good communicator with, with
other disciplines. Um, so these teams bring
together art, storytelling, design and computing,
and it's really important to what we do. We teach,
uh, agile development practices, um, uh, and focus
on team communication, uh, regular check ins on
working on and, um, managing scope as a team so
that by the time you graduate, you have a bunch of
successfully completed games that have have, uh,
achieved your goals. And you can showcase that in
your portfolio when you're when you're looking for
work or for publishers or for investors. So this
is our ethos. We believe in cross-disciplinary,
multi-skilled teams. Uh, we want to create a
professional games experience. We have a studio
that is very much like some of the larger, um, uh,
larger studio workplaces and a bit of that
workplace simulation ethics is key to what we do.
We work with industry methods and pipelines, and
that's one of the reasons I come to GDC to get my
finger on the pulse for some of the changes that
are happening in the way the games are made. Some
of the tools are being used how how workflows and
pipelines are shifting. I'm sure that Ethan has
has a lot to tell you about what he learned at GDC
in this regard, because it's an industry going
through a lot of changes. Um, we're also, uh, we
focus also on learning how to bring a game to
market. You can make a brilliant game, and if
nobody knows about it, nobody will play it and no
one will pay for it. Um, so learning how to
identify a market, think about who your players
are going to be and how are you going to breach
them. Is a big part of our ethos as well. Uh, we
incorporate we're a research active university, so
we do a lot of experimentation, innovation,
especially our graduate students. And, uh, the
faculty that are the many of our faculty are very
research active, and we bring that research back
into the classroom. We connect students with
research. So by the time they go out into the
industry, they are already kind of working a bit
on the cutting edge. They're aware of of what's
happening. And our, our motto is we do it for real.
So the best way to learn how to make games is to
make games. And we give you lots of opportunities
to do that at the end of your, um, study session.
Before our graduation, we have a graduate show we
called the Games Expo. We bring in people from
around the UK and and other parts of Europe, uh,
from the industry to see the students projects, to
talk to the students, to, uh, to give talks. And
it's also a case of, uh, an opportunity to show
off what you've done. It's an opportunity to kind
of, kind of really have, uh, other students from
other disciplines. Check out what you're doing.
The parents often come in, uh, and look at the
actual. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
And it's and it's very exciting. Our alumni have
gone on to some of the most well known and
respected studios in the world, studios and
publishers and other tech companies, including
Google and Microsoft. This is just a very short
list of some of the positions that our graduates
over the past few years have found themselves in.
That's page one. And that's page two. And we have
a lot more. We are also very successful in getting
students into competitions, uh, and getting awards.
Uh, our students compete for BAFTAs. They compete
for. Um, this year we have some students. Uh,
we're going to be going in for the the IGF student
prize. We do very well. The rookies award, which
is which focuses on game art, um, and the like.
And that's also becoming a more important part of
getting into the industry, as if you've shown that
you've competed and, and these, these events of
these festivals. That's really good. Um, some
background of the UK games industry. Uh, it's the
largest in Europe. It is the third largest in the
world, or fourth largest the world after the US,
Japan and China. Now, um, that's valued at over £7
billion, which is about $9 million. And it's a big
part of the UK's gross domestic product. It's a
major export for the UK. Think of the games as
being really important. Uh, which is nice because
when you go around, you tell people you work in
the game industry they don't like, they don't say
what's out. They say, oh, that's great for, you
know, keep up the good work. Um, it's, you know,
um, it is still having, um, a pretty even in these
difficult times, it's still growing. It is a
growing sector in the UK, and a lot of major, uh,
franchises are based in the UK. Grand Theft Auto,
Tomb Raider, burnout, Little Big Planet, Wipe Out,
all from from the United Kingdom. Um, and we have
some, some, um, major businesses such as
playgrounds, Creative Assembly, of course.
Rockstar North, Sumo Digital and Rebellion are all
UK based, and there's continuous active support
from the UK government, uh, to build the game
industry. That's everything from tax breaks for
people making commercial games to support for
games for education, games for health, uh, games
as art form kind of games to go into museums and
galleries and so forth. There's a lot of activity
in that sector. Student. Some students, student
projects have evolved into released games. A
couple one like Lexi Man is a game that's
available now on steam. Go ahead and and check it
out. That came from a student team. Um, and
another one picked up table tennis, which was a
it's a table tennis game. Table tennis game that
includes, uh, custom controllers, custom, uh,
custom hardware that you can attach to your, your,
um, your switch controller. It's just Joy-Con, um,
to play table tennis.
And many of our student teams go on to form
studios. We get we look for funding for them. They
get, um, external support. We have an incubator
program. So if that student team you have, it has
legs. You think it could be a business of its own?
And we're putting more and more of our our efforts
into turning student student teams into proper
working studios. These are three of our ongoing
studios right now, studio 3.6, which has done a
lot of work for hire, and now they're working on
their first own title. Uh, for you. And that's
over here. You can find them on steam. Look at
what they're working on. Um, wish list them.
They'd they'd be grateful. Um, and that's
something that that is really important to us.
That that us giving students opportunity to turn
their turn their teams into actual businesses and
getting business support for them. Um, increasing
support for marketing. That's a lot of it. But our,
our energies are going into right now. So this is
the last slide. Uh, this this part of the talk, if
you want to learn more, you can go to that URL
Falmouth black.uk. And you're always welcome to
ask me any questions you might have. Um, I may not
have the answer, but I probably know who does, and
we'll, um, we'll put you in touch with them. Um.
And thanks. Do you have any, any questions that
anything I can ask for you?
Thank you so much, professor, for sharing so much
today with everybody. Please, everybody. Um, feel
free to either use the virtual hand raising
feature in zoom or unmute your mic. Um, and uh,
feel free to introduce yourself and, um, share any
questions you might have. This is an amazing
opportunity. Um, for any of you to consider going
abroad and studying and. Also work. I mean, that's
what you were saying, right? Uh, opportunity after
studies is to potentially stay and get a job in
England. Yes, yes, there's a threshold. There's an
income threshold that's required to meet before
you're sponsored for a visa. Um, and, um, often
that's, that's, that can be reached, especially if
you have a more technical degree. And it's also
possible to to stay a year, uh, after finishing
your undergraduate degree and do a masters, which
will, of course, accelerate your degree, your
accelerated, uh, your, your, um, career, uh, that
much to make it a lot more straightforward to
reach that that income threshold. Our master's
programs take a year. Um, so yeah, that's that is
definitely, um, our, you know, ah, the games
industry that it continues to grow. It's, it's not
having quite the difficulties we were seeing in
the US sector. And uh oh. Wonderful. Our cohort is
a it looks like a having a preference for sharing
questions with you in the text chat and if you
have that open. But I see no no no no. Let me, let
me, let me go ahead up into the text chat. Okay.
I'm gonna drop your email in there too for people
to do a quick copy paste of. I'm very good. Oh,
there's a text chat. Okay. All right. Clotted
cream on scones. Oh my goodness. Um, so, um, okay,
so let's start with the clotted cream on scones
because that is controversial. And you can get
into trouble if you do it the wrong way. So
there's two counties that are right next to each
other Cornwall and Devon. And in Devon they put
the jam on first and then they put the cream on in
Cornwall and in Devon they put the cream on first
and then they put the jam. And that's considered
very wrong. Uh, in Cornwall. So make sure you get
that right. Um, and it's a beautiful example of
human behaviour and what make this local. Yes, yes.
Um, there's also a joke. They say one of the
differences between the UK and the US is that
people in the US think 100 years is a long time,
and people in Europe think 100 miles is a long
distance. So you get a lot of very different
cultures in a short distance there. So you can
like when you explore around the UK, you'll be
surprised that you can drive for five hours and
hear five different names for a breakfast sandwich.
So. Okay. Um, and, oh, you promote students with
taking double majors to hit a depth in one of
those Holly juniors. That's that's very good.
That's very good. Yeah. Our short time span. Ah,
two year program as a community college. Uh, we we
target our program to get people ready to go to a
four year school, mostly in California, for
example. But this is amazing opportunity. Yeah,
yeah, I know that there's there's been increasing
interest in spending a little time outside the
United States and, um, yeah. So, you know, it's
very timely you to stop by and open the door with
such a welcoming invitation to everybody. Yeah.
And, um, we do continue to have good connections
like myself. My, my, um, background, you know, it
was based in, in, uh, in, uh, in California and,
uh, we still also have good connections with
California studios. So if you do decide to come
back afterwards, uh, to, to pursue your career,
you're not you're not stranded by going to find
that we still have those industry connections and
we really participate in GDC. We send students to
to indicate, um, you know, I've been active in
educate for a while, so so it doesn't it's not
necessarily a one way door. Um, so I have a
question from Micah. Do undergrad programs include
professional practice, internships and work study
opportunities? The families assist with finding
internships and making professional contacts. The
answer is yes. So for all these all our degree
courses, you have the option of taking a
professional placement year, which is a year
between your second and third year, in which
you're in a placement, uh, which like, it's like
an internship, um, it's, uh, ideally paid. Um,
during that time, you have occasional supervision
meetings with members of the, of the faculty to
talk about what you're learning, what your project
is. You would write kind of reflective pieces
unlike like, yeah, this is my third month at the
at the studio as a, as environment artist. I've
been doing this. I learned that and and I made
this mistake and I learned from it. Um, so it is
very much not only do we have, it is we keep we we
support it and we keep it integrated in the whole
whole game education process. Um, it's they can be
competitive. They're the they're not always the
easiest thing to get, but you can also do them
remotely. So if you have an internship in the, in
the States, um, you can but you want to feel
remotely. It's kind of a remote role that you're
doing your character art while staying. And that's
that's something we can facilitate as well. Um,
and we do that. The expo is a great opportunity.
Make professional contacts. Um, we are very aware
that this is largely a network driven industry. Uh,
we help with everything from developing
professional portfolio building, kind of a
LinkedIn activity and just getting yourself kind
of out there and known by other people. So the
costs for international students, I don't quote me
on this. It is between 13 and £17,000 a year,
which is a little bit more than the English
students pay, but not a lot more. I think they pay
9000 a year. Um, and importantly, uh, loans, you
know, loans that you get in the U.S. can be
applied to your study there, uh, or your financial
aid from the U.S. can. Yeah. Any grad you get, you
can, uh, you can actually get that there's certain
countries that by, uh, university by university
level have that agreement and Falmouth has an
agreement with Fafsa. Um, so any other questions?
Are their hands up?
Yeah. One of the ironies is that attending
Falmouth as an international student is not much
more expensive than attending the University of
California. As a resident, when you when you add
up the expenses. Right. I was thinking that when
you're sharing those numbers. Yeah. Um, even
in-state resident tuition at the four year
California public schools now pretty pretty much
around the range you were just describing. Yeah,
yeah. So, yeah. So it is, it is. We have we have
student accommodation. Um. That, um. But a lot of
students end up moving into, um, kind of shared
apartments and flats with their friends who they
often are also making games with. And it's very
much kind of a kind of a culture. It's a kind of a
an arts school culture mixed with a game kind of
games culture and kind of all the things you
associate with that. And that's really kind of fun
and exciting. That's amazing. And in the slide you
have on what is that space we're seeing the
photograph of from up above. Me see what slide is
that? Uh, let me see. I am underneath the the
campus sign. There's this entire. Oh, yes. From
above. It looks like a huge space. That is the
main game studio. So, uh, up to about 20 teams of
8 to 12 students, uh, work on their games there.
Um, for a lot of kind of collaborate. We also have
kind of quieter spaces and other spaces because,
uh, some students really prefer a quiet space, but
this is kind of the primary. This is very much in
the spirit of workplace recreation, right? This is
very much what a lot of the large game studios
look like. And they feel like, um, so it's
exciting space. We have arcade machines all around.
They have student games installed on them. Um, and
during the demo days in which, um, the, the
faculty walk around, they, they evaluate the
projects and say, okay, this is good for, for the
development or it needs some changes or might need
a big rethink. That all takes place here. And
often we get externals, uh, like kind of, um, uh,
publishers, uh, professionals from the, from the
industry will come in and they'll look at student
games, uh, in these, in these sessions. But the
actual these are the actual teaching, uh, spaces.
It would be a little bit too chaotic so that we
have, you know, kind of more traditional lecture
spaces. We have a lot of computer labs. We have a
motion capture facility and volumetric capture.
We're doing more work with virtual production. Um,
we're kind of investing a lot. And, and what we
call the intermedia approach, uh, towards, towards
creativity, in which you take a tool that might
have been made for games and apply it to film. So
a lot of virtual production uses the, the Unreal
Engine. And we're in unreal, where we are an epic,
uh, partner. Our, um, we work closely with them.
We also work with unity article to kind of push
the boundaries of what you can do with a game
engine. Um, but that's, that's one of our many
facilities where we have a, we have two campuses
and the games are on the larger, newer one. Uh, we
have a lot of space, uh, with a lot of, a lot of
cool stuff in it. Amazing. I think a couple more
questions popped into the text chat. Okay, let me
check it out. I only got, um. I'm on the road here.
So am I one of the monitor? All right. Percentage
of graduates who land their top job right out of
graduation. What does that look like? So, um, it
is competitive. So you're kind of the the the the
job of your dreams. Maybe about one out of one out
of six will get that job right away. Others will
continue to work on their games, and they might be
working part time until they kind of land in the
industry, land and land in the sector. And we're
seeing, um, uh, many who like to form a small
studio, and then they'll take out source work.
They'll like to work on kind of special parts of
the production that they'll be working, like
working on environments. And a lot of the growth,
especially straight out of school, is in that that
field as well, because, um, because you have kind
of a team that can do a thing will do well. So
you'll have a large studio that says, well, we
don't we don't need to hire a bunch of you right
now, but we kind of need somebody to do this. So
we'll pay your team to deliver that and then
thinks, oh, well, the entire team will often get
get hired will be kind of swallowed as a whole,
which is a way that a lot of people actually wind
up in their studios. More about the writing
program is like, and what graduates tend to do
with it. So the writing program is, is, um, some
of the the classes you're taking are general
creative writing classes. You're learning how to
write stories are learning experimental techniques
and writing. You're learning about kind of voice.
And then we have a lot of classes that are about
working. You know, a lot of it is about, um,
writing for games is a lot of it is populating
spreadsheets and, and, uh, um, a lot of it is
about, you know, you know, writing. I know you've
been told what a bark bark is, the thing that a
character kind of says, like a really minor
character would say, but there's dozens of them,
so you have to make a lot of them. So like when a
soldier says over the top or pull back, that's a
bark. And writers have to figure out all the
things that might be said, the situation and
populate all that. Um, but they also do the big
world building. They did the kind of character our
narrative. And we have a writers guild that meets
every, every, uh, Wednesday morning, uh, to talk
about writing for games and then meets with, with
the, uh, with some more general games courses. So
often they're, they're involved in the, uh, the
ideation part of the world building. And then they
flesh out a lot of a lot of the text. Um, it's
amazing how the lack of good writing will make a
good content, a good game concept, not work. And
good, good writing will push a good game top over
the top into a great one. Uh, so, um, it's really
been one of our, one of our strengths that we have
this course. This is fun. Yes.
How long have you been? Um.
Out there. At this, uh, school and and can you
tell us a little history of how the program came
to be so robust and multifaceted? It's really
sounds utopian from my little world. So, um, when
I came to the UK 12 years ago, I moved to Scotland
and I was at another institution. That's the
oldest games programme, perhaps in the world,
definitely in Europe. Uh, Abertay. And there's a
good program, but they are a bit more vocational
and technically focused. They are less adventurous
in terms of aesthetics, in terms of experimenting
with design. And then, uh, Tanya Brzezinski, who
is the head of, um, who was the president here for
a while herself. She's a researcher, but she's
also an artist. Um, but she's very much interested
in kind of games, games and culture. Um, she was
approached by Falmouth University to start a games
program there. And Falmouth had strength in the
arts and in film. It was a very successful film,
uh, program, successful in illustration and
animation and theatre. And they were recognizing
that games were kind of one of the defining art
forms, cultural forms of the 21st century, and
that they wanted to really be leaders in it. So
they brought her on board and she she was already
a friend of mine. And then they brought in, uh,
another mutual friend of ours, uh, Douglas Brown,
who had studied writing at Oxford, but then went
to work for Square Enix for a number of years
before going back at academia. And she and he
built this program. And then, um, another good
friend of mine joined and said, this program is
growing. We'd like you to join. And I couldn't
turn it down to the opportunity to, for me to to
really work at the, at the kind of the creative
end of the sector and not just the technical end
was was something I couldn't pass up. So they
moved from strength to strength, and partly it
partially it was by maintaining a balance between
the way the industry does things and the way that
games can be made, uh, the more speculative
approach towards it. Um, so on one hand, being of
being open to be very experimental and being very
hard and innovative, but always keeping an eye on
the way that the profession works and the how the
job roles work and, and and what that is. And that
balance, I think, has been the recipe for the
success of the program. Um, that does that answer
your question? Thank you for that little, uh,
nutshell, if you want to, how that all came to be.
Yeah, I saw a couple more questions pop up as well
as you were sharing all those great details. Okay.
How do you see AI being used in teaching and
incorporation of the industry? And what AI tools
would you suggest we learn ahead of time? Um, I'm
really also, I mean, um, at some point, Ethan, I
would like to just kind of talk 1 to 1 is because
it's you were just in GDC and it definitely was
the number one topic. I think for a lot of the
talks, there are a lot of sessions. Absolutely.
With changes in the pipeline, so many creative
industries, AI is in focus of the discussion and,
um, grappling with the relationship and how to
best use it. And, um, it's a lot I could say on
this. And how about I know how much time I have? I
think I could probably go out for an hour on this
topic. Um, some things that were clear was that
while we had this kind of first wave of tools that
caught a lot of attention, um, they weren't really
useful in a lot of pipelines. They would work,
like work that would need a lot of work to do it.
And it certainly wasn't. And it's not the case
that like, you know, push button make game or put
button, but button, uh, push button, make a model
or a level that's I don't think that's either
direction of travel or where these tools are going,
but they are definitely we're seeing these more
specialized tools built around training sets that
are within the studio, or the kind of ring fence
videos, uh, training sets, like a stock stock
image companies will starting to train data on
them or, or that sort of thing. And they're
intervening at really specific points in the
pipeline. So it's less a matter of like, um, you
know, these make all the assets for this game for
me and more like, I need a tool that's going to
make 50 sofas for me because I want 50 different
types of sofas. Uh, in this, in this level that
it's going to have all these interiors and then
you'll generate a bunch. And then with kind of a
creative director or art director head on, you'll
pick through which ones. Work best for your level.
You'll clean them up if necessary. Um, you can use
it as ideation. I see that's where the direction
of travel is going. So, um, it's not going to get
rid of that many jobs. I don't think, in the long
run, but what it is going to do is it's going to
reward certain skills that haven't been emphasized
in the past. One of the skills that's going to be
really important is conceptual clarity. Understand
exactly what you want, what you want, um, an
animation to look like, what you want some camera
movement to look like. Uh, what, you want a model?
Kind of a model or an object to look like and be
able to describe it really well, using language
that comes from your expertise in that profession
and location. So if you're talking about kind of
camera work, know enough about the theory of film
and camera to be able to use that industry's
vocabulary to explain to the model what you want.
Doing the same thing with textures, doing the same
thing with models. Uh, so it becomes about not
knowing how to use natural language as an
interface, and the old skills still count. Your
skills are both really important. And and, and
your relationship with, uh, the tools and assets
are very rarely ready to use. So I go in the I
think that's that's it's big role. It's going to
speed up asset generation. You can almost see it
as procedural content generation 2.0 or 3.0,
depending on how you look at it. Um, and so I
would say a one skill I think is really useful. I
don't know if you're an artist or a programmer, um,
or, uh, or even a designer, but take something
that you've made or that you found, but you know,
is not famous, right? Don't do this with the Mona
Lisa. But if you find this one piece of kind of
kind of art that is probably not a training set,
no problem. And then see if you can use natural
language to get whatever, uh, generative AI to are
using to produce it, to reproduce it. So, so you
could talk you can talk to stable, stable
diffusion instance and say, all right, I want this,
this lighting, this refraction, this style, the or
the light placed on this, these, these, um,
coordinates that I want, the shadow and the, the
richer your language of vocabulary is about that,
the more effectively you work with these tools. So
that's what I think is the big, big change. That's
for the specific tools. I'm still a bit up in the
air on that, because one thing I think I saw GDC
was a lot of vendors proposing a lot of different
tools to go into workflow. Um, I don't know if
Ethan has any insights. I would love to hear what
he what he has to say on this. Um, but that's
that's where I think the lay of the land is at
this time. Is that help? Uh, Tim.
I really agree with you, um, about the value of
articulate, uh, prompt development for these
systems and the idea that natural language skills
are so fundamental to being articulate with your
vision, with any of these tools, however focused
they are, whether it's modeling or whatever, is so
critical to using them effectively. Um, I think I
agree too. I think we're at this stage in, in this
development of this software space, like so many
software spaces before, where there's this flurry
of, um, groups of people trying to create, um,
useful tools. And so there's a lot of experimental
tools, um, that are interesting to play with. And
then there are the major platforms, like you were
mentioning, uh, Stable Diffusion, where you I
think you really can already start to, um. Flex
your muscle around that idea of being articulate
in your prompt development. I know some colleagues,
uh, just to call it up, a tool that I think all of
all of us in class, by the way, um, can check out
in later today. We're going to talk about some
things at GDC after after we're done with, um, our
visit, but one, um, tool that I know a lot of
people have been playing with their own 3D model
generation is meshi mesh. EEI is the URL for that
one. I saw some interesting.
Experiments with that tool. Um. But yes, I think
there's another question too. I don't want to
digress too. Just like you said, you know, we
could probably talk for a long time, but I think
there's a question as well in there. Yeah, I saw
something. Yeah, automated I think. Did you do the,
uh, the automated UV v unwrapping? Was that one of
the things I did? Because there's some really
interesting stuff with UV unwrapping. That's,
that's what was good I remember, but yes. Yeah.
That's right. So um, leave has uh, um, another
student, is this opportunity still available for
those who are returning to school after a few
decades? Yes, we have a lot of of what, you know,
nontraditional students, um, since returning often
from industry, I mean, some and those are awesome
because they, they come back or they have, like a
different professional experience they bring to it.
So it's it is definitely a thing that, that that
happens. Um.
No, it's it's it's it's not unusual. And I think
we I think you really can bring something special
leaf with your life experience too. I, I went to
architecture school myself as a graduate student.
Um, and, um, there were a variety of people in my
program because I was coming into architecture
from a non architecture undergrad, um, who who had
already had careers like you're describing, uh,
coming back from various industries. Um, and I
found that project teams that had people at
different stages in their life really are much
richer, um, for the kind of perspectives and the
kind of input that can come about. So if you'd be
bringing something special. Yeah. Yeah. That
they're very impressed. It's it is. It is a good
thing to do. Very good. Uh.
Anybody else? Anything you'd like to share right
now with our special guest? And we've got, uh, an
email contact. I really want to encourage
everybody, um, who has a chance to see this class
recording, uh, to reach out and consider this
opportunity. Um, for lesser the same amount of
money as you'd spend finishing a four year degree
here in California. You can go to United Kingdom,
you can explore it. And it looks like a very, um,
engaging. Um, creative environment. Uh, I really
love your physical space photo. When you describe
what that space was, it brought back memories of
my architecture school life. Yes. Um, being in
studio and really dynamic energy and creative
energy in these kind of spaces and schools that
are set up this way.
Pretty good. Yeah it is. It definitely has that
that that vibe to it. We I mean, we have an
architecture program as well. And the, the when
the, the especially among the faculty, the
interaction between people, different disciplines,
it gets us to rethink about what we do and the
relationship between architecture and environment.
Design is is one of those great conversations to
have to. Right. Yeah, yeah. Having having deep
programs like Falmouth has an all of these related
interdisciplinary fields with depth. I mean, I
lost count of how many degree programs you had
just in the game cluster. It's really quite
impressive the specialization and the diversity.
And I see another question from Tim. Or maybe yes,
I'm in my my 30. Oh yeah. That's somebody who's
well that's up there. Is does it feel natural.
Doesn't feel right to me. Um but um um industry.
Yeah they do. In fact, they look for maturity. I
think, um, that's one of the things that art
education also focuses on what kind of
professional demeanor and professional behaviors
and, you know, kind of showing people that you're
someone who knows how to how to kind of complete a
project showing the ability to, to, to complete
and execute. There's a lot of there was a very
famous, I think, LinkedIn post called there's No
such job as he like the idea guy in the game
industry, right? There's not the idea guy does not
exist. The people who can execute something, who
can bring something to completion, that's what
people look for. And older students are often seen
as the ones who are who are good at that, who are
effective. Uh completers. So a lot, um, there's a
lot of people who do kind of industry conversions.
They bring their experience from other industries
into the game industries. In the UK, this is very
normal. And and also kind of, um, you know, the UK
has a very big game industry and so does the rest
of Europe. I would see this as a possible
launching pad for a general European game career
as well. That's, you know, publishers like Ubisoft
and, uh, you know, a paradox is one of my favorite
publishers. They're based in Europe. Um. And, uh,
it is, you know, there's it's not like it was, I
think, in the, in the 90s and early aughts in
which game development was considered just for
young people. I think we're seeing, uh, a lot of
more maturity in the sector. Um, and I think it's
been for the better.
Unpacked the VR lab at Lizzie for an immersive
game. Oh, yeah. Very good, very good. We have some
nice local spaces on our campus. Nothing quite as
dramatic as your fabulous space, though. Yeah, it
is a big space. Um, we have, uh, we participate in
the Global Game Jam every year. Um, when that
space gets filled up with with global game jammers.
Um, it's a lot of fun. I was I'd hope to come out
to Santa Rosa to this trip, actually, because it
doesn't look like it's going to happen this visit.
But I still have family that lives in Santa Rosa.
So next time I'm in the area, might check out your
VR lab. That's okay. Oh, absolutely. Be glad to
host you on campus. Let me know if you're going to
be back soon. We'll do, we'll do.
Thank you so much. Anything else? Anybody before
we wrap up today?
Thank you so much. I hope some of you consider it.
We'd love to have you out there. It's the prospect
of getting from an international move is it's hard
to match and, um, even, uh, even those who come
back for the United States, United States for
their careers, that international network
translates as observing them for life.
Okay, one more question. Oh, here's another
question. Do you have any recommendations for
other careers. They should look at that are
correlated. If you're focusing specifically on
design as your discipline mark. Um, there's other
kind of design practices that I say successful
games like fintech, you know, kind of, uh, medtech
and fintech, you know, for application development.
And we're seeing a lot and we're starting to look
at what's called service design. So when you, um,
you interact with a service like the DMV, the
experience you have with the DMV is a designed
experience and could be designed a lot better, to
be honest. So we're seeing people with a game
design background often move into these industries
as well. Um, you know, how what is it like to, you
know, build a loyalty program for for a
supermarket? What is it like to kind of give
feedback on the mileage in your car? This is all
these all these aspects of kind of everyday
interaction design, information design and service
design that the game designers have a lot to
contribute to. So I think that's, um, those are
some of the, uh, that's the first thing that comes
to mind.
All right. I will now hand you back to your your
instructor, Ethan. Well, before you go again, yes,
yes, I, I really just want to say to you I'm sorry
to cut you off, uh, from everybody here to how
grateful we are to you reaching out to us, um, and
sharing this amazing opportunity. Uh, I'll let you
get closing words in, though, okay? That's all. I
just want to thank you for giving me this, Chester,
to talk to you. srJc has kind of a special place
in my heart. Is, uh, like, uh, somebody who went
to high school in Sonoma County. Um, and I'd be
like, I'd be I'd be glad to have some some people
from the old country join us in the UK.
Wonderful. Well, have a great rest of your trip
and safe travels back to Falmouth when you head
that way. Thank you. Ethan. Bye bye, my friend.
Bye bye.