EA still unconvinced by game design degrees

Electronic Arts’ head of European recruitment Matthew Jeffery has expressed concern over the rising number of games courses available to students – something occurring at the expense of traditional courses.

Speaking in a talk at this week’s Leipzig Games Convention, he explained that over the company’s past 350 hires EA UK has only taken on two entry level game deisgners and they did not have game degrees.

He said: "The industry has very few entry level game design roles. Warning bells must ring if EA, the largest employer in the UK has not hired a graduate with a games design degree. We will soon reach a saturation point with so many students studying games degrees. What happens if they don’t get a job in games? Games degrees are not readily transferable into other industries."

Degrees in computer science, maths, physics – which provided more relevance to game development, said Jeffery – were in decline with enrolment numbers falling 10 to 15 per cent each year as "students are often seduced by easier looking degrees and don’t see the merit of ‘boring core subjects’."

It’s a timely comment – only in the past few days have the likes of Cologne University of Applied Sciences and SAE announced new games courses.