Published 2011-03-01T19:34:00Z”/>
Alexander Seymour
Chico State will soon offer a new minor in video game design for those interested in applying their skills to the digital arts.
The Academic Senate unanimously voted to approve the new minor Thursday, and students can start applying for the course track next fall.
Bringing video game design classes outside of mere elective status will create a new incentive for students to pursue the coursework, said senior applied computer graphics major Kayla Leininger.
“I know a lot of people will really appreciate this,” she said. “It will help them specify what they want to do with their education.”
The approval comes after growing demand from students for a degree program specifically structured around the video game industry.
The minor will be overwhelmingly popular, as suggested by a recent survey conducted by Clarke Steinback, program coordinator for applied computer graphics. Seventy-three percent of students currently taking introductory video game design classes said they would take the minor, with an additional 17 percent saying they would probably take it.
But the driving force for the new minor is outside of the applied computer graphics field.
“The rationale behind offering a minor is that student in other disciplines would have exposure to what their field could be doing in the gaming industry, as well as how video games can be used in their main discipline,” Steinback said.
The design of a successful video game involves the collaboration of people with a wide variety of specialties, not the least of which is history, literature and creative writing, he said.
There had always been a significant segment of students from other departments taking introductory gaming courses and the survey indicated that 40 percent of students involved were non-APCG majors, Steinback said.
The minor could also have positive implications for Chico State students’ employability in hard science career fields, said Ralph Huntsinger, director of the McLeod Institute of Simulation Sciences. Video game design can assist a students’ ability to present numerical data in an understandable fashion, called scientific visualization, which managers in the chemistry, physics and biology fields appreciate.
The future of the new minor may be in question before it has even had the chance to take flight, however.
The new program lacks teachers, with only one tenured professor and two lecturers able to offer video game design courses, said communications design faculty member Jennifer Meadows.
In the case of future budget cuts and layoffs for the CSU, the loss of any of these teachers would devastate the budding minor, she said.
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