Filling a niche
THE UCTI Games Development Programme is created to fill a growing industry niche to produce game developers for the local and international industry. With a net worth of Us$68bil (Rm209bil) by 2012, the rapidly growing industry for digital entertainment will require high performing developers to fill positions within the industry.
The programme is designed to ensure that students will emerge with excellent programming and design skills needed to produce a plethora of games, ranging from casual web based games to Pc-based games and mobile games. The programme covers an extensive range of programming techniques used in the development of games. To bolster students’ skills, the programme includes animation and modelling techniques to ensure the entire range of development is exposed to the students.
Students are commonly tasked to ensure that they are always updated with recent happenings within the game industry. On the local front, they are asked to participate in local industry meetings in determining the state of the industry as well as meet prospective employers. Besides local industry meetings, UCTI also hosts computer games related seminars by prominent industry stakeholders to constantly update its students’ view on the industry. Ensuring exposure to the real world industry is paramount to the games development programme.
The UCTI Games Development Programme is also working hand-in-hand with MDECMAC3 through the industry-higher learning (IHL) panel to ensure that the syllabus is current. One of the programmes in which UCTI students are selected for is the GAMEINC collaboration where games are created through guidance from industry mentors.
The UCTI Games Development Programme produces the two-fold effect of letting students experience the relevance of their theories firsthand and identify the key players in the regional games industry. Parts of the efforts include the annual games convention held in UCTI. G.A.M.E.S is a games development student-organised event meant to expose the general public to the inner workings of the games development industry. Key industry speakers are invited to give speeches on different topics to shed light on the massive potential of the games industry as a career.
The event allows students to mingle with games developers to gauge their skills and to get feedback on their progress.
The goal of all the activities and programme structure is to arm the students not only with the technical and theoretical skills to develop games, but also the necessary exposure and industry feedback that is critical to their advancement within the industry.
This is evident in the students’ achievement in Kre8tif! 2009 where UCTI Computer Games Development students won the “Best Technical” and “Best Games Design” award under the student category.
For details, call 03-8996 1000 or e-mail info@ucti.edu.my