explosions

I got two invitations yesterday to video games events.  One was from the inexhaustible Brian Baglow who is organising a four-day event in Edinburgh.  The other was from a person wanting me to attend a similar event in Nottingham.  I also got invited to a one-day event at The Lighthouse to do with educating people in the arts (in which I, and they, include video games).  And on Tuesday I am speaking at a roundtable event at another Scottish Government organised event on video games training.  Oh, and I also got an email from an old buddy, Sheila Robinson for a meet-up and a chat (Sheila got me to to go to Canada twice to speak on video games at the Baddeck conference.)

In the back of my head, I also need to talk with Allan Gauld of BT, Andy of Specialmove, Frank at Govan High, my colleagues at West, and a Biblical host of others about video games.  While avoiding collisions with ex-colleagues with whom I remain persona non grata at best.

I have given up attending Baddeck, VSMM events, and others.  I haven't even got round to attending E3, GDC or others.

Explosions.  Way back in 1996 when I was first asked to do something about the state of education for the games industry by old buddy former student Dave Jones (of GTA, Lemmings and other fames), the games industry was compact and simple.  The Sony Playstation had happened and everyone was turning and staring at us.  At the launch party for the first named degree in games something extraordinary happened: the press turned up.  There followed weeks of radio, television and press interviews until I called a halt and stopped talking to them.

You're probably aware of the Big Bang Theory.  You know, the universe popped out of nothing in a humungous explosion that created time, space, matter and politics.  Well, I sometimes feel that I have been in a Slightly Smaller Bang.

In 1996 there was some stuff going on, obviously, but easily enough to keep up with.  In 2008 I live in awe of Frank Kermode who can and does watch every movie made, apparently.  In video games you would need a set of parallel lives to play every game ever written, plus a back-up staff of scores to hunt down and set up each of the games.

The now-gone, veteran broadcaster, Alistair Cook, in one of his weekly Letter from America broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday mornings, talked about a similar problem in just trying to watch TV in the USA.  The listings come in something like a telephone book.  If the entire book was read, digested, reflected upon and then decisions made on which programmes to watch, half the time would be lost that the book covers.  Also, there are hundreds of TV channels all broadcasting simultaneously.

Alistair's question was: how do you get on top of all this stuff.  You see, Frank Kermode can watch (almost) every movie made as: they are transferred onto media that still work today, they are relatively short.  My doubts with Frank is that he can't see every movie on the Heisenberg Principle: as he can't know about every mode ever made, some get lost, what is a movie (is that accidental capturing of my feet walking on my mobile phone a movie, or is a movie not a movie until it is published publicly?)

What Alistair said about US TV, which was part of his life as a broadcaster/watcher of US life, was that you pick what you can, how you can, and report on what you have seen.  Frank may not be actively doing this, but somehow his universe is selecting what he sees.

So, as a games academic, what can I learn about keeping up with the games industry?  Well, certain things are givens, like those unmovable blocks of pre-allocated time in a Gantt chart.  My givens are: teaching (15 hours pw, 24 weeks per annum), teaching preparation/marking/students-support (about 2/3 of the above), R&R (7 weeks per annum, 2 hours per day average), sleep (8 hours per diem).  Realistically that leaves about 2-3 hours per day in working time for everything else.

I use time on trains to work, that gives me back 1-2 hours per day.  I must make visits to partners in schools, colleges, government, acadaemia, etc.  All said and done, that leaves NO time to visit games companies and games shows.  And very little time to play games.

Of course, I could R&R on video games, but that isn't R&R, that's work, if you take my drift.  One of my fave R&Rs these days is going to the gym.  Lost 2st (30lbs, 60kg) in the past couple of years and enjoy the relaxation after in the sauna.  That's R&R.

And, talking around fellow academics I find a similar tale: no time to keep up with the games industry as life, work and family take up all the available time.  This is a real problem.  At the validation of the new Games Development degree we were instructed to spend more time visiting games companies, perhaps being seconded.  But, there are very few real games academics out there, and the few of us there are are too thinly spread to do this.  Keeping up with the now tens of billions of dollars/pounds/euros of the games industry with its household names, is just too hard for the few academics working in the UK's universities and colleges today.

I used to say to students that in Computing we could overturn every principle of Physics.  Every one except time.  Time beats us every, well, time.  I remember generating animations for a game.  After a couple of hours, with a week to go, I knew we didn't have enough time as the frame generation rate was too slow, even with the farm running 24/7.  It was a real feeling of despair that with one week to go we needed one and a half weeks.

I have ten years of teaching left in acadaemia (unless they farm me off as an old fart before then.)  Unless we make changes to how we work the UK games academics will become ever more detached from their subject.  Because the subject is exploding in complexity, content and age, while we are standing still, at best, and letting it get out of our limited grasp.

This requires changes to how we work as academics and to how the games industry works with us.  

Which brings me back to my event schedule over the next few days.  The roundtable in Edinburgh is about Sony's criticisms of UK games teaching.  They have called for centres of excellence to be set up.  I have a couple of problems with this.  First, what Sony know about UK acadaemia can be written on the back of a fag packet (if such a thing can still be found today!)  'Cos Sony never come into universities and see what we do, any more than we go to them, yada, yada.

Now, the Sony's and Microsoft's are huge corps.  I am also small beer in a megacorp that is the new West of Scotland uni.  And UWS is a very small part of the Scottish Government's education spend.  I can achieve very little in terms of change (that too would take time I aint got), but Sony, West and the Scots Government do have that scope and option.

If UK acadaemia is to catch up with the games industry and truly become a centre of excellence in games teaching then those who have the power, funding, time and resources to get this fixed must act.  I am a positive-minded chap, it isn't too late, and there is a lot of positive mindset about this.  Nobody buys that 'centre of excellence' PC cr*p.  Quality is real, not in the packaging.

Sony may have done us a favour in opening up the debate.  I for one will be entirely honest, because its only in facing problems we can get them fixed (its the old engineer and scientist in me!)  I reckon this is an issue worth returning to every year and seeing what progress we are making.