Game Development

What is Game Development?

The game industry is large industry with revenues exceeding 11 billion dollars. In fact the game industry is actually larger than the Hollywood movie industry The game industry is known for its creativity and innovations in computer graphics.

Game development incorporates many disparate disciplines including game design, software engineering, computer science, graphics design and production, audio design and production as well as project management. Gaming development provides a rich environment for students to work in teams with the requirement to meld together multidisciplinary contributions to produce a unified output. Game development brings together the work of designers, artists, developers, testers, project managers and marketers into a single unified product – the game.

Game development allows students to build something that will capture and maintain their interest, build critical thinking, programming, multidisciplinary and team skills while allowing them to broaden their understanding of all the elements required successfully complete a technology project.

Game development offers students a number of devices on which to develop games from desktop computers, to the web and even mobile devices like PDAs, and mobile phones sd

How is the Academic community using it?

In today’s global environment it’s important for students to develop critical thinking skills. Additionally having experience working with others with disparate skills and collaborating in a multidisciplinary manner to build a joint product is highly desirable and makes students more competitive in the global economy. Some faculty find that game development provides a rich context for harboring critical thinking, developing multidisciplinary knowledge, enhancing programming prowess as well as building team work and collaboration skills.

How are faculty throughout the US and World using gaming in their curriculum? There are several approaches and all can work well when they align with the specific needs of faculty members.

The first approach is to use gaming basics in introductory programming courses. In this approach the goal is usually to introduce basic programming concepts such arrays, loops and conditional statements against the engaging backdrop of developing a game. In this approach faculty are seeking to improve student retention in introductory programming courses by using gaming to drive interest and engagement. Students learn basic programming skills in the context of solving problems while developing a simple game.

The second major approach is to use a game development course as an upper level elective. The idea here is to leverage gaming to explore advanced programming topics such as performance, code optimization approaches, multithreading, as well as advanced rendering and graphics techniques, and even networking to achieve multiplayer aspects of games.

The third major approach is to use gaming in an upper level software engineering course. Developing a significant game requires a team consisting of developers, testers as well as domain contributors in game design, graphics and audio. Using game development in a software design course provides a challenge that can be scaled to approximate the challenges software engineers might face as they enter their careers. In some cases a two course sequence is used to allow the students the opportunity to design and develop a significant solution from end-to-end.

The fourth major approach is courses that focus on entirely game development. In these courses the development of a game is often only part of the course with a significant focus on the process of gamedevelopment and the enumeration of the team roles (e.g. audio, graphics, developer, test) and how each role contributes to end product.

The fifth major approach is to offer a set of gaming courses in the form of gaming major or minor that prepare a student for a career or research in the gaming field.

The final approach is to integrate games into a Senior projects course. Senior projects courses vary from university to university, but in some cases students are offered a set of projects to pick from and in some cases the projects they are offered include a project to develop a game Some schools offer certificates in using a particular application that students can mention in their resumes to enhance their employability.

How can Microsoft help?

Historically, there have been a number of technologies used for game development such as DirectX as well as others.  Microsoft offers both graphics, and gaming technologies such as Direct X and XNA as well as gaming support on Microsoft Windows and the Microsoft Xbox 360. 

Using Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition and Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express faculty and students to build games for Microsoft Windows.  By joining the XNA Creators Club Microsoft XNA Game Studio Games can be played on the Microsoft XBOX 360!  The examples below  show the range of games that can be built from simple to complex.

Microsoft also offers a number of resources through vehicles such as the Microsoft Research Computer Gaming Resource Toolkit as well as the Academic Resource Center Depending on the particular software application, some enterprise applications require a client - server installation with a dedicated server. Other applications will use a web service delivered via browser with a dedicated application server. Smaller enterprise applications, particularly those targeted to the small and medium-sized businesses can be installed as a stand-alone application on a single PC, and optionally be shared out to other PCs.

How can I learn more?

You can find additional information, useful links, and helpful resources at the Gaming Resources Page