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We're proud to announce that UCSC now has a Master's in Games and Playable Media!

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The University of California, Santa Cruz, has established a new master's (M.S.) degree program in Games and Playable Media offered from the UCSC Silicon Valley site in Santa Clara. This innovative professional degree program will give students a strong background in advanced technologies used in the development of computer games and other interactive media.

The one-year (12-month) program, administered by the Department of Computer Science in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, is designed for students who already have a solid foundation in computer science and an understanding of computer games. Jim Whitehead, professor and chair of computer science, said students in the program will learn all aspects of game development.

"Students will develop strong design skills as well as strong technical implementation skills," Whitehead said. "They will learn to be independent game makers, and they can go on to work in the game industry or for the growing number of companies outside the game industry that are looking for people with the combination of technical and design skills needed to create compelling interactive experiences."

A hundred years ago, children played with wooden toys and stuffed animals. Entertainment was an entirely different beast than the interactive, software driven entertainment of today. Play now bears little resemblance to play then, and the workplace has changed as well. Technology for children is an exciting medium for education and fun, and David Merrill’s Sifteo cubes approach the idea with passion.

Michael Chemers was the founding Director of the Bachelor in Fine Arts Dramaturgy program at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of the "Ghost Light" model of dramaturgy, a muscular, creatively engaged, artistically vibrant approach to dramaturgy that requires thorough historical understanding, theoretical training broad and deep, and a passionate dedication to creating powerful, relevant performances of all types.

His Work on Freak shows has appeared in Modern Drama, The New England Theatre Journal, The Journal of Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Theatre Forum, and Disability Studies Quarterly, for which he has also served as an editor. His work as a theatre historian and theorist has appeared in these journals, as well as in Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, Journal of Theatre and Performance, and Comparative Drama. He has also written chapters for books on South Park and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Michael joins Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Marilyn Walker, Jim Whitehead, Arnav Jhala, and Sri Kurniawan as the seventh core faculty member. Michael's background is a great representation of the interdisciplinary nature of games and playable media. Welcome!

The Master of Science in Games and Playable Media (MSGPM) at UC Santa Cruz invites applications for its founding Program Director. The Program Director is a key leadership position, including: (1) program and curriculum planning,management, and evaluation; (2) teaching and advising students in the program; and (3) ongoing professional workand/or research in the games field.

Aaron Cammarata has been in game design professionally for 16 years, and stumbled into freelance game design by accident rather recently. It fit well, and he created voidALPHA, a freelance game design company. In the process, he made some mistakes, and would like to share those mistakes and how to avoid them with new, prospective freelancers.

Cammarata details very specifically the sort of business practices you need to apply in order to be successful. Have you set up a relationship with a lawyer and accountant? Do you have all of the critical office equipment, such as a backup hard drive, printer, scanner, and thumb drives? Figuring out how much you need to charge is also critical, as freelancing means a lot more expenses are on you, rather than your employer. Cammarata’s rule of thumb is to take the salary you would like to have, and divide it by 1000. If you want to live like you make $75k a year working at EA, you should charge $75 an hour. Avoid “odd jobs”, contracts for very small amounts of work.

For networking, it’s critical that you have a website. All networking really is is going out and talking to people about games and telling them what you do. Going to events like GDC, hackathons, game jams, and is a critical platform to make yourself known. Having a LinkedIn profile and joining the game groups on LinkedIn can also help you get work.