New NESTA survey shows parents, pupils and even teachers disregard maths, art and physics
Art and Maths studies are near-unanimously ignored by parents and pupils as vital for a career in games development, new data shows.
An IPSOS-Mori survey found that only three per cent of 11-18 year-olds recognised maths as the most important subject for a job creating games.
Six per cent of the same age group thought that Art was the most important discipline.
The data is in sharp contrast with the expectations of many prominent figures in the UK games industry.
Many veteran game developers – from Ian Livingstone to David Braben – believe that younger generations of aspiring developers lack an adequate foundation in these two subjects.
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The survey shows that parents, and even teachers, are less enlightened on what the dev sector is calling for.
Seven per cent of parents recognise Maths as the most important subject for game development, while nine per cent think Art is the most principal discipline.
Livingstone said the results “point to a worrying lack of awareness amongst young people and parents of the skills needed to get a job in our industries”.
“We will set out ways to change this situation and ensure that we have the workforce that we need to stay at the top of the global development league,” he added.
Fifteen per cent of teachers named Maths the key subject, while just nine per cent named Art.
"Even amongst teachers only 1 per cent think that physics is most important for video games,” the report, commissioned by NESTA, claimed.
"These findings justify industry concerns about a lack of awareness of the hard skills needed to succeed in these high tech industries," it added.
The study’s initial conclusions were published as part of NESTA’s ongoing review on the so-called skills-gap affecting the UK industry.
The initiative will make recommendations to Government on how the UK can improve its standing on an increasingly competitive world-stage.
So what did the rest think was most important?
That's only 9% of pupils, 16% of parents and 24% of teachers covered.
For this to be of any use we really need the full picture.
Did the rest vote for a form of 'Games Development' subject? If so, these results would be fairly sensible especially as some people would think of game development from the coder side and some from the art side.
This article seems to be addressing the answers to the question "which is the key subject for games development?", however we don't have the actual most popular answer. After all, there can only be one most important subject!
I believe the article seems to be deliberately misleading.
"only 1 per cent think that physics is most important"
I wouldn't view it as the most important subject so why should I be concerned that 99% of people opted for another subject? We are told that key subjects are disregarded, but are they really? All we know is that they weren't voted for as the most important. Perhaps if you asked for the three most important subjects, Maths & Art would have a migh higher uptake?
Also which subject IS the key subject? Can we really state that to work in games there is one key subject? Personally I feel as though the various fields require different skills. I would be concerned if people believed art to be the subject for potential programmers! The same can be applied to other subjects.
I don't get what we can take from this half-report.
The Livingstone Hope review is looking at the 'talent pipeline' from Schools onwards- and it's clear one of the 'blockages' (I won't persist with this metaphor much longer I promise)is both parental guidance of young peoples choices, and young people's awareness that there are a bedrock of subjects that the industry needs. These stats and many others show that kids, teachers, and various careers advisors in school are ill-informed (or rather, 'under-informed'). Now we have statistical evidence (and that wasn't there before), we can talk about solutions. A wider talent pipeline from schools has repercussions all the way along the line....
Hi, we have answers to all these questions in the study. In terms of which subjects young people, parents and teachers do identify as relevant, 30% of young people think ICT is the single most important subject. 44% of teachers think it is ICT. We then asked all the groups (young people, parents and teachers) what other subjects they believed were important. Even using this more expansive definition, only 17% young people mentioned Maths and 24% Art. Meanwhile, 56% of young people mention ICT. 72% of teachers mention ICT. This is worrying given what we separately know about what is taught on ICT courses at school…
Wish I learned to be a plasterer now. More money in it and better supply of work than the games industry
We have far too much of a tech focus in the game industry as it is. Programmers work should be devoted to making themselves obsolete, by developing robust tools, tools, tools that artists can use. Imagine if you were a visual artist but had to code your 2D art instead of using Photoshop? That would be insane - yet that's the mentality that tech-focussed people bring to the game industry.
GRGM: Spoken like someone who truly has no idea what they're talking about.
We have a really robust tool, called a compiler. All you need to do is make a file full of instructions and it magically converts it into a real working game.
It's that boxed in mindset that is the result of all the copy&paste games that are around today. Assuming every game is the same and we can make some drag-and-drop interface for a FPS, an RPG, a TBS. The funny thing about ideas is that sometimes they don't conform to the rules that you or I have thought about in advance.
If you're still not convinced then go and buy a copy of GameMaker. It's just what you've always dreamed of.
I studied a Maths and Physics Degree at a 'proper' university (Durham), trained as a teacher and taught for a short while in Leeds (mostly special needs kids who were never going to sit an exam, because it would ruin the new national curriculum statistics), then sort of fell into Computing via a Masters at Manchester. In all that time I built computers and played a lot of games (mostly text adventures). It never occurred to me, nor did any educator or career service suggest that I would be a perfect candidate fir the Industry, despite coding games in assembler on my trusty BBC Model B. Times haven't really changed that much. Other careers beckon, and Game Dev is still seen as a waste if talent.
