Gaming is serious business
tHE APU Games Development Programme is created to fill a growing industry need to produce game developers for the local and international industry. With a net worth of US$68bil (RM210.3bil) by this year, the rapidly growing industry for digital entertainment will require high performing developers to fill positions within the industry.
APU’s Games Development Programme is designed to ensure that students emerge with excellent programming and design skills needed to produce a plethora of games, ranging from casual web-based games to PC-based and mobile games. The programme covers an extensive range of techniques used in the development of games. To bolster the students’ skills, the programme includes animation and modelling techniques to ensure that students are exposed to the entire range of development.
Students are tasked to ensure that they stay updated with recent happenings within the gaming industry.
On the local front, students are asked to participate in industry meetings in determining the state of the industry as well as meeting prospective employers.
Besides local industry meetings, APU hosts computer games-related seminars by prominent industry stakeholders to keep students constantly updated. Ensuring exposure to the real world industry is paramount to the games development programme.
The APU Games Development Programme is working hand-in-hand with MDeC-MAC3 through the industry-higher learning (IHL) panel to ensure that the syllabus is current.
One of the programmes in which APU students is selected for is the GameINC collaboration where games are created through guidance from industry mentors.
The programme produces a two-fold effect – letting students experience the relevance of their theories firsthand and letting students identify the key players in the regional games industry.
The efforts include the annual games convention. G.A.M.E.S is a games development student-organised event to expose the general public to the inner workings of the games development industry. Key industry speak- ers are invited to share 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 APU Computer Games Development students won the Best Technical and Best Games Design award under the student category.
For more information, call 03-8996 1000 or e-mail info@APU.edu.my