March 30, 2010
Library Gaming Night 2010
Curious about what it's like to work in the video game industry? Come to library Gaming Career Night 2010, where artists, programmers, writers, IT managers, music composers, and others from local game company Volition, Inc. will answer student questions about what it takes to succeed in the industry. Art students, game designers, and others are invited to bring in their portfolios to be reviewed/critiqued by Volition staff, and all Volition attendees will be available for 1-on-1 and small group discussion on networking tips, academic advice, and job seeking tips.
The event takes place on Thursday, April 8 th from 7-10pm in room 291 of the Undergraduate Library.
For more information, contact David Ward (dh-ward@illinois.edu)
Check out our guide to gaming industry careers (including job descriptions, job hunting websites, and various insider tips) at: http://uiuc.libguides.com/gamingcareers
Posted by undergrad at 10:07 AM | TrackBack
March 7, 2010
Top 50 Undergrad Game Design Programs
The Princeton Review and GamePro released a list of the top 50 Undergraduate Game Design programs.
Illinois schools making the list include:
University of Illinois at Chicago
Lewis University
North Central College
See the full list here: http://www.princetonreview.com/top-fifty-undergraduate-game-design.aspx
Posted by undergrad at 7:14 PM | TrackBack
March 5, 2010
Predicting video game performance through brain structure
A multi-institutional research team (including Arthur Kramer, a professor of Psychology at the Beckman Institute) examined three areas of the brain to determine if their size was related to video game ability. Their article (published in the journal Cerebral Cortex) found that that players who had more developed brain structures in one or more of these areas performed better in various measures of game skill, related to which area was more developed.
Results of the study inform "how the brain works when learning a complex task," according to lead author Kirk Erikson.
Read more in Inside Illinois http://news.illinois.edu/news/10/0120gamers.html.
The paper, "Striatal Volume Predicts Level of Video Game Skill Acquisition" (published online January 20th, 2010) is also posted on the Inside Illinois site:
http://news.illinois.edu/WebsandThumbs/Kramer,Art/01_10bhp293.pdf or from the Cerebral Cortex site: http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/bhp293v1
