Developer list
One of my secret hobbies is to identify list of game developers. I just found a huge 1500+ company list which is pretty extensive.
Mar 28th 05
Mar 20th 05
The gap
How big is the gap between game academia and the game industry? A question that still bothers me, because its becoming more and more evident to me.
I believe this gap was also represented at the GDC conference, which I attended in San Francisco last week. While the academics – in good faith – discussed the powerful potentials of serious/casual gaming – the industry had other and very different matters to attend to. The first two days of the conference was mainly tutorials and academic projects – and the last three were mainly industry oriented.
But maybe that is the way its suppose to be? Maybe academia should keep its status as this free floating blobbish substance, which the majority of the outside never heard of. We are academics after all, which essentially means we know better, right? Right!?
Lets take for granted that academia actually knows better or knows more. Should we not use this gigantic pool of world saving knowledge for something else then expanding our curriculum? How come the industry – in general – don´t have any particular interest in the academical studies of games? How come that so few academics actually collaborate with the industry?
I am raising these questions because I believe there is an actual use and need for academia within the industry. This is gradually becoming evident as my abroad studies (at a major game developer in California) are being conducted. But who am I to talk. I am probably the only game related Ph.D. student in the world that actually does abroad studies with the industry.
“…I will not go quietly into the night…” (Heide-Schmidt, 2005)
