SCAD Hong Kong Game Design and Development

Lindsay Holloway (left), Noreen Mir, Melissa Kronenberger

You might need the QuickTime components for Windows to listen to this talk http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html

You are invited to join our SCAD Open Day on Saturday, Apr.20, 12PM-4PM to explore SCAD’s outstanding facilities, experience SCAD student life, meet with admission staff, faculty. Register for SCAD Day at www.scad.edu/scadday or +852. 2253 8000.
誠邀各位參與我們於4月20日（週六）下午十二時至下午四時的SCAD薩凡納藝術設計大學開放日！歡迎各位前來參觀體驗SCAD的校園設施，請登入http://www.scad.edu/scadday 或致電 +852. 2253 8000 登記。

Ronald Grover and Malathi Nayak wrote:

“Walt Disney Co plans to shut the 30-year-old LucasArts studio it inherited with the acquisition of George Lucas’ film company last year, and focus on licensing its “Star Wars” brand externally, a spokesman said on Wednesday.”

“ The decision to shutter LucasArts comes as the developer and publisher, once known for humor-tinged adventure games like ‘Secret of Monkey Island’, has struggled in recent years to produce a hit in an industry increasingly dominated by action-oriented games.”

See the article at:

http://music.yahoo.com/news/disney-shut-lucasarts-games-studio-lay-off-workers-183037451–finance.html

From our perspective: Once more, the lessons learned from 1983 apply, focus on quality of the user experience and the market.  This is easier written than done.  Game design is about psychology, behaviour economics, and business strategy as fundamental disciplines to deliver a user experience of value, not about character design, story development, or even gameplay in isolation.

Thomas, Lindsay, Melissa

Congratulations to Game Designers, Thomas, Lindsay, and Melissa for the successful completion of their MFA Candidacy Review.  Proud of you!

The Masters of Fine Arts is the top degree in the design profession and you guys are up to positively impact industry, society, and academia with your research, design philosophy and production work.

Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!

http://on.ted.com/iQBj

Video Games Careers in Hong Kong?

By J.A. Rueda

December 2012

Why would highly-educated intelligent people choose to spent their careers making video games?

Video games are supposed to be a distraction, a waste of time, bad for you.  In the colloquial lingo, a video game is automatically associated with a negative force that compels people to be irresponsible, lazy, perhaps violent, and video games and the associated corporations are responsible for many of today’s global problems.  So some say.

While having such thoughts, people still play.  People play for passing the time alone (horse betting, card games such as solitaire) or in a group (Mahjong, basketball, poker), or as a personal challenge (golf), or for camaraderie at work (softball, touch rugby), or for competitive reasons (amateur or professional sports), or to stay sharp (crossword puzzles, Sudoku), or learning a new language (many young people in Hong Kong learn Japanese through video games), or for the love of art (playing the violin), or to try to earn money (casino style gambling), or to belong to a cool group (Halo on the Xbox), or because everyone else is playing (Minecraft), teasing friends, being playful during courtship (young and new couples are silly playful), or to teach skills to a child, or because they have a smart phone (Angry Birds), or because their Facebook friends are playing (Farmville), or to earn a price (promotion games in convenience stores), etcetera.  The list goes on and on.  There are hundreds of reasons to play. Even if we deny it know in front of our peers or children because games are supposed to be wasteful, at one point in our lives, we all played with cards, toys, stones, balls, and our friends. Albert Einstein once said that great things come from the necessary “waste of time”.  In other words, play is part of human development and a necessary activity.

If play is in big demand, there must be an opportunity to supply play professionally.  The core component of a game is play.  So, there should be an opportunity to make and sell games.  How compelling is the opportunity? How relevant it is to Hong Kong youth?

Continue on the PDF VideoGamesDec2012 (download)

This invited article follows the talk by Dr. Rueda on August 29 in which he introduced the medium of the video game from a business case perspective and as an academic subject leading to viable careers.  He provided an overview of the industry, history, key figures and drivers, government strategic initiatives from around the world, and case studies.

http://cancham.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/the-business-case-for-video-game-development-in-hong-kong-by-dr-jose-a-rueda/

“As you might know, the Global Game Jam (GGJ) is an international game development event during which participants make games within a 48-hour time period. In 2012, GGJ had 242 locations in 47 countries and over created were 2000 games in one weekend, which became a Guinness World Record! GGJ was a project of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA.org) from 2009-2012.  From this year GGJ 2013, the event is managed by Global Game Jam, Inc.”, Prof. Hanna Wirman

To register, follow this link: http://globalgamejam.org/user/register

The following are the key web links:
http://globalgamejam.org/about (About GGJ)
http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/hong-kong (About GGJ Hong Kong)
http://ggjhongkong.blogspot.hk/ (Blog)
https://www.facebook.com/ggjhk2013 (Facebook page)
https://twitter.com/ggjhongkong (Twitter)

Date: January 25-27, 2013

Venue:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)
Core P, Room PQ002 (Basement)
Directions:
Hung Hom MTR Exit A1.
Cross the bridge over the Cross-Harbour tunnel.
At PolyU, turn right and you will see Core P, it is the first circular structure.
There is also a map at the entrance of the PolyU.

The preliminary rundown is as follows:

Students: Consider participating.  The outcome will generally look good in your CV and portfolio.

Thank you to our colleague Prof. Hanna Wirman of the PolyU for leading the organization of GGJ 2013 in Hong Kong!

A great show with Crystal Kwok and Lindsay Holloway.  Thank you to Elena Krotman!

Kwok Talk Audio: http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/programme.php?name=/kwok_talk&d=2012-11-20&p=5160&e=198178&m=episode

If on MacOS, you might need Flip4Mac or Windows Media components for QuickTime:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/windows-media-components-quicktime

ITGM315 (L-R): Andrew, Mariel, Nathan, Beatrice, Kaela, Kevin, Henry.

ITGM121 (L-R): Lindsay, Erick, Dave, AiFang, Cenga, Ian, Keiran.

ITGM755 (L-R): Lindsay, Nathan, Melissa, Henry

Watch out for these young game developers!

The ITGM Class, Fall 2012 at SCAD Hong Kong.  The Mini Game Developers Conference.

Thank you to our industry guests: Adam & Aime, Michael, Slimane, Martin & Alex, ATung, Roy, Po Chi, Martin, and Ingo.

Classes: ITGM351, ITGM315, ITGM121, ITGM719, ITGM755, ITGM760

These recommendations aim at assisting parents concerned with Internet apps and games by providing answer to frequently asked questions, general concerns and provide some references. We are happy to share an opinion And welcome your feedback. Ultimately, you, the parents, are the authority on what is good for your children.

Internet applications evolve very fast. It is important to stay current. Understand the intention of each application. Read the application documentation and the use cases, which might be different than the intention. We would do the same about food that our children are consuming in the context of food technology.

Social media: understand the intention of Facebook (gossip), side benefits and shortcomings. It is for 13 year-olds and older. You might know that kids have multiple accounts (can you guess why?), so friending them (to spy) on them doesn’t work. They might feel the same way about your participation in their online community as you might have felt about your parents following you when you went out to visit your friends as a child. By the way, it is incredibly easy to have a message read outside of the circle of friends, so be careful in what you post in your children’s walls (normally you worry about what they post, but I recommend that you worry about what you post as well). Being embarrassed socially online or offline can position a child as a target for bullying. Your children’s generation is online. They are developing a different and generally helpful set of skills to face the world that we have borrowed from them.

Games: Think of film genres and ratings… Games also have genres and ratings. “Watch” the game (you might be impressed and entertained) as if you were watching TV. Research games that your children play and understand the genre of particular games of interest. You can quickly become an expert in almost any subject with a web browser. Genres include: adventure, simulation (management simulation games are very useful, such as Lemonade Tycoon), role playing, sports, puzzles, racing (careful with many as they tend to be for adults -Mario Kart is generally ok for many reasons), combat, first-person shooters (violent), educational (mainly boring, so choose appropriately), platformers (such as Mario), social (mainly on Facebook -gameplay is poor as they are aimed at social interaction, not gameplay). Almost anything designed by Nintendo is well positioned to address your concerns. Games designed by Nintendo are not the same as games designed by others and published by Nintendo. Consoles are much more secured and will address many of your concerns than an open Internet enabled PC. Generally, the Microsoft XBox and Sony PlayStation consoles are for an older audience than the Nintendo consoles. A quick search online will help you choose the appropriate platform. Here are some games than some of the parents asked about:

PC: Minecraft, Civilization, Roller-coaster Tycoon, Lemonade Tycoon, Starcraft
PlayStation 3: Little Big Planet
XBox: Kinect Dance Central
Wii: Wii Music, Wii Sports
Nintendo DS:
Nintendogs (from very little to adults)
Brain Age: this is a game that you might like to play yourself
iPhone
Apple is quite good at selecting appropriate apps and games for children on Apple products. If you can, visit the Apple Store in the IFC, Children’s section and see what they have installed in the sample iPads. Read reviews in the Education section of iTunes; geography, science, art.
For 5-6 years old and younger: Toca Boca games, Dr Seuss games and applications, Gnart, Pop Out! Peter. In general, be careful with your credit card settings in iTunes! (in-game purchases in games such as the Smurfs).
King of Opera, Tofu, etc

On stereotypes:
All about money: Just like in film, television, fashion, consumer goods, and just about any product oriented industry, designers target specific demographic groups. Understand and appreciated the target audience when you choose games for your children. A quick search will likely return everything you would want to know. Games are products. There are various strategies that the industry uses to earn a living. It is not unlike banks, fashion, film, chain stores, restaurants, or any other business.

Violence: Just like with film and TV, and other products, some games are reflective of historic war situations (Call of Duty), gangster wars (Sleeping Dogs set in Hong Kong), street crime (Grand Theft Auto). Read reviews and ratings. Just like we would not let a 3 year-old, for example, watch Saving Private Ryan or Die Hard, avoid exposing your children to violent games as you would do in the case of film and TV and event violent printed media. Games are media.
Sexuality: Same recommendation as above. Just like we would not expose young children to some books (Fifty Shades of Gray), there are games to avoid. Investigate and make a decision. Let’s not blame the industry for our choices. Treat an explicit game the same way you would a TV channel such as PlayBoy or pornographic films. You need to know what is the content, context, and target audience for a game that you are considering.

For Reference
Apps and Websites:
TED (iPhone), ted.com (Adora Svitak, Ken Robinson, Salman Khan, Sugata Mitra, Eric Witacre, David Perry, Kellee Santiago, Jane McGonigal, Aimee Mullins)
The Girl Effect, thegirleffect.org
The Athena Doctrine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxgTsyL4y0E
ADHD Games (some parents asked me about this, so here is a link): http://www.tudou.com/listplay/0rv75Tmplpc/g8XB4oC9yew.html

Security
Invest time.
Macs are generally more secured.
Log off websites, close browsers after use.
Back up and reinstall the system every few months.
Consider crashplan.com to back up your data in case you need to reinstall your machine.

General
Have an open dialog with your kids. It is necessary to learn more about their use of technology, such as software applications and information systems. Just like we would teach them to behave properly in a wine shop, video shop, or sports gun shop, we would need to get them to behave appropriately online. For example, let’s not blame the whole wine industry if an unsupervised uninstructed child opens a bottle of wine and drinks it. Technology will enable your children to succeed in the world. Playing is an integral part of understanding and applying technology.

It is better to embrace than to resist technology. The backlash that you feel about games in general, should be directed at a genre of games, namely, violent games. By the way, the movie The Avengers by Marvel Comics is (very) violent, and yet I haven’t heard from a parent who objects to this movie. A generation ago, many parents felt the same way some of you might feel about games today but about comics and certain magazines, let’s not forget MAD. The interactivity of a game is generally more useful and satisfying than the passivity of TV. We just need to encourage the right games and a positive attitude towards games technology because of its usefulness in a competitive world.

Masters class:

Melissa’s: http://gamingimperatrix.blogspot.HK/

Lindsay’s: http://lindsayhollowaythesis.tumblr.com/

Nathan’s: http://blog.scad.edu/nanash20/

Third year class:

Kevin’s:  http://kevinscwong.wordpress.com/

Henry’s: http://blog.scad.edu/honlau20/

Andrew’s: http://blog.scad.edu/awegen20/

Kaela’s: http://blog.scad.edu/ksmith47/

Mariel’s: http://blog.scad.edu/mthomp28/

Beatrice’s: http://bmalup20.blogspot.hk/

Second year class:

Keiran’s:  http://blog.scad.edu/klovet20/

Ian’s:  http://blog.scad.edu/icairn20/

Ai Fang’s:  http://blog.scad.edu/aiflim20/

Erick’s: http://blog.scad.edu/ewitti20/

Dave’s:  http://blog.scad.edu/dleung20/

Cenga’s:  http://blog.scad.edu/centse20/

In the first week of a third year class, students saw programming for the first time and working with their instructors they completed their first assignment, a challenging one: a demonstration of an Atari game vintage 1980s!!!  Here are screen shots of their work.  The students demonstrated how design thinking and some technical knowledge can recreate work that took months a few years ago. Thank you to graduate student Melissa for the thoughtful and expert advice to the students.  See if you recognize the screen shots.  Students also discussed game design with designer Ingo Lau and discuss his latest augmented reality and card games.

This talk is about creative careers and businesses as alternatives for education and business.
Join us on August 29 in Hong Kong.

See either link for more information:

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=53656e7055eb8c1eb46bd5560&id=c875615ab6&e=

http://www.cancham.org/asp/calendar_detail.asp?item=B8FVK8KRS

Julian, Kevin, Henry, and Melissa made their games industry debut by introducing their iPad/iPhone games to a group of professionals.

Thank you to our industry guests Diana, Georgy, Raine, Kennis, Azure, Shuxian, Marco, John, Michael, Philip, Thomas, Leo, Ingo for all their feedback and support and for playing the students’ games!

Legendary martial arts actor and creativity coach, Roy Horan, visits game development students at SCAD HK.  When Roy wasn’t in the set with Bruce Lee and others, he was thinking about creativity.  His shares his life work on this subject through his research, workshops, and electronic tools, http://www.innov-ea.com/

With Roy (centre) and Ron Wilcox (right)

(click on the photo to enlarge it)

I recently met Prof. Sugata Mitra at the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong, http://21clhk.org/. He was on leave at MIT from Newcastle University when he visited us.  As introduction to his philosophy and his work, here is his talk at TED Global in Oxford in 2010, http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

Prof. Mitra highlights Inquiry Based Learning (EBL) as a powerful tactic for Outcome Based Education (OBL), which is the focus of many educational institutions.  For me, the technique works particularly well for learning computer art tools since tools change too often, are not user friendly, and are too complex in general.  Students seem to intuitively know how to learn any tool based on case studies presented to them as outlined by Prof. Mitra.

In Hong Kong, Prof. Mitra also outlined in two minutes the history of education and highlighted the transition from inquiry based learning, which was focused on finding answers to questions for which we didn’t know the answer, into learning based on teacher delivery.  He attributed this change to Plato and the equalization principles of education to the Victorians. The issue at hand is that, clearly, today’s students don’t want to be identical to each other and the learning tools at their disposal are tremendously powerful.  Prof. Mitra challenges educators with his argument that some key skills become obsolete through the ages and identifies that we are in such an age.

As a side note, he is also the inspiration for the movie Slumdog Milionaire:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/03/professor-sugata-mitra