EA Donates Millions to USC

March 22, 2004 - Electronic Arts announced today that it has made a multi-million dollar donation to the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television (USC-CVTV). The gift will fund two new facets of the Division of Interactive Media at USC-CVTV: the Electronic Arts Interactive Entertainment Program, a three-year Master of Fine Arts degree program, and the Electronic Arts Endowed Faculty Chair.


"The School's rich storytelling tradition and long-standing commitment to technological experimentation make it an ideal partner for EA," said Don Mattrick, President, Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. "This is an excellent opportunity for EA to invest in the future of the industry by providing today's students with the skills and knowledge they will need to push technology and entertainment forward."

Mattrick has become the newest appointee to the School's Board of Councilors, which includes such illustrious names as Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Wells, and Robert Zemeckis.

Both the new Interactive Entertainment Program and the Endowed Faculty Chair are intended to foster a rich educational program in game development. A full curriculum, research lab, and faculty will support the new program, and marks a significant step in the video game industry's increasing relevance to academia and professional preparatory study.

"It's astonishing how quickly games have become an essential part of the entertainment arts, and there is no better place than USC to nurture the creative and conceptual thinkers who will take the medium to places we can only imagine," said USC alumnus George Lucas, a longtime supporter of the School of Cinema-Television. "USC is a major force in cinema education, and thanks to Electronic Arts, it can become a leader in interactive arts education as well."

However much Electronic Arts may be put under critical scrutiny given its massive size in the industry, the company's gift to USC represents massive financial resources being put to good use, benefiting not only future potential EA employees, but the games industry as a whole.

Now thats cool!! I never got credit for playing games in collge.

 

Damn, that is awesome!

 

Cool! My son is getting into Cinematography, he wants to do a documentary on my liver transplant and his donating a piece of his.

 

wow... I wonder why USC over Stanford which is like 15 mins away from their headquarters

 

cuz standford is for rich kids. rich kids dont wanna make games. they just want their degree n takes over daddy/mommy's business after

 

There's several schools around the US that offer classes in game design. A lot of the focus is behind art and programming. The schools that I've checked out don't offer anything for actual game design. For those that are interested...

There's really three different departments that are involved in creating a game -

1. Programming
2. Art
3. Design

There's also a production team that involves managing the product (Producers, Assoc. Producers, Project Managers, etc.)

The programmers create the engine (or build off an existing one). The artists create the art for the actual game and the designers create the storylines and characters that everyone sees and plays in the game. From what I've seen, it's harder to get a job in the industry as a game designer than it is to get in as a artist or a programmer.

 

and its different for USC?

Actually from what I've heard of Stanfor biz school ... they are actually more in line with looking for slightly different people from the "normal" set of biz people... they want people who might become CEO's as opposed to a biz analyst or a normal excel jockey. They want leaders, not someone just furthering their career

 

I made a living as a game designer in the early 80's. I did a lot more than that for the company but game design and testing was a big part of it. Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years.

 

I believe what this signifies is that a company like EA has finally matured the game industry to the point of legitimacy through formal education.... definitely a good step.. besides... schools(even the private ones like USC) could use the help. You can't make a bad contribution to a accredited school.

 

I think FullSail was one of the first schools to actually offer a "game programmer" major (or something like that) of course it's not as accredited as the other...