Faculty of Multimedia Creativity’s Games students presented their final projects to a panel of local and international industry professionals on 1 December.
The panel of guests included industry experts from Codemasters, Lemon Sky Games and Animation, Sherman3D, Streamline Studios, Inspedia, 99works, Back Bone Entertainment and Silver Ant PPI, to name a few.
A total of 43 students from Semester 2 to Semester 6 pursuing Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Games Art Development, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Games Design and Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Games Technology participated in the games showcase.
The showcase aimed to expose students to industry critiques and practices by encouraging active discussions with industry practitioners.
It also created a platform for students to present their portfolios and promote their talents to the games industry –creating employment and startup opportunities once they graduate.
“The industry panel is made up from professionals who know the standards of games and how it should be made. We get feedback to improve our games and learn more about working in the real field,” said Adrian Belano, a final semester student from Indonesia.
He felt that this is a great opportunity to get hired by one of the top industry players.
The final projects required students to work in teams and play different roles to achieve a common goal, which is designing a complete game. Despite their multicultural mix in each group, students were able to communicate their ideas effectively with one another.
Peyvand Arabi, a Semester 5 Games student from Iran, expressed that the diversity in her class brings in new ideas as different things are popular in different countries.
“By getting to know different groups of people and cultures, I can now design a game which everyone might enjoy playing. The fact that we are all from different countries and cultures but we pursue the same interest is what makes us work better together,” she said.
The industry guests added useful insights to the students’ games and ideas during the presentation as they were given detailed feedback in different areas in their projects. The interactive session allowed exchange of knowledge and ideas between experienced practitioners and young creative minds.
A Technical Art Trainer from Codemasters, Ivon McCall Smith said that being a student is a good opportunity because one can be very indulgent and passionate but there are high possibilities of losing track in the process of producing any content; games, music or art.
“The need for an industry voice to wake them up a bit more so that they will know the industry requirements to become a game artist is inevitable,” he explained.
According to Smith, external perspective is important for talent development as well as to achieve commercial success in the games industry.
“We need innovative thinkers with great ideas and the talents to back them up and produce quality games. Given the current trend, there are years of potential growth where we need to focus in talent development to be ahead in the field,” he added.
