Ok Braben. Where is your evidence that courses are being dumbed down? Personally, I think Braben (and others) should stop the cheap jibes at Universities. Industry also needs to be realistic about what it can actually expect from graduates; if there is a skill gap BOTH sides need to meet in the middle. No-one expects med students to go straight into surgery. There's a post Uni training period. Develop should challenge people who make these sweeping statements more often.

This is very unfair Mike. Don’t you think Dave Brabens 25+ years of interviewing potential employees qualifies him to comment on the level of graduate’s knowledge? His comments about the decline of Computer Science at Universities and in Schools are informed and accurate. On the Games education side you seem to be suggesting that industry should dumb down its expectations of Universities. I agree we don’t expect med graduates to immediately lead a surgery team, but they would be expected to be in the same room – and they’d certainly know the difference between an arse and an elbow. If Dave Braben feels there are poor games courses in the University sector (and there are very few people who don’t agree with him) he has a right make these comments.

"Don’t you think Dave Brabens 25+ years of interviewing potential employees qualifies him to comment on the level of graduate’s knowledge"

If you've ever been interviewed by him you'll know this statement is a joke.

I presume you didn’t get the job at Frontier then Dude-ette!

At risk of tit-for-tat responses, I also have 25+ years in HE, specifically in Computing, although my background is a joint Maths & Physics degree from Durham; the traditionally right experience for game programming still (unrealistically) trotted out occassionally. When university populations have incereased by a factor of 10, while GDP and financial support for those students has actually reduced - with similar issues facing all post-16 education -Mr. Braben does not have the right to accuse us en masse of "bums on seats" cynnicism. of course, there will be courses that are better resources and taught (the two NOT necessarily being connected) and time and graduate employment as well as accreditation will reduce and improve these. However, the statement that reducing applications inferred dumbing down is not justified. In fact, for the most part it is the opposite - "dumbing up!" - where students engage in high level IT/Software Engineering skills, with application to one of most demanding, real-time, fast developing tech sectors there is. Where courses are sold as "guaranteeing" game jobs (of which I am not aware of ANY by the way) this would be quite wrong. However, graduate destinations post-game degree go way beyond direct entry into the Industry. We, and I am sure others, make it clear that there ARE no guaranties as the portfolio/show reel is more critical than degree classification. We also consider as success those that enter post-graduate study, teaching, other IT programming jobs, as well as those who realise after three years of study that they are not suited to a rather high stress, family unfriendly vocation!

The gap between graduate and experienced game developer was less apparent in the past, when fewer, elite people were recruited. With a wider diverse educational background of students, fewer resources spread thinner, and an increasing need to recruit game developers, the distance has been made more noticable. It was always there, but developers could choose from a differet pot of potential employees 30 years ago. Now they, like other industries that have faced increasing complexity as well, may have to accept some responsibility for training/developing its workers. Now there's an area where tax breaks and financial support from Government would be well placed!

Braben is basically saying schools should teach basic programming skills. I think its a good idea My school dropped CS in favour of business studies this was in the 80s .... so no idea what they do now. But teaching programming at the age range is ideal.
As most people I know in the industry were programming well before uni/

I hate to say he's right, but he is - but where is elite 4 thats what everyone really wants to know an why so long?

Dr Mike how many games have you made, any? any AAA titles?

How many have you made m?

Braben is right about schools but not about universities.

ICT in schools is dross. It is almost a disgrace and it is no wonder virtually no-one continues on to do computing degrees. In fact the other subjects which would be ideal in a career in the games industry (maths and physics) are disliked a school level, which doesn't help. If the popularity of technical subjects was boosted at school level, this problem would disappear in 5-10 years. There is no reason a programming language shouldn't be taught as a second language. We learn French, so why not learn Python? The society in which everyone is taught to read and write is the society in which anyone can write a book, post a blog article or contribute to a discussion. Imagine the world where everyone can code. Imagine how much better Linux would be if everyone could add to it rather than just the dedicated 0.01% of the population!

However, the comments about universities are out of order. Dr Reddy is correct in his statement that there is a responsibility for employers to provide ongoing training. Look at all the big technology companies and banks: they don't expect graduates to turn up on Day 1 and understand their internal processes and technologies. They provide graduate schemes which structure the graduate's development and inception into the company.

Games companies cannot ignore this as an important part of the process. The fact that they do is the _reason_ they get insufficient numbers of quality graduates. Do you really think there are zero good graduates? Or is it more likely that the graduates with first and upper second class degrees will consider that if they are going to be worked into the ground, burned out by 30 and treated like the muck on the bottom of someone's shoe, they might as well do it for the company offering £40k a year and a graduate training scheme, rather than the one paying £18k per annum and telling you "it's ok because we love games, right?"

If games companies want the best graduates, they will have to compete for them. As it is, they often rely too heavily on their employee's passion for games, and if that's the main motivator for applying for the job you will not necessarily get the best talent.

Rikki you don't think I would of said that if I had not? I've worked on 9 published games 4 of which were AAA titles

I certainly wouldn't take his 'warning' seriously to be honest, and I wouldn't be too worried about his comments against University courses. It's not like the guy's done much in the last 25 years since Elite - certainly nothing AAA.

ICT in Europe is moronic.
(Middle school, before university:
age: 12 to 16 let's say )
Students barely know what a bit is but do they know how to make a word having another color in WordTM. It's ridiculous, most courses don't teach you about the components and what their role is in the system on a clear, concise, understandable and correct way. (All of these requirements aren't very difficult.)
Schools should do a programming course and more purpose driven where students get pieces of programs and some theory. Then get a nice exercise that let's them combine those pieces cleverly. Using computers, to do a lot of calculations without doing them themselves, should make the people who are interested in that kind of thing knowledgeable about ICT.
And others value the importance of someone who does it.

As an indie games developer with a BSc Computing degree (2:1) I can safely say that for AAA games the producers/studios are really looking for someone who has a degree in Physics and Masters in Computing Science.

I agree that if programming courses were from the fun games side as opposed to dry programming then it could really enhance the UK's games industry, eventually!