The New York Times has an article on the growth in university computer game programs titled, Video Games Are Their Major, So Don’t Call Them Slackers (Seth Schiesel, Nov. 22, 2005.) This is part of a series on the training of artists across disciplines.
Traditionalists in both education and the video game industry pooh-pooh the trend, calling it a bald bid by colleges to cash in on a fad. But others believe that video games – which already rival movie tickets in sales – are poised to become one of the dominant media of the new century.
Certainly, the burgeoning game industry is famished for new talent. And now, universities are stocked with both students and young faculty members who grew up with joystick in hand. And some educators say that studying games will soon seem no less fanciful than going to film school or examining the cultural impact of television.
At the end of the article they quote Jack Emmert who has a classics background and is now working in the games industry,
“This whole idea of teaching game design is a fabrication,” Mr. Emmert said. “I’m a serious academic, and what is the actual skill that they’re teaching? If you’re not teaching a quantifiable skill, then you are teaching an opinion. Making games is an art form. You need to understand the technical side, but I loathe any attempt to teach game design as an academic discipline.”
This is a strange argument. Since when have the arts not been academic disciplines that couldn’t be taught?