The new major, which will be offered by the Media School, has been headed up by IU Telecommunications professors including Mike Sellers and Edward Castronova. Sellers said the major is an attempt by himself and others to better prepare students for a career in game development.
“There’s a huge divide between the game development industry and academia,” ?Sellers said.
He continued, referring to senior game designers within the industry.
“There aren’t a lot of senior people who have gone over to academia,” he said.
This is a problem, Sellers said, because the result is schools do not produce aspiring game designers with the competence or the leadership potential necessary to succeed in the game industry.
Sellers has 20 years of experience in the industry, having founded his first game development company, Archetype Interactive, in 1994. He would later work for Electronic Arts and worked as a head designer on “Sim City Online,” which would later ?become “Sims 2.”
Sellers said he had been thinking about returning to academia for about 10 years before he came to IU. It was around that time Castronova, an IU professor of telecommunications who originally studied economics, first got acquainted with Sellers, and the two remained in contact.
“I was here when there was nothing but bands of students making games,” Castronova said, remembering a few years back before the creation of the game design major ?was underway.
As Castronova described it, a sort of “shadow major” formed of students interested in game design choosing classes they thought would help them in a game designing career. The formation of Hoosier Games, a group of students who develop games on an extracurricular basis, also brought some of these students together.
Castronova approached the administration in 2014 and suggested adding an official game design major. The idea was quickly accepted by IU-Bloomington Provost Lauren Robel, Castronova said. It was around then he reached out to Sellers, who joined the University as a ?professor of practice.
One of the unique features of the major, Sellers said, will be the capstone sequence. For the last three semesters of their major, students will design a game, refine it, present it at a games festival and ultimately launch it, leaving the University having actually seen a game through the ?development process.
Sellers said the program is open to everyone, including those with a nontechnical background.
Sellers and Castronova said they want what Sellers describes as “unheard voices” to come forward to the major, specifically women, who Sellers said are underrepresented in game development.
Andrea Reinhart, a sophomore, said she plans to begin pursuing the major in the fall. Reinhart said she is optimistic about being a female in a male-dominated industry.
“I see it as an opportunity to bring something to the industry,” she said.
Max Lancaster, a junior majoring in marketing and member of Hoosier Games, said he will not be able to complete the major but said he plans to take classes within the major as well as a shortened version of ?the capstone.
“I’m really excited about finishing a game,” ?Lancaster said.
