As the mobile game development field grows, opportunities and the demand for more workers rise. It could be the next call center industry as viewed by Philippines Trade Commissioner and Director Jose Dinsay in the recent Game Developer Conference at Moscone Center. Yet our country cannot cope with the need for three reasons.
1. Lack of Skills
– we have a pool of gifted people, yet our students lack game making skills. The field offers many great opportunities, but we have few trained people to grab them.
2. Lack of Education
– limited schools offer courses that teach students how to make mobile games. One mistake is that IT (Information Technology) and other computer-related courses are enough to produce game makers. The truth is 10 to 20 percent of these applies relevant to game making and covers coding and programming basics.
3. Lack of Resources
– investing in software, hardware, and instructors can be pricey. Without enough support, skilled youth will not gain recognition and lose access to the knowledge they need to create games.
How the Government Takes Action
The gaming field is worthwhile although it creates fewer jobs compared to other sectors. With the perfect skills, education, and resources, local talents can compete worldwide and the government will see this potential. The Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) approved the Entertainment Multimedia Computing (EMC) as a program with two novel but vibrant specialties – Digital Animation and Game Development – which has become most promising in growth and marketability.
EMC is the government’s answer to the shortage of a gaming workforce here. It will lessen the lack of skills, education, and resources that hinder us from producing qualified game makers.
EMC’s equivalent at CIIT is the Bachelor in Computer Science with specialization in Game Development and Mobile Application program. Besides the need for game makers, CIIT also saw the demand for more developers especially in this era of mobile technology. In order to meet the needs of many industries today, a program combining game development and mobile technologies was offered for incoming college. Through this course, students will learn programming languages to help them create their own games and develop new applications.
A huge need for mobile game makers exists. You may wish to answer this call and study in a mobile game development school such as CIIT. Visit www.old.ciit.edu.ph for other fine points of this program.
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