High School Game Design/NWN 2 Interview

The Escapist has published an interview with Matt Deller, a former Neverwinter Nights 2 developer that has since went on to start the first high school game design program in the US. Why wasn’t a course like this around when I was in school?

Q: Some criticism levied at game design programs is that they’re often staffed by folks with little or no actual game design experience. How do you think your program fares in this respect?

A: At this point in time, find me another high school assistant principal who also has a design credit listed for a Triple-A title and I’ll consider it valid criticism for our respective program. I suspect I won’t hold such a geek-tacular title for long though, with companies discovering new pipelines of talent from law, medicine, engineering and other fields.

Case in point: Ferret Baudoin, NWN 2’s Co-Lead Designer, dropped out of law school to make games and Obsidian Lead Designer Kevin Saunders obtained a Masters in Physics from Cornell before switching over to game design.