Aspiring video game makers will be able to cultivate their skills at New York University next fall.
NYU announced Tuesday that it has launched the NYU Game Center, which will offer long-term undergraduate and graduate degrees in the research, design and development of digital games. NYU will become the first New York City college to offer a degree in video games.
Currently, only Parsons The New School for Design offers design and technology degrees with a concentration in gaming. Elsewhere in the United States, there are at least a dozen schools that offer video game degrees or programs. Most notably, the University of Southern California offers a minor and major in video game design and management at the undergraduate and graduate level, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts offers a bachelor’s of science in interactive media and game development.
“The mission of the NYU Game Center will be to produce the next generation of game designers, entrepreneurs and researchers, “ said David McLaughlin, provost of NYU, in a statement. “We also look to this new center as a laboratory for innovation, intellectual risk-taking, and cross-disciplinary collaborations.â€
The new center, which will be located in the Skirball Center for New Media in the Tisch School of the Arts, is funded by an anonymous gift of $1 million and a $200,000 grant from The Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund. It will draw resources and faculty from several NYU schools and affiliates: the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and the Tisch School of the Arts.
“It will do a lot to attract new students to New York and raise the city’s profile as a center for gaming,†said Tara Colton, deputy director at think-tank Center for an Urban Future, who authored a report earlier this year indicating that the Big Apple lags behind other major cities, including San Francisco, in tapping $38 billion video game market.
The center will offer about 70 courses on game design and development. In the fall 2009, 10 to 12 NYU students will have the opportunity to choose a minor, major or double major in gaming. Beginning in the fall 2010, about six graduate students a year will be admitted to a two-year Master’s program and certificate program.
Frank Lantz, co-founder of a Manhattan-based game development firm area/code and adjunct assistant professor at the Tisch School’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, will be the interim director of the center until the search for a permanent director is completed.
This is not the first major video game effort for NYU. In October, NYU launched the Games for Learning Institute with $1.5 million in funding from Microsoft Corp. The institute researches the potential of games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle-school students.
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NYU announced Tuesday that it has launched the NYU Game Center, which will offer long-term undergraduate and graduate degrees in the research, design and development of digital games. NYU will become the first New York City college to offer a degree in video games.
Currently, only Parsons The New School for Design offers design and technology degrees with a concentration in gaming. Elsewhere in the United States, there are at least a dozen schools that offer video game degrees or programs. Most notably, the University of Southern California offers a minor and major in video game design and management at the undergraduate and graduate level, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts offers a bachelor’s of science in interactive media and game development.
“The mission of the NYU Game Center will be to produce the next generation of game designers, entrepreneurs and researchers, “ said David McLaughlin, provost of NYU, in a statement. “We also look to this new center as a laboratory for innovation, intellectual risk-taking, and cross-disciplinary collaborations.â€
The new center, which will be located in the Skirball Center for New Media in the Tisch School of the Arts, is funded by an anonymous gift of $1 million and a $200,000 grant from The Rockefeller Foundation’s NYC Cultural Innovation Fund. It will draw resources and faculty from several NYU schools and affiliates: the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and the Tisch School of the Arts.
“It will do a lot to attract new students to New York and raise the city’s profile as a center for gaming,†said Tara Colton, deputy director at think-tank Center for an Urban Future, who authored a report earlier this year indicating that the Big Apple lags behind other major cities, including San Francisco, in tapping $38 billion video game market.
The center will offer about 70 courses on game design and development. In the fall 2009, 10 to 12 NYU students will have the opportunity to choose a minor, major or double major in gaming. Beginning in the fall 2010, about six graduate students a year will be admitted to a two-year Master’s program and certificate program.
Frank Lantz, co-founder of a Manhattan-based game development firm area/code and adjunct assistant professor at the Tisch School’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, will be the interim director of the center until the search for a permanent director is completed.
This is not the first major video game effort for NYU. In October, NYU launched the Games for Learning Institute with $1.5 million in funding from Microsoft Corp. The institute researches the potential of games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle-school students.
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