Rob Dieterich - Student-Developers and Teacher-Publishers: A Model for Project-based Learning

1. Student-Developers and Teacher- Publishers A MODEL FOR PROJECT-BASED LEARNING PRESENTED BY ROB DIETERICH SKYBOY GAMES LLC

2. Presentation Overview • What is this talk about? • Who is this guy? • Why teach game development? • The Entertainment Games Industry in a Nutshell • The Student-Developer and Teacher-Publisher Model • Closing Thoughts

3. What is this talk about?

4. What is this talk about? • Teaching students game development skills in a project-based manner that emulates development processes in the entertainment games industry • Takeaways • A high-level understanding of the typical publisher-developer relationship in the entertainment games industry • A model for emulating this relationship in a project-based learning environment

5. Who is this guy?

6. Who is this guy? • Robert Ota Dieterich • Education • William & Mary – BS in CS • George Mason University – MA in Game Design • Experience • JET Program, Assistant Language Teacher • Computer Sciences Corporation, Programmer • iNiSCorporation, Programmer -> Programming Lead/Mgr. • ILCA APPS, Freelance Programming • George Mason University, Assistant Professor of Game Design

7. Gameography - Handheld

8. Gameography - Console

9. Gameography - Mobile

10. Gameography - Indie

11. Why teach game development?

12. It’s Applied STEM • Not just STEM, it’s STEAM!

13. It’s Aspirational • Famous Game Developers are like Nerdy Rockstars

14. It’s a Team Effort • Multiple Roles and Skillsets Required • Art, Programming, Music, Design

15. The Entertainment Games Industry in a Nutshell

16. The Games Industry in a Nutshell • “Triple-A” (AAA), Mid-Tier, Indie • Publishers, Developers, and Platform-holders • Pitch, Greenlight, Prototype, Production, Alpha, Beta

17. “Triple-A” (AAA) • Tentpole Releases • Big Development Budgets • Bigger Marketing Budgets • Staff of 100+ • Lots of Specialization • Lots of Sequels

18. Indie • Small Teams (~10 or less) • Smaller Budgets (~$100K or less) • Auteur Spirit • More Experimentation • More Starving Artists

19. Mid-Tier • Too Small to Be AAA • Too Much Overhead to be Indie • A Dying Breed? • Some Survive by Working on Parts of Larger Projects

20. Publishers, Developers, and Platform Holders • Publishers market and distribute the product • Developers create and produce the product • Platform Holders provide a place to sell and play the product

21. Publishers, Developers, and Platform Holders Developer Developer Developer Publisher Publisher Platform Platform Platform Third-Party In-House Indie

22. Pitch, Greenlight, Prototype, Production, Alpha, Beta • Common Development Phases Alpha Develop Pitch Beta Develop Greenlight Release Develop Prototype Pre-Release Production Pre-Production

23. Pitch, Greenlight, Prototype, Production, Alpha, Beta • In Developer-Publisher relationships • Often used as contractual milestones Developer • Funding (and developer survival) often hinges on milestone completion • Funding is often in the form of advanced royalties • Contract milestones allow publishers and developers to manage each other • Usually, it’s the publisher managing the developer Publisher Platform Third-Party

24. The Student-Developer and Teacher-Publisher Model

25. The Student-Developer and Teacher- Publisher Model • Role-playing scenario where student teams take the role of developers and teachers take the role of publishers in a third-party development context • Implemented in multiple 2-week Summer camp courses on 3D game development • 25-30 High-school Students • Teaching team of 1 Lead and 2-3 Assistants

26. Basic Structure • Students divide into teams of 2-3 on the first day and pitch project ideas • Student teams check in with the teachers at established milestone dates • Skills taught by the teachers to the various teams are based on the needs of the teams’ projects • Topics that apply to multiple teams are taught at the head of the class while team-specific topics are taught one-on-one with the team

27. Milestones Milestone Date Greenlight Monday Afternoon First Playable Thursday Morning First Playable Presentation Friday Afternoon Alpha Tuesday Afternoon Beta Thursday Morning Final Presentation Friday Afternoon

28. Milestone Meetings • Meetings are held between each team and a pair of teachers (usually the lead and an assistant) • Other teaching assistants are roaming the class or running tutorials at that time • Teams are encouraged to package a build for these meetings • This helps presentation days run more smoothly since the student teams will be used to packaging builds of their games • Meetings serve as an opportunity for teachers to course correct teams and set task priorities

29. Milestone Meetings • Greenlight meeting is where each team pitches their idea to the “publisher” (the teaching team) • Students are expected to prep a one-sheet game idea document • For Presentations, each team takes a build up to the front and shows it to the class • First-playable, Alpha, and Beta are checkpoints where each team shows a current build to the teaching team so they can discuss their progress and any problem areas

30. Closing Thoughts

31. Closing Thoughts • Students quickly took ownership of their ideas and responsibility for their implementation • Student teams became largely self-managing when working on their own ideas • Few limits were placed on pitched ideas • Scope control was executed through the milestone meetings • Deadline pressures kept students on task • There were some procrastinators, of course

32. Closing Thoughts • Teaching relied heavily on the creativity and game development skills of the teaching team • The bulk of the teaching assistants were 2nd, 3rd, and 4thyear GMU Computer Game Design majors • Helping students was very hands-on • Some teams, naturally, required more help than others • Students helping other students became a valuable resource

33. Thank you for your time! ANY QUESTIONS?