Visions for Game Development Programs

workshop is organised as a part of CEEGS conference in Prague during 11.-13. 10. 2018

Organizers: Jakub Gemrot (Charles University), Lukáš Kolek (Charles University)

Video games are being developed for more than fifty years now. Since late nineties, companies have recognized the need for formal education in this ever-evolving medium. As the response, many universities and colleges around the globe created their own specializations and curriculas. Many areas have emerged as summarized by IGDA Game Development Curriculum from 2008. Since then, the landscape of game development has changed once again. We see the democratization of game development, where strong technical background and AAA-funding are no longer requirements for creating successful videogames, and where the Gamergate controversy has turned the attention to social and representational aspects of gaming. So the question is, what is the position of game development education in this new era? For the CEEGS 2018 conference, we would like to invite (not only) scholars and practitioners of game development education, be it at high-schools, colleges or universities, to share their positions and opinions on following three major areas:

1. Challenges for Game Development Education in 2020
2. Social Responsibilities of Game Development
3. Experimental Classes and Innovative Approaches in Game Development Education

As such, the workshop is an opportunity to exchange fresh and bold ideas that will inspire the future of the game development education of its participants. We would like to invite scholars, practitioners and industry experts to submit abstract of approx. 400 words and a brief author bio and contact details to kolek@gamedev.cuni.cz no later than August 31, 2018. Please do not hesitate to contact kolek@gamedev.cuni.cz in case you should have comments and/or questions.

How to participate

There are two possibilities how to get involved: either you will attend the workshop as a speaker (provided you sent us an abstract of your talk, see Submissions, which will be accepted) or as an attendee, who can participate in discussions during Q&A, coffee breaks and the panel.

Topic Suggestions

• Game development curriculum and its future
• Visions, challenges, improvements, emerging game development fields
• Experimental courses: design and outcomes
• Team-oriented courses: design, managing student stress and motivation, outcomes
• Challenges of cross-faculty collaboration and the curriculum
• Collaboration with the industry
• Publishing student games: from student games to commercial release
• Soft-skills and game developers: Teaching community management
• Social dimension and responsibilities of game development: How to teach it?
• Creative process in game development: Lessons learnt
• Law and game development: How to avoid student failures? Case studies
• Designing game jam events with learning objectives in mind: Position of game jam events in the curriculum Validating game development: game user research classes
• University as a place for responsible development

Submissions & Deadlines

Please submit a 400 words abstract of your talk (excluding bibliography) to Lukáš Kolek (kolek@gamedev.cuni.cz). All the submissions will be reviewed by both organizers of the workshop regarding their relevance to the workshop theme, originality and processing quality. Submission deadline: extended to 6. 9. 2018. Acceptance notification: 7. 9. 2018.