专访505Games亚太区副总裁Thomas Rosenthal：一所专门培养游戏人才的大学是什么样的？(9)

Geoff Davis： Our students come from very diverse backgrounds and fields of study. Most of them are new to game development and have never had any formal training. To give you an idea of their profile, the average age of our students is 26 years old with at least a high school degree (this is the minimum requirement to apply for one of our courses). However, we also have students in the 30 – 40 age bracket with a university degree or a doctorate in computer science, physics, philosophy, political science, etc. who want to specialize in video games development. Some of them have families and decide to leave a stable job to pursue their passion and dream to become a professional in the industry.

What is incredibly special is the students’ drive and motivation. It’s tangible and you see it grow and flourish during the program. They all have a strong conviction to transform their passion into something concrete, something that is a real life-changer.

Q：What kind of students are mainly enrolled in the academy? Are there any limits such as territories or nationality? What are the requirements to join the academy?

Geoff Davis： Currently, we are running our programs in Italy but we are planning our international launch early next year.

The DBGA Campus courses are in Italian, while the DBGA Online Blended programs are in English. Our online programs are open to all nationalities.

We are developing more and more content in English. W believe it’s important to train our students not only in the technical aspects of game development, but also help them hone their English skills. We are in a global environment and in an industry that runs in the English language. If you’re not a native English speaker or have only taken English at a scholastic level, you probably need to sharpen your professional English and we want to help our students do that so they can communicate and work effectively.

We have a selection process to help us identify budding talent. This is composed of a questionnaire with various questions about their education; work experience; languages; etc.motivational letters, a personal interview and, if possible, a portfolio of their work. Our selection committee reviews each candidate and we collectively discuss and decide who gets accepted.

Q：What is the current size of the faculty? Could you give us some examples of instructors in the academy?

Geoff Davis： We have three types of training faculty. Core Trainers are the main contact point for students and hold the majority of the lessons, Specialist Trainers lead vertical modules within each course and Guest Trainers give lectures on a wide variety of topics and hold workshops.