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.

Comments

  • What part of game development? If it's programming, maybe @garethf could recommend something.

    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.
  • What part of game development? If it's programming, maybe @garethf could recommend something.

    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.
    The course has only started this year - so they'll only have their first graduates in 2019. What I've seen of the course is that there is a lot of potential but it's naturally still finding its feet. I currently lecture the first year module on Principles of Game Design at CPT campus. The course coordinators have given a lot of leeway to allow me to take the students on outtings, encourage them to attend meetups and make games in any format (anything, essentially, that helps them become better game designers). While I'm not particularly thrilled with the textbook assigned to this module, I've advocated for a different one (Art of Game Design) and that may come in in the next few years.

    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.


  • edited
    @dammit: Thanks for the clarification!

    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!)
  • Ah fair enough. I think vega has been very focus on advertising agencies and those kind of roles (like red and yellow) so it would surprise me to see their graduates in gaming. For this course they hired a lot of new staff because it is quite a turn from what they've been doing. They do, however, offer some branding courses to help students who may end up making games for clients (adver games)
  • Thank you both so much!! I think I need to get a hold of someone in Durban, do you perhaps know anyone on here from Durban? Not @garethf - Last Active 12:15pm 3 Apr, I stalked him already.
  • @Rhandi, I'm in Durban. We actually had an event at Vega a couple weeks ago called DBN Gamers. At 1:00 you can see a very short interview with someone from Vega


    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.
  • @roguecode, thanks for the help! I think Vega will be the best option, well, for Durban, the only option.
  • I have been summoned!

    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. :)
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