Students at Video-Game School Play it Smart

Nov. 19, 2006 — -- Americans proved this weekend they are passionate about games, as they clamored for the Sony's new PlayStation 3 and the ballyhooed Nintendo Wii.

Now, they can take that passion to college -- to the University of Southern California, which will issue its first undergraduate degrees in the discipline the school calls "interactive entertainment."

It has offered courses in game design since 1999 and graduate courses since 2002, among the earliest to do so.

But are games really a fit subject for an academic degree? Tracy Fullerton, who taught some of those first classes and designed the undergraduate program, finds nothing odd about studying game-making in a serious way, although she admits there were a few chuckles at faculty meetings early on.

"Games go back to the beginning of human culture," Fullerton says.

Game-playing, she adds, with its formal rules, goals, and order of play, is at the root of many serious endeavors -- including law, religion, and theater. It may not have much cultural respect today, but Fullerton points out that USC's now-famous film school was founded before movies were taken seriously as an art form.

USC aims to broaden the field beyond the shoot-'em-up games that the game companies have been cranking out.

The focus, Fullerton explains, is on the player experience. Students learn psychology, anthropology, classic "play theory" and even economics.

A number of students are working on so-called "serious games," including a "battle of ideas" and a game that challenges players to dole out medicine and love to children in the healthiest balance. (See one lab project at www.thatcloudgame.com.)

USC's interactive media program exists within its formidable School of Cinematic Arts, and the program builds on that school's long tradition of developing filmmakers.

"There are a lot of skills in common," Fullerton says.

Max Geiger couldn't wait to sign up.

"It's a little bit of everything," he says, "a little bit of art, a little bit of technology, a little bit of code. It requires people skills."

Right now, he's working with a graduate student on a game that is controlled by a sort of guitar.

"It's a cross between rock and roll and Norse mythology," he half-jokes.

Katrina Johnson is a first-year undergraduate major. She says she's been an avid video game player since middle school, although she sometimes kept it a secret from her girlfriends who didn't quite understand. She feels at home at USC's program, where her interest is taken seriously.

"I focus on the storytelling," she says, "creating really compelling characters like in literature or film."

Johnson hopes the program will speed up her path to work she enjoys.

"You don't just become a game designer," she says. "Those people work 10 to 15 years to be there. This program is designed to get you there in about 5 years."

The video game powerhouse Electronic Arts endowed USC's department, and has provided perhaps even more vital help with curriculum design, guest speakers and internships. Game giants Sony and Activision also have given important help. The enormous resources of the game, film and animation industries are close to campus.

"Nothing can beat our location," Fullerton says.

And what does a student do with a degree in video game design? Fullerton says the video game design companies are snatching up her students. But she hopes the program's impact will go beyond the established companies.

"I really hope that some form of independent game industry emerges with this next generation, and with the growth of the Internet and mobile platforms," she says. "I hope there will be alternate voices in the industry in the same way the film industry helped to develop a path for the independent voice."

And even if people aren't lining up for weeks and sleeping in tents to buy their games, she expects they'll have an impact just the same.