Computer Game Design Classes: The Students' and Professionals' Perspectives

Abstract

There are multiple reasons that justify teaching computer game design. Its multiaspectual nature creates opportunity to develop, at the same time, creativity, technical skills and ability to work in team. Thinking of game design classes, one needs direction on what to focus on so that the students could benefit the most. In this paper, we present results of a survey on both the students' and working professionals' expectations from game design course and opinions on game designer job. Although sometimes consistent, the answers from the two groups often reveal significant discrepancies. We believe that the results presented in this paper can help improve the quality of computer game design courses and make their learning outcomes more compatible with the needs of the computer game industry.

Introducing Sustainable Development Topics into Computer Science Education: Design and Evaluation of the Eco JSity Game

“…Education is one of the fields where the transformational potential of games is well acknowledged. While game design can be an attractive educational subject on its own [7], there is much more interest in applying games to teaching various subjects with the aim of improving learning effectiveness [8][9][10]. There are numerous examples of the successful application of different types of games (board games [11], card games [12], role-playing games [13], video games [14], and mobile games [15]) at various levels of education (beginning with preschool [16], through primary [17], secondary [18], and higher [19], ending with adult education [20]).…”