62% of parents believe games offer a good career for children
Livingstone reveals early findings of NESTA and Skillset review
Eidos life president Ian Livingstone has teased some of the findings of the independent Skills Review that he's leading for the government, NESTA and SkillSet, with a goal to transforming the UK into the best source of talent for the videogame and visual effects sector.
Revealing findings at the London Games Conference this evening, Livingstone showed early encouraging results about parent's belief that the games industry offers strong career opportunities for their children.
Specifically, 62 per cent of 918 parents polled by IPSOS MORI thought working in the videogame industry was a good career for a young person.
But looking at knowledge of some of the most popular videogame franchises, only 3 per cent of 537 young people polled knew that Grand Theft Auto, LEGO: Star Wars and SingStar games were made in the UK, while 12 per cent of parents knew where the blockbuster games originated from.
Livingstone also thanked the 250 games companies that have assisted the review so far, and was upbeat about the findings, to be revealed fully early next year.
"The response has been incredible," he said. "Over 250 computer and videogames companies have responded to the employers survey. That's brilliant, it shows that skills really is a genuine concern for us all.
"It's really important for the UK that we do focus on our UK talent. It's imperative that we produce the best talent in the world, the best studios, the best content. We must put an end to the current situation where young people invest their time and money into university courses that fail to provide them with the skills they need to find a good job in the industry."
Edited 1 times. Last edit by afawerfsfr3 fsdafsdfwef on 5th November 2010 7:21am
You also get the hand wringing, Daily Fail reading, pilates and yoga crowd who believe that something as "common" as making games isn't nearly good enough for their little darlings who will undoubtedly end up as doctors or lawyers or something (in their minds anyway).
67% is a good number, not to be sniffed at.
*(It won't, but we can hope can't we?!)
Battered wife syndrome? :)
Firstly, enjoying playing a game is vastly different from enjoying making one. Although obvious I think some parents assume that it must be easy, particularly as games are so much fun to play.
If you're unlucky being in the process of making some games may kill your love of gaming forever.
The natural 'ebb and flow' of project headcount has to be a concern, as your son or daughter may be potentially looking for a new project or new job every year, and some parents no doubt are expecting a job for life, like they had.
If the kids aren't excellent at programming, art, testing, design or managing (or more often, all of these) then they probably won't be as successful as they as they first thought. Theres nothing wrong with working through an alternative path, though, its just that parents probably want their children to be instantly a technical director. Theres a lot of competition for the good roles - this is good though as it drives productivity, initiative and ingenuity - parents can assume that their kids won't work 9-5 though in these careers.
Game development has been, and is getting more, technical. The complexities of tools and the hardware - and the rate at which the tools change - may mean that some university grads, (including some gaming specific grads), are not suitably prepared. The beautiful, easy to play games are great at masking this from your average grandma (by design?).
Parents will probably say, that if you're going to be in IT, then get yourself a job in banking software. Then you can buy every game...
IMO.
For the record, when I told my dad I wanted to go into the industry, he just bought me an Xbox and told me that I have to get him tickets to BlizzCon if I ever work for Blizzard.