By Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent, BBC News
The games industry says British universities are failing to equip graduates with the skills it needs.
The warning comes from the industry campaign group "Games Up?", which says games developers in Britain are facing a serious skills shortage. The lobby group says there are now 81 video games degree courses at British universities. But only four are accredited by Skillset, the government body which monitors such courses.
Demanding course
David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments and a spokesman for "Games Up?", said: "95% of video gaming degrees are simply not fit for purpose. Without some sort of common standard, like Skillset accreditation, these degrees are a waste of time for all concerned."
The warning came as executives from across Europe's games industry gathered for the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead. The North East of England is one of the centres of a games industry whose activities are spread widely across the UK. At Northumbria University, which offers a degree course in Computer Games Engineering, staff say that prospective students are often put off by the requirement for Maths A-Level. Dan Hodgson, who is the course leader, says the games industry is very demanding and the university makes that clear to aspiring students.
"We do have people who don't have the right mindset. We consistently tell them that this is one of the hardest courses we offer at this university. It's certainly not for the sort of people who want to laze around and play games for three years."
Death of maths
The games developers say that they are struggling to find in the UK the kind of high-powered mathematicians and computer scientists that they need to build increasingly sophisticated products. "We are facing a serious decline in the quality of graduates looking to enter the industry," said David Braben. "The death of maths, physics and computer science graduates is hitting us hard."
Jamie Macdonald, of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said there was a need for Centres of Excellence which would prepare graduates to compete for jobs in the industry. "We want to work with government to help equip our graduates with the skills they need to thrive in one of the most dynamic and profitable industries in the world.
Britain has been one of the leading nations for games development but slipped from third to fourth position behind Canada in 2006. The games industry claims that Canadian government support has allowed it to flourish, and thousands of jobs are moving from Britain to Canada.
