What you thinkthe job is: The kind of dull, fustian ‘expert’ who gets dragged out whenever there’s a TV program on videogame addiction.
What it really is: Playing a role in the increasingly sizeable field of studying games at university. A year ago the number of colleges in America offering courses in videogame design was 200. Now, it’s 254.
Sicart is a games scholar and head of the Games Program at the IT University of Copenhagen. His site:miguelsicart.net
How do you describe your job?
Sicart: "I am a games scholar, that is, I research and teach on the theory, culture and design of games, at a university level. In a bit of more detail: I am a researcher that has chosen to study games as an academic career. While my research work istheoreticalmy teaching work is very much hands-on and practically oriented, focused on game design."
How did you end up doing it?
"I was writing on stories and games as part of my Masters Degree, and playing The Sims (and Diablo and many others...), and I thought I’d be interested to work on game narratives and how they break down notions of authorship. This really terrible master thesis led to an interest in games as an object of study, so I decided to work on a PhD on ethics and games. Then I moved to Denmark since it was the most humanities-based game-research friendly place in Europe. While working on my PhD I started thinking about game design, reading and practising it within modest limits, and it all concluded in a research-based position at my current university."
What qualifies you to do it?
"Well, since my work is mostly academic, my education and the validation of my peers qualifies me. So, all the research I do and its publication validate my position. However, when it comes to teaching I try to both learn and try as much as I can to talk to and interview developers. I’ve run the contents of my course through a lot of qualified friendly developers, just to make sure that what I teach is valuable and realistic."
Do you enjoy your work?
"I love my work; the only downsides are those any academic will complain about: administration, bureaucracy, fundraising. One thing I particularly enjoy: every year I get new students. This forces me to stay in touch with current events, update my knowledge, and make sure that they will also learn something. But most importantly, every year I get the opportunity to learn new things from my good students, which is a rare privilege."
Above: Diablo III. The subject of your next dissertation?
How would you respond to industry veterans who’d claim hands-on experience is more relevant to game design?
"Well, they are both right and wrong: there are many practices, workflows, and methods that are learnt by experience, and in that sense no academic research will substitute experience. However, I think we have a false dichotomy here. It is not ‘practice’ vs ‘academia’. Industry experience gives you the speed of practice, the skills and the routines. Academic knowledge gives you the capacity to abstract, reflect, learn and innovate – which you can also do with industry experience, provided you have the right mindset."
How would you respond to a game academic who said a degree in Game Design should be mandatory for lead designers?
"Bollocks, if I may answer so. We academics are (and have to be) modest. We teach about certain practices, tools, concepts, and how to learn from and develop them. But that is not knowledge that needs to be mandatory. Talent is mandatory. Educations just focus talent (as practice does, only in a different way)."
Do you teach with an eye to helping your students get a job in game development?
"All the game educations out there are often in the dilemma of either training for the industry or educating in the way universities educate. I think there is too much pressure on these educations to become underpaid trainee centers for the games industry... The industry comes afterwards, and we want to prepare our students as much as we can to be ready to work processes and practices. But while they are with us, their duty is to be free, and learn from that freedom. This is what we offer: freedom, and the tools to learn from it."
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