New RPI minor is fun, but is mostly games By: Robert Cristo , The Record 04/14/2004 ‘Gamefest’ celebrates game studies TROY —There’s a good chance the next wave of groundbreaking video game ideas will come from the minds of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students. RPI leaders celebrated the new game studies minor Tuesday with a “Gamefest” showcase of electronic games designed by more than 70 students. The festivities also included lectures from prominent game designers and a daylong workshop on dreaming up the next generation of eye-popping graphics and mind-boggling story lines. John Harrington, dean of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at RPI, believes the new minor offers the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts and cultural studies, social sciences, computer sciences, engineering and emerging research in information technology. This is a different field of study, where a team effort of varied talents is needed to develop a game’s story, artwork, sound, graphics and marketing. “The gaming industry is huge, but the designers need to start coming up with more innovative games,” said Marc DeStefano, co-director of the new program. “Within 10 years, the graphics will be as good as they’re going to get, so the designers are going to have to make the games better …not just flashier.” DeStefano teaches a design course that forces students to conjure up new game ideas that don’t include violence or shooting, a clichéd genre that clogs about 80 percent of the market these days. “My first rule is no shooting games, because that’s too easy and it forces them (students) to come up with new ideas,” said DeStefano. From the modest beginnings of Space Invaders on Atari in the early 1980s, the video game industry has exploded in the past decade into a multi-billion dollar behemoth that now actually rivals the movie business. After he graduates in May, RPI senior John Mintz already has a job waiting for him at local video game designer Vicarious Visions, which is busy working on software for the handheld GameBoy Advance. Vicarious Visions moved out of the RPI business incubator in 1998 and has since developed hugely popular games like “Tony Hawk’s Underground” skateboarding and movie-themed games like the underwater Disney adventure “Finding Nemo.” “I grew up with Nintendo and I would like to expand on the innovative games they developed for the next generation,” said Mintz, 21, of New Jersey. Mintz says he’d rather work for a smaller, independent company like Vicarious Visions than a giant and impersonal company such as Electronic Arts, whose sports video games are among the most popular in the world for Sony Playstation and Xbox console owners. “Those companies spend millions to make one game, so they know it will sell a lot of copies,” said Mintz, who added that means the bigger companies will stay with game ideas that are familiar, rather than releasing something more unusual to the masses. Mintz says he’s interested in developing adventure or science fiction-type games in which players can make choices that allow them to experience their own endings. Other RPI graduates are already working for video game companies throughout the country. RPI officials expect at least 100 students to show interest in the new major. The program consists of four courses that include a choice of game design classes and a range of other disciplinary-specific courses in arts, such as digital imaging, animation, computer music or performance art. ©The Record 2004 Reprinted with permission.