USC Program

International Game Developers Association

USC Program

Contributed by: Tracy Fullerton tfullerton[at]cinema.usc.edu

The School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California created a Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Media in 2002 and a Bachelor of Arts in Interactive Entertainment in 2005. These programs were endowed by a gift from Electronic Arts and focussed on developing the next generation of creative designers and producers for the games and interactive industries. There is a strong focus in these programs on procedural literacy, innovation in game design, and collaborative creative work.

In 2006, the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC created a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with an emphasis in Games. These programs, which include integrated curriculum with the core production cycle in place at the School of Cinematic Arts, are focussed on developing game programmers experienced in creative teamwork and collaboration.

In 2007, the Roski School of Fine Arts created two minor programs that also integrated with both the School of Cinematic Arts and the Viterbi courses. In addition to these formal degree programs, the Annenberg School of Communications offers courses in cultural game studies. Also, a University-wide research unit – the Games ORU – was established in 2007 to promote further integration of curriculum, research labs and collaboration among all USC programs addressing games and game design.

The integrated production courses for the M.F.A./M.S./B.A./B.S. students in both the School of Cinematic Arts and the School of Engineering include:

• Game Design Workshop – a beginning game design course focussed on the design of innovative game mechanics, prototyping and playtesting in an iterative design process.
• Intermediate Game Design and Development – an intermediate production class in which teams of two design and develop a small digital game. Emphasis is on digital prototyping, playtesting, and production management.
• Advanced Game Projects – a two-semester advanced production course in which teams of 6-10 students produce an innovative game project mentored by industry experts. This course may be taken as either a crew member or project lead. Project leads and game concepts are selected by a competitive pitch process involving faculty, prior team leads and industry mentors.

In addition to this core production cycle, students in the School of Cinematic Arts take classes in: film and video production, screenwriting, history and theory of interactive media, business of games, sound design, visual design, etc. B.A. students also must fulfil their general education requirements for the four-year degree. M.F.A. students must produce a thesis project and paper, the researching of which should contribute new knowledge to the field. Full course lists for both the M.F.A. and the B.A. can be found at: http://interactive.usc.edu/about/.

Students in the M.S./B.S. program take the core Computer Science curriculum in addition to the integrated production cycle and game-specific computer science topics such as AI, graphic programming, etc. Full course lists can be found at: http://www.cs.usc.edu/admissions/graduate/msgames.htm and http://www.cs.usc.edu/current/undergrad/default.htm.