BACK TO CAMPUS 2006
Students: So You Want
To Be a Game
Maker
You’ve mastered the final level of Tomb
Raider: Legend, you’re bored with the new titles
at Big City Gamin’, Dance Dance Revolution tour-
naments aren’t landing you any mates and The
Sims are turning out to be a trifle more intelli-
gent than Sea Monkeys: What do you do? Why
not start making games yourself? It’s not as hard
as you might think.
GarageGames is a good place to start. Their
Torque line of game-making software allows
novices to focus on their overall game design
GarageGames president
using pre-wired code. Mark Frohnmayer says
Mark Frohnmayer
about 70,000 developers are registered within
the Torque community. And it’s no accident GarageGames shares a “garage” fore-
name with Apple’s Garage Band software. Both are consumer-level tools hobbyists
can use to polish their digital multimedia creations, only now the gaming field just got
a lot more fun.
This holiday season, Microsoft will be releasing the XNA Game Studio Express. The
XNA will allow consumers to author games on their PC and then test them out on an
Xbox 360 for a $99 yearly fee. Closer to home, GarageGames will be releasing their
own version of Torque (dubbed Torque X) that will be XNA-compatible.
For the first-time game maker and seasoned professional alike, the future
prospects of game play will break wide open. Indeed, at the August announcement of
XNA at Gamefest 2006, Microsoft’s general manager Chris Satchell said, “We are
looking forward to the day when all the resulting talent-sharing and creativity trans-
forms into a thriving community of user-created games on Xbox 360.”
This community has already been cultivated at GarageGames. Building off the suc-
cess of social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube, GarageGames will soon
be launching a website geared toward game makers, allowing them to share their lat-
est creations and discuss strategies for improvement (stay tuned at
www.garagegames.com for a link).
But this technology won’t be limited to your desktop. College game development
programs, such as the University of Southern California’s prestigious Gamepipe Labs,
are eagerly hopping on board with GarageGames’ and Microsoft’s cutting edge tools
and technology. But if universities are teaching from the same software you can prac-
tice on at home for cheap, is a college degree worth it?
Dan Duncalf, of Pipeworks, thinks so. “Formalized education is now a requirement,
not optional,” he says. Sophisticated game making is highly complex, he says, requir-
ing advanced knowledge in math, physical science, programming, design and engi-
neering. Duncalf recommends focusing “on a solid education,” noting that “somebody
with a four-year degree in physics, who then takes four or five classes in computer
programming, is more likely to get into the field then somebody who goes to an 18-
month trade school.”
But working in game making isn’t all just code and computing. Games are becom-
ing increasingly cinematic, requiring animators, story boarders, scenic designers and
other media art skills. Barry Drew, Buzz Monkey’s art director, says he looks for some-
one “with a solid understanding of lighting, design, color theory … principles that can
be used in multiple software packages.”
In other words, this is a job like any other: Success requires constant sweat, toil
and real world experience.
GarageGames co-founder Jeff Tunnell asks in his online article, “Realistic Steps to
Starting a Game Development Company”: “Why should making games good enough
that people want to buy them be any easier than any other artistic profession? I
always like to think of making games as a lot like making rock music. It takes a group
of people that all have specialized skills and it takes a long time to learn your ‘instru-
ment’ or craft.”
OK, say you’ve been working at a game company, you’ve finally mastered your
craft, but still you’re itching for more. Or, in Tunnell’s words, you’re tired of “kissing
corporate ass or dealing with the internal politics of large companies.” Is it time to
start your own game-making studio?
“It’s worth starting a studio,” says Tesseraction Games Chairman Kelly Asay, “but
do your research … You are going to make some great and lifelong friends and you
are going to make some enemies. It helps to think of it like a pig sees breakfast, not
how the chicken does: You’re in it whole hog or you aren’t in it.” — Chuck Adams
buy, sell, trade
hard to find
258 E. 13th. Avenue
CDs, vinyl, DVDs
new & used
541-342-7975
LOCAL GAMING COMPANIES
Bu z z M on ke y
576 Olive St.
Suite 205
Eugene 97401
484-7030
www.buzzmonkey.com
G a r a ge Ga me s , I nc .
245 W. 5th Ave.
Eugene 97401
345-3040
www.garagegames.com
Pi p e wo rk s S of tw ar e, I n c .
555 Lincoln Ave.
Suite D
Eugene 97401
685-0644
www.pipeworks.net
OCTOBER 5, 2006 13