[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the first course in the game design and development specialization, intro to game development. I'm Brian Winn, associate professor in the department of media and information at Michigan State University. I, along with my colleague Casey O'Donnell, will be teaching this specialization, and I will be leading this first course. In this video, I'll give you an introduction to this first course, as well as give a brief overview of the specialization. But first let's talk a little bit about the difference between game playing and game development. I get a lot of students that love playing games and they naturally think, why don't I develop them? Of course playing games is important in terms of understanding what makes a good game, and what makes a bad game. But really, these are two different things. I view this as very comparable to people that enjoy watching films, versus people that actually make films. There's a lot of work that goes in behind the camera, in pre-production and post-production, long, long hours to actually produce the content that we enjoy as we eat popcorn. The same holds true for game development. Just because you enjoy playing games does not necessarily mean you're going to enjoy making them. But for many they actually enjoy it more. Personally, I like making games more then I like playing them. To me, watching my vision become reality is a truly gratifying experience. The icing on the cake is witnessing other people play my creation and enjoy it. But after exploring game development some do decide that hey, I just like playing games. I do that as part of the learning experience and part of the reason that some of you are exploring this course. To see if you will enjoy making games like I do. Of course, there are many aspects of game development. There are design roles, engineering roles, art roles, quality assurance, production, and audio. In this specialization, we're going to cover a little of all of these. We're going to focus a little more on design, engineering, and production. But we really will touch upon all of the roles that make up game development. As a trend, over the last 20 years, the game industry has been expanding. Recent Newzoo statistics show that, the global game industry is a 91 billion dollar industry in 2015 reflecting the expanding markets and game platforms including tablets, handhelds and phones. There's also a year-over-year growth across the world with huge growth in Latin America and Asia. So this is not just something that we see in North America. So there are growing opportunities in the game industry, but it is still a competitive marketplace. I view it as somewhat parallel of a Hollywood and film production once again. There are a lot of people that have dreams of getting in. But it does take skills. It takes experience. It takes motivation. And, of course, it takes personal connections to find the job that you really want. Overall, it needs commitment. Fortunately, game development concepts apply beyond just games. So when we talk about the game industry we often refer to it as interactive entertainment. But of course, there's a burgeoning industry that some people refer to as serious games or meaningful play. This is using games for purposes beyond just entertainment for education, training, persuasion, healthcare related issues, advergaming. And that sort of thing. Of course game development concepts apply to these games just as well as they apply to games for entertainment, but really there's a much larger industry that people sometimes refer to as digital media, interactive media, or new media. This is everything from web development to mobile application to traditional software development. And it turns out that the same skill set that you use when you are making games, really applies to this much larger industry. So the things that you will learn while making games, you can apply to many different jobs. So when we break down the industry, one way to think about it is as the things we just talked about. Interactive entertainment, serious games, and digital media. You could also view it as platforms, such as game console systems, the handheld game systems, the personal computer, the web, and mobile gaming. And of course there is still the traditional arcade cabinets, and emerging platforms such as virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift. We could also view it as distribution channels, such as retail, digital distribution, and indirect channels. And of course, the game makers, such as the game publishers, like Electronic Arts, Activision and so forth, the game development studios, individual consultants that maybe work for those studios or work for the publishers, and of course, hobbyists. So, you may find yourself with some combination of interests across this table. So I think we all have different motivators of why we're taking this course. We have people that definitely want a career in game development, we have people that are curious about game development and want to learn more, we have people that think making games would be good fun and want to pursue it as a hobby. We have people already in the game industry that want to further enhance their skills and/or change roles within the industry, and we also have people that are in tangential in this industries, that view learning about making games is advantageous for their non game related jobs. With that said, we've structured this course and the specialization to service all these needs. We definitely are focused on those targeting careers in the game industry. So in terms of the teaching method that we're going to apply in this course, we're mixing theory and practice, or you might view this as lecture and lab. So every week we'll have a combination of videos and readings, where we'll build the foundations of theory that you can apply toward making games. But we really spend a lot of time on the practice of making games. Most weeks there'll be a sizeable projects where you'll get your hands dirty. You will learn the tools and you'll actually build things. In particular, we'll be making three projects in this course. In week two, we'll be introduced to building game projects in Unity 3D by creating a Solar System simulation. This will cover the basics; such as, creating game objects, understanding 3D space, including vectors and transformations, attaching behaviors, creating and modifying materials, the basics of lighting our 3D environments. How to add audio to our games. How to work with cameras in Unity. And how to test and build our games. In week three, we'll make our first game, Roller Madness. This project will cover the asset pipeline, best practices in regards to project organization, the use of physics in our games, receiving player input, creating user interfaces, and creating visual effect such as the use of trail renderers, particle effects, and animation. And we'll build several game systems, such as player control, pick-ups, enemies, and scoring. And in week four, we'll dive into C# programming to create Box Shooter, a first-person game. This project will cover core concepts and writing custom C# scripts to create unique games within the Unity engine. So what's required? I like the phrase game development is hard fun. There's a lot of work when it comes to making games, but hopefully that work is very rewarding. So let's talk a little bit about the sequencing of the specialization. As I said the first course focuses on the introduction into the technical element of game development, or actually building games. We'll use the very popular Unity 3D game engine as our primary tool to do this. The second course builds on the foundation of development and adds in game design, from concept generation to documentation to early prototyping. The third course adds intermediate and advanced game development techniques in Unity 3D and discusses how to finish a game and distribute it to end users. With an understanding of game design and development gained in the first three courses, the fourth course applies this knowledge in the wild of the game industry and game markets. From how to run a game production team, to getting a job, to forming a game development company. The specialization ends with a capstone project where you'll design and develop a game of your own design and develop a strategy to bring it to market. So what's next? In the first lesson you will get to meet the instructors of the specialization, get to know your fellow students and learn about some of the resources that you can draw on as you take this course. So let's begin the journey into game design and development. [MUSIC]
