Durban Study Institute for Game Development
Hi Guys.
I please need some help, I want to study game development and need to find out what institute in Durban will be the best to study with. I have heard a lot of people saying Vega but is that the only option for Durban or are there other institutes that are more recognized or better? Any and all opinions welcome.
I please need some help, I want to study game development and need to find out what institute in Durban will be the best to study with. I have heard a lot of people saying Vega but is that the only option for Durban or are there other institutes that are more recognized or better? Any and all opinions welcome.
Comments
I don't know of anyone who's studied at Vega who's gone on to a career in game development, or any of their lecturers who've worked full time in game dev. (I don't know every single person working in game dev in South Africa though... but it is a pretty small community.) Maybe this is something you should ask the school about.
In terms of experience, I don't think any of the other lecturers at any of the other campuses are really involved in MGSA (correct me if I'm wrong!) or have made games of their own outside of thesis work. They do - however - have a lot of passion and interest and, obviously, are qualified to educate. Will this produce good game developers? I don't know. I haven't seen the entire syllabus and I don't know each lecturer personally.
For my part, I was talking about Vega grads in general, given that the school's been around for many years. (For comparison, The Open Window has had several art graduates who have worked or are working full time in the game industry, despite the majority of those students graduating before the school had even introduced any game courses. It'd obviously be unfair to be talking about graduates entering the game industry otherwise!)
Unfortunately beyond that, I have no idea what their course is like (see @dammit's post above). But I haven't seen any other courses in Durban.
Hey there @Rhandi. :)
Unfortunately, I don't really know what courses are on offer in Durbs right now. I've heard of Vega, but no idea on the quality.
What particular discipline are you wanting to go into, in game dev?
For myself, how I got into game dev, I did a BSc(Comp Sci), taking all the electives I could that related to game dev (so AI, networking, graphics etc). I also learned on my own, from game dev tutorials on the internet (it's important to be self-driven, and there's a wealth of information out there).
And then I did a small game as my honours project, which I could show companies as an example of what I could do.
What I would recommend is, whatever course you go for, try to build your skillset so that you have a backup option, employment-wise. The game industry is still very small in SA, so unless you plan to leave the country immediately, you may need to work for a time in a related industry in order to pay rent.
For example, my specialty is game programming, but I can also work as a generalist programmer, I've worked in retail software, shipping and logistics, fire detection and security systems, and gambling systems.
If you're an artist, you may need to work in advertising as a graphic designer for a while. It's good to build a skillset that's flexible like that, IMO.
And a bachelors degree generally looks good on the CV, for that kind of thing. I'm not saying you need it, but it often helps.
That's my 2c, hope it helped. :)