Game Design - Alternative Degrees - Shadow Urtheart

This tutorial will show you other University degrees which you can take which open up possibilities into the Computer games industry.

Music Composition/Technology

Although you must be careful what course you take, any music course which focuses on the composition of music opens up job opportunities for you in both the film and games industry. These jobs have only become available in recent years, and while many big companies will hire fairly big composers, there is still a large need for new composers, new styles of music, and people who are willing to experiment.

While not a guaranteed way of getting into the games industry, it is easy enough to switch between film and game composing and leaves you open for many jobs. Things you should look out for when looking at a music course, is to make sure that there is a good focus on composition rather than performance, as well as the ability to work in groups of people as this is something which will happen within the industry.

Art/Fine Art

Those people looking into going into Concept Artists or Texture Artists will sometimes benefit more from a degree in Art due to the skills learnt within it. Since Computer Games Design courses did not exist when many of the current people in the industry where in their younger years, you will find that many of them will have this degree. While many of the skills learnt in these courses are not directly related to the industry, with games becoming more realistic and able to make much better textures, good artistic skills are becoming more and more important within the industry and as such these degrees are becoming a much bigger alternative.

CGI and Animatronics/Digital Film and 3D Animation Technology

Anyone who is looking into animation in games should consider these options, which offer very similar skills to those found within Computer Games Design Course, but go much more into depth to look at the specifics of animation in film as well, which is now becoming so close to games that these kind of courses are a better way of getting into this type of work if you know that animation is what you want to do. However since these courses are very specific and usually concentrate on film techniques, extra research may be required to get into the games industry once the course is finished.

3D Character Animation

Another very specific course, which is very highly artistically based. This course is another one developed for film but has very important implications in the games industry. This course should only be attempted by people who really want to make characters and have a flair for working in both games and film industries. The course does require a good knowledge of art before entering, and many universities offering it will require a portfolio of work before an offer is made.

Another important thing to note when looking at this kind of course is to see what you learning, as some course will not use the same tools as is found in the industry. Looking for courses that teach things like Maya, ZBrush and other similar products used in the games industry will give you a good idea on the way the course works.