Situational Analysis 5 - Grab Bag

It seems that I always find myself wanting to accomplish more when I should finish the food on my plate first.  Though every aspect of my professional career is excellent along with my personal life, it seems as though I am doing things to catch up with what is personal and maybe dear to me using my professional revenue to accomplish this.  I am attempting to open more classes in my ROP Center that I feel would be cool rather than necessary for students that might be frustrated as I was in high school.  In my own high school experience, no one offered me what I really like to do which is goof around with computers.  To do things with computers that are not the "norm", use them as a tool for other than work.  Two classes in the works are a printer repair and a gaming class.  I will concentrate on the gaming class as printer repair is but a good idea already rather than awkward silence when I mention the gaming class.  Where is it?

This absence can be explainable through a variety of reasons.  Is it certain snobbery within whether computer game design has enough academic or intellectual content. Or the associated with gaming is assumed does not represent the most noble aspects of human civilization worthy of extended study, and instead part of the faddish associated with transient popular culture. Even more than other forms of entertainment, such as movies, television, and music, the study of gaming seems to have no place at all in the liberal arts. While courses on computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and the like are present in every major computer science program, even a single course specifically covering computer game design is usually notably absent. Although a student might choose to program a computer game for a course, there is no official recognition that this focus was, in itself, worthy of academic credit.  Two pressing needs remain largely unfulfilled: to give students an understanding of the technical aspects of game programming, and to give designers an understanding of the social impact games have on those who play them. Traditionally, game designers have gained their savvy through unusual paths, often laboriously learning through trial-and-error how to formulate and implement a great product, or alternatively hacking into the code of their favorite offerings to discover the secrets of programming electronic entertainment. Those who loved this form of digital recreation had no university-level degree program tailored to their passion.

Just as students go to university-sponsored creative writing programs to prepare to author books, video production programs to prepare to create movies, and music programs to prepare to be concert performers, society should accept that they also should go to game development programs to prepare to be professional designers of digital recreation. The implications are readily apparent. First, our recreational addiction is indeed entering the mainstream (billion dollar industry). Second, in the future, more of us may be able use formal education to turn this hobby into a paying profession. Third, for those who like not only to play but also to program games, they no longer have to teach themselves what they need to know or learn by the seat-of-their-pants. Fourth, college suddenly sounds a lot more fun. Fifth, game companies may be learning to augment their strength through profitable relationships with programs like these.

Are there downsides to this new development?   Is the spread of the study of this topic to trigger a new groundswell from those who find it totally unworthy of sustained analysis?