VANCOUVER, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Since the beginning of the spring semester, six students from five different high schools and two school districts have been learning game design and game programming at the Washington headquarters of GG|Interactive, an industry game developer. The students are learning computer science, a high-paying and in-demand skill set that is currently taught in only a small percentage of schools. Each student will spend 80 hours at the office while earning credit towards graduation.
GG|Interactive’s game development curriculum, named Dev|Pro, is the primary reason for teaching computer science out of the downtown Vancouver facility. Game developers regularly test their games with focus groups prior to releasing a game, and the intern program at GG|Interactive is patterned after that process. “It doesn’t seem like that long ago since I was in high school,” says Geoff Beckstrom, Program Manager at GG|Interactive, “but a lot has changed. We need the input and feedback directly from today’s students.”
Two years ago, GG|Interactive assisted the state of Nevada in forming a curriculum framework for game development. “This started as a community project,” says Eric Preisz, CEO of GG|Interactive. “We were asked to provide industry oversight and to be subject matter experts on the topic of game development and computer science. After we finished the framework, we realized there was a bigger need.”
The company offers a free game design course and a programming course. They have over 45,000 students registered to start the program over the next year.
GG|Interactive is a subsidiary of GarageGames, a video game studio with over 14 years’ experience in games and technology. GarageGames has developed video games for Microsoft’s Xbox game systems, educational games for online colleges, technology for world-class amusement parks, and is the creator of the Torque game engines, boasting over 170,000 registered developers. For more information, you can e-mail GG|Interactive at education@gginteractive.com.
