I'll bet parents of some of our game design majors have been rolling their eyes when they learned just what their son or daughter was planning on studying. They shouldn't. I found this article Can game design make your company more efficient? from the tech blog ZDNet. It points to a bright future and a diverse set of career options, outside the obvious.
"Going forward, people in game design will be increasingly important," said Castronova. "Let's imagine a PhD in game design. The good that person could do in an entertainment environment is obvious. In a company, that person could make customer service more efficient by making it more fun. It's a new construction."
These projects go beyond what companies have been launching in Second Life. The next phase of applying virtual world design would be to create a corporate culture inside a role-playing game similar to World of Warcraft and applying it to real-world management practices.
While this approach may sound wacky to some there are solid reasons why executives--including chief information officers--may want to ponder it. After all, better corporate use of virtual worlds could be a form of what Julian Dibbell, a contributing editor for Wired magazine, calls "open source problem solving."
It recalls the comments of Geoffrey Frankel, a Creative Director at Critical Mass, and a guest at the fall 2006 event Too Flashy. He said, in addition to interactive design skills, employers, such as himself, were increasingly interested in people's ability to create provocative virtual artifacts and characters. He mentioned Second Life specifically as a "place" where virtual accomplishments can land "real world" rewards.
One challenge for our game design students going forward will be to adapt their skills for work environments beyond the EAs, Midways and Wideloads. A robust game design portfolio will be judged by a criteria that far exceeds good action and cool looking backgrounds. This may involve collaborating on projects outside the major. Let us know if we can help. The Portfolio Center would love the chance to hook creative game design students up with students in other departments.
