Familiarising with the game development industry

Twenty school counsellors from secondary schools across Malacca took part in the Secondary School Counsellors Industry Awareness Event recently.
The event, part of MyGameDev, an Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) initiative led by KDU University College, is aimed at creating awareness about opportunities within the game development industry. The objective also is to build skilled talents within the fast-growing economic sphere in Malaysia.
Held in collaboration with Universiti Teknikal Melaka (UTeM), the event saw the counsellors getting to familiarise themselves with the industry so they could coach their students on turning their favourite pastime into a rewarding long-term career.
Their first stop was Codemasters Studios Malaysia, the producer of popular first-person racing game, F1 2013. Among the oldest of British video game developer companies, the studio is considered Europe’s largest independent games company, with nearly 700 employees worldwide.
Technical art trainer Ivon Smith and head of business Nicholas Shariff Collins gave the counsellors and lecturers a guided tour around Codemasters’ facilities.
“In four decades, the games industry has grown tenfold to a US$70 billion industry globally,” explained Smith.
“Young people aspiring to carve a career out of games development would need industry-oriented education and training. Parents, career counsellors and school teachers need to know there is a wide variety of technical and artistic career pathways within the industry,” he added.
Secondary school students in Malacca also had the chance to join in the action. Thirteen secondary schools participated in the two-day game design competition, Tabletop 2014 at UTeM’s Faculty of Information and Communication Technology.
The competition required participants to create a fun and innovative table-top game based on a medical theme. They were required to figure out the rules and design a sample of the board game and its relevant pieces. Their creations were then presented to a panel of judges from the industry.
One of the judges, Richard Sun of Wigu Games, said board games are one of the earliest forms of game development—and digital game design utilises the same design principles found in board games.
Sun was encouraged by the students who came up with fresh ideas. “Many of them have the potential to excel in game development,” he said.

The winning team of the competition was from SMJK Katholik Melaka. Team member Teh Yen Pin said, “We learned a lot from this competition. I didn’t know there were so many people and companies in game development within Malaysia. This definitely opens my eyes to the opportunities of this exciting industry. Hopefully, we can build on this board game and make it into an electronic game.”