Unfortunately I had to miss THATCamp Games II this year, held last month at Case Western Reserve University. Luckily (and in the traditional THATCamp spirit) attendees have shared their collaborative notes (and games!) from the unconference so those of us who weren’t there can catch up. And Anastasia Salter, who teaches information arts and technologies at the University of Baltimore, wrote up her experiences leading a pre-conference workshop on making board games in the classroom. I know lots of us in the CUNY Games Network are interested in non-digital games for teaching — I highly recommend Salter’s article, it’s well worth a read.
A week before the test, I told my class that the Game Theory exam would be insanely hard—far harder than any that had established my rep as a hard prof. But as recompense, for this one time only, students could cheat. They could bring and use anything or anyone they liked, including animal behavior experts. (Richard Dawkins in town? Bring him!) They could surf the Web. They could talk to each other or call friends who’d taken the course before. They could offer me bribes. (I wouldn’t take them, but neither would I report it to the dean.) Only violations of state or federal criminal law such as kidnapping my dog, blackmail, or threats of violence were out of bounds.
Gasps filled the room. The students sputtered. They fretted. This must be a joke. I couldn’t possibly mean it. What, they asked, is the catch?
“None,” I replied. “You are UCLA students. The brightest of the bright. Let’s see what you can accomplish when you have no restrictions and the only thing that matters is getting the best answer possible.”
“The global video game market is projected to exceed $80 billion by 2017.
Connecticut’s portion of gaming industry revenues currently amounts to nearly $50 million a year according to the most recent study, “Video Games in the 21st Century: The 2010 Report,” released by the Entertainment Software Association.
With such a sizzling market, jobs for game designers, developers and the like are plentiful — but landing one of them is getting ultra-competitive. In fact, a recent CNNMoney report listed video game designer as the Best New Job in 2012.”
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