Skills shortage hits games firms

The games industry says British universities are failing to equip graduates with the skills it needs.

The warning comes from the industry campaign group “Games Up?”, which says games developers in Britain are facing a serious skills shortage.

The lobby group says there are now 81 video games degree courses at British universities. But only four are accredited by Skillset, the government body which monitors such courses.

David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments and a spokesman for “Games Up?”, said: “95% of video gaming degrees are simply not fit for purpose. Without some sort of common standard, like Skillset accreditation, these degrees are a waste of time for all concerned.”

The warning came as executives from across Europe’s games industry gathered for the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead. The North East of England is one of the centres of a games industry whose activities are spread widely across the UK.

Source: BBC Tech News

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This entry was posted on 20/06/2008 at 03:43 pm and is filed under IT Careers, PC Games, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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