Heather sent me this link to Encarta where you can read about getting a video game education. Now THAT’S a career … here’s a clip:

Attention Xbox junkies: You might be able to justify spending hours perfecting your gaming techniques instead of pitching in with the household chores. You might even say you’re just doing your job. At least that’s the case for the many professionals in the high-scoring gaming industry. According to the NPD Group, a New York-based market research firm, video game retail sales reached $9.9 billion in 2004, roughly $0.5 billion more than the movie industry took in during the same year. As a result, increased demand for talented game designers has prompted colleges and universities to add game design majors and coursework to their curricula.

“Video game development is not a one-man project anymore,” says Mark Baldwin, who has taught game design development at Westwood College Online [an MSN Encarta advertiser] and the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona. “Now there are huge teams, and all the implications of that,” he says, likening game production to the filmmaking industry (“the budgets are similar”). In fact, a glance at a typical game’s credits shows that dozens of people are involved in conceiving, creating, producing, and delivering a finished game to the market.

“The game industry is a sexy industry, the same way the movie industry is sexy,” Baldwin says. “Because of that, there are a huge number of people trying to get in. You have to do everything you can to compete.”

JG