Kotaku: College

Humans vs. Zombies Nerf Shootout Triggers Campus-Wide Alert

Owen S. Good | Technician — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:30:00 EST

I'd love to see the paperwork at N.C. State public safety after a Nerf-war staging of the popular "Humans vs. Zombies" tag game resulted in an emergency alert of gunmen roaming the campus. "Cause of disturbance: Zombie Apocalypse"? More »

EA Sports Seeks Ex-Football Players for Games Development Fellowship

Owen Good — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:30:00 EDT

EA Sports, in collaboration with NCAA Football, will this winter begin offering paid fellowships to former college football players seeking experience in a games development or sports entertainment career. The players will work in the EA Tiburon studio, where the NCAA Football and Madden series are developed. More »

Stay In School, Buy a Windows PC, and Get a Free Xbox 360

Mike Fahey — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Microsoft wants U.S. high school, college, and university students to be productive, but not too productive. That's why they're giving away a free 4GB Xbox 360 to students purchasing a Windows 7 PC priced at $699 or higher. More »

Some College Kids Get to Play Portal for Class Credit

Joel Johnson — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:40:00 EDT

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"Enduring Questions" is a mandatory class for freshmen at Wabash College. The syllabus? Gilgamesh, Aristotle, Goffman, Donne…and Portal. That's because it's taught by Michael "Brainy Gamer" Abbot, profiled in this piece by Patrick Klepek that's certainly worth reading on Giant Bomb. More »

More Than 250 Colleges Ask for the Crysis 2 Engine

Owen Good — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EDT

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For about a year, Crytek has offered universities a free license to its CryEngine 3, the guts of this month's big release, Crysis 2. Since it made the offer more than 250 universities have asked for the code, the studio reports. More »

College Is Not A Hotbed Of Lesbian Experimentation

Anna North — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:20:00 EDT

The stereotype of the LUG (lesbian until graduation) takes a big hit this week, with news that women without high school diplomas are actually more likely to have had a same-sex experience than college-educated women. [Jezebel] More »

The Best Game Design Schools In North America

Mike Fahey — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:00:00 EST

Looking to embark on a wondrous career in game design? GamePro Media and The Princeton Review have teamed up for a second year to list the 10 best graduate and undergraduate schools for video game design in North America. More »

When Spartans Die, They Go Here

Stephen Totilo — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:00:00 EST

College Humor's latest animated short makes me feel a little less bad about all the times I get killed in Halo. I'm just letting my Spartan see the Spartan afterlife. It's intentional. More »

Back To School In The Mushroom Kingdom

Owen Good — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:30:00 EDT

Mural on the side of a student union building at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio, seen by reader Pat K. Two more views of the mural on the jump. More »

U. of Florida Adds Starcraft Studies

Owen Good — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:30:00 EDT

Starcraft is being used to teach resource management skills in a new course offering at the University of Florida - but it's only open to students in the honors college, and students have to have some familiarity with the game. More »

A College Prank That Strikes Back

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:00:00 EDT

Carleton College's Goodsell Observatory gets pranked. As seen on The Star Wars Blog via Albotas. More »

College Parties These Days Are Like This?

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EDT

As seen on UK:R. More »

Well, You Always Need an Extra Button

Owen Good — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST

Billboard for Southern Polytechnic State University of Marietta, Ga., as seen by reader Ant just outside that city. The school, however, is not one of the top 50 game design programs recently ranked by the Princeton Review. More »

Top Game Design Schools Ranked

Owen Good — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:30:00 EST

The Princeton Review, most commonly known for its rankings of top party schools and other quality-of-life ratings of colleges, has compiled a list of the 50 best undergraduate schools for video game design, ranking the top eight in order. More »

NCAA Basketball 10 Review: Some Shining Moments

Owen Good — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

As the year's last title in North America's major team sports, NCAA Basketball 10 faces why-buy questions that NCAA Football and NBA Live just don't. This year EA Canada seeks to answer them with two networks broadcasting from your living room. More »

Penny Arcade Awards $10K College Scholarship

Brian Crecente — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:40:00 EST

Video game design hopeful Kyla Gorman was awarded the 2009 Penny Arcade Scholarship, which she says she plans to use to pursue a degree in game design at the University of Southern California. More »

Libraries Got Game

Brian Crecente — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:00:00 EDT

There are, perhaps, few more disconsonant scenes than of the austere silence of the library and the boisterous play of video games, but a growing movement is starting to put the two under one roof. More »

So You Wanna Be a Developer ...

Maggie Greene — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:30:00 EST

Dave Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, sat down with Valve's Gabe Newell to talk about how to shoehorn your way into the industry — and what's the industry going to look like in a few years, anyways? Are game degrees a waste of time? Is specialization going to be the name of the game, as in film ? And how can you avoid shooting yourself in the foot when trying to get said foot in the door? On specialization, Newell had this to say:

DP: Let's look several years into the future for a moment. Should I even bother learning today's skills? Surely they'll have completely changed by the time I get out of college? What kinds of jobs are absolutely 'rock-solid', and will undoubtedly still be around five to 10 years from now? And what new jobs do you think might exist that nobody has quite pinned down just yet? GN: Specialization and hierarchy are the norms in film production, and are antithetical to what needs to happen in the games industry. The reason for that distinction is that the game industry is more focused on invention than on repeatability/measurability. Programmers that can draw are going to be in much better shape than an animator specializing in putting talking mouths on cats. The solutions of tomorrow are not going to fall into the production or organizational categories of today.

It's a quick read and has some worthy tidbits if you're aiming for a development career. Valve's Gabe Newell on Becoming a Game Developer [GameCareerGuide] More »

IGF Student Showcase: Entries Now Up

Maggie Greene — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:30:03 EDT

In case you've had a hard time keeping up with all the hubbub of the Independent Games Festival '08, the 125 entries for the student category of the competition are up. Just like the big IGF competition, there look to be a wide variety of games: good games, bad games, weird games, standard games (no red fish or blue fish, sadly). It's a truly international competition, with entries from all over the place - and some of the games appear to be quite polished and relatively sophisticated, which makes me wonder why they aren't in the 'big boy' competition instead. You can check out all the entries over at the IGF Student Competition website. More »

Game In College, Have Poor Time Management, Watch Grades Drop

Maggie Greene — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:30:04 EDT

While I'm all for the academic study of gaming, a lot of the 'scientific' studies just kill me - if you spend too much time [insert time waster of your choice here] in college, your grades could drop? Really? And people actually get funding for this kind of stuff? The paper is being published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and was conducted at Berea College, where certain conditions meant that typical college time wasters weren't present. Video games, however, were - and they found that people who brought along video games to college (or had roommates who did) spent less time studying (and had a lower GPA) than people who didn't: More »

College Bookstore Pushing WoW on Innocents

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:00:21 EDT

University is hard. You must study and learn. Instead of just selling things like books that help students do that, this unnamed college has filled its display case with World of Warcraft. What's next? Bongs, obviously. Brian Ashcraft More »

Snicker-Inducing Pac-Man College Prank

Brian Ashcraft — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:23:34 EDT

A couple jokers thought it would be funny (they were right) if they raced through the university in Pac-Man costumes. And they even have "waka-waka" noises and screaming! That's book-readin', learned college smarts, right there. Brian Ashcraft More »

College Student Plays Four Ancient Games, Diagnoses Racism

egauger — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:20:16 EDT

Canadian researcher Rob Parungao claims he spent 100 hours playing Shadow Warrior, Warcraft III, GTA III and Kung Fu over an 8-month "research period" and then published a paper on the racial stereotyping within. Jesus christ, could you take a worse sample? More »

Game School's Final, Horrible Exam

egauger — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:20:43 EDT

Deprived of a rich gaming background by overprotective parents? Can't keep up with the witty banter at your local network gaming establishment (do these even exist anymore?)? Keep embarassing yourself in front of friends and relatives when asked to make speeches at Zaxxon-themed bar mitzvahs? More »

Large Nintendo Float Invades Sweden

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:21:25 EDT

Swedish Kotakuite Anders sends these photos of the 2006 carnival at Lund University. The giant NES float is called "Nintander", which is a mix of the word "Nintendo" and the Swedish term for "teeth." (Ah, that biting Scandinavian humor.) The next carnival won't be until 2010. More pics, after the jump, will have to hold you over 'till then. Brian Ashcraft More »

University of Washington Full of Nerds, Orcs

egauger — Fri, 26 May 2006 21:40:00 EDT

The incredibly useful World of Warcraft site MapWoW.com reports that the University of Washington tops its list of college-affiliated site visitors. The post speculates that Seattle's colossal nerd population (as in: there are great numbers of them, and many of them are huge) makes this a not-unexpected result. More »

Mario Live On Stage!

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:22:32 EDT

Yet, another buncha of college kids doing a Mario send-up. This one at Gordon College in Massachusetts is pretty imaginative and gets a 1Up for a very clever "pause." More »

Acapella Super Mario Bros.

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 08:22:00 EDT

Here is UCLA's video game quartet, The Jumpmen, singing tunes from Super Mario Bros.. Fun sure, but man, I hate acapella. More »

New Gaming Center: Baton Rouge?

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:24:20 EST

Baton Rouge Community College (BRCC) is creating a new degree program in hopes of supplying the city's upstart gaming industry with a ready work-force. "This will keep young people from having to leave Louisiana," says Mayor Kip Holden. "They can stay right here in Baton Rouge, earn a good living and at the same time, be a part of a growing dynamic industry." More »

Nintendo Wants to School You

kotaku.com — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:40:00 EST

Have you ever thought you could design the next Pokemon Channel, Kirby Air Ride, or — dare you dream? — Gotcha Force? Well, it's time to head back to college to finish that degree, because Gamasutra reports that Nintendo and Freescale Semiconductor are teaming up to provide console programming materials to university classes. You could be one of the lucky students to program on real GameCube hardware. More »

Final Fantasy Goes to College

Brian Ashcraft — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:23:21 EST

Frat boy fav CollegeHumor.com has a live action version of Final Fantasy. That is, if Final Fantasy starred polo-shirt wearing undergrads. It looks like these guys put a ton of work into the vid. Sure beats studying. More »