December 14, 2006 —

GamePipe Director Mike Zyda watches his students show their stuff

The USC GamePipe Laboratory celebrated its third complete semester of game development degree courses Dec. 12 in its home at USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Tutor Hall.

And industry, represented by a long lineup of representatives, responded with enthusiasm: " We're excited to see the progress that the program has made," said an attendee from Disney Buena Vista Games, in the course of inquiring about how to get in contact with one student team.

Students, many of  whom had spent the entire 24 hours previous in last minute preparations,  demonstrated they had  developed games to an august panel of game industry executives, as almost equally sleep-deprived teachers -- GamePipe Director Michael Zyda and Creative Director Victor LaCour - looked proudly on.

Shown in the demonstrations were prototypes of both entertainment and serious games, including Safari, Snowball, Death March of the Penguins, _Bushido Beat, Motorball, FireScope, Finger Football, Battleship, Sizzling Stylus, and Titan. (A complete list of the games demonstrated can be found at http://gamepipe.usc.edu/Projects.php) The offerings came from  courses on networked games, advanced game projects, serious games, and mobile games.

The game prototypes demonstrated are the culmination of efforts by undergraduate students, most of them majoring in computer science (Game Development) degree programs that USC approved in Fall of 2006. Of the 88 students who enrolled in GamePipe courses in fthe fall semester, 24 are declared CS Games majors.

Gamepipers: It's not just for boys anymore

Industry attendees at this event included representatives of Disney Feature Animation, Disney Buena Vista Games, Disney Imagineering, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Online Entertainment, Motorola Research Labs, THQ, EA LA, Activision, Microsoft, and Crystal Dynamics.

The results, according to Zyda, were dramatic: "Activision wants to set up a formal internship program as a result" of GameDay, he wrote students in a followup, adding that  "EA,  LA Disney Internet Group, Disney Buena Vista Games, and Motorola also showed interest in either jobs or internships after seeing GamePipe product."
 
The USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Game Development degree program is the largest game engineering-focused program in the world.

The mission of the GamePipe Laboratory is interdisciplinary research, development and education on technologies and design for the future of interactive games and their application - from developing the supporting technologies for increasing the complexity and innovation in produced games, to developing serious and entertainment games for government and corporate sponsors.