Universities blamed for games industry skills crisis

A skills shortage in the video games industry could mean game over for developers in the UK, a campaign group is warning.

Difficulty sourcing talent is a regular complaint of the UK tech industry - just last week a leading academic warned the IT industry is 'going to hell' as computing student numbers continue to drop year-on-year and the resulting calibre of grads declines.

And it would seem the video games industry is no exception.

Industry lobby group 'Games Up?' says UK developers can't get the staff as dedicated video games courses are failing to equip university grads with the right skills for the workplace.

Of the 81 courses on offer in the UK, only four are accredited by government body Skillset, according to the group. And it claims many courses do not offer the kind of depth of focus the industry needs.

The problem is being exacerbated by the increasing popularity of gaming, moving away from geek pastime to mainstream entertainment option, which is driving industry growth and demand for staff.

But one games industry insider told silicon.com the industry's problems should not be blamed on universities - not least because dedicated games development courses are a relatively new invention.

He said: "Anyone that's over 28 or so hasn't really come through that education path. They've taught themselves, they've been on courses that aren't necessarily video game courses - they may be maths or engineering or more general purpose software engineering."

Many of the current crop of games industry employees learnt to create programs by getting creative with the home computers of the 1980s and 1990s - hardware such as the Atari ST and Sinclair Spectrum - so the rise of plug-and-play games consoles is likely to have contributed to the partial demise of 'bedroom coder culture'.

The games expert said the difference is that previously people would have to learn everything about every aspect of a machine, including hardware and software "whereas now people don't really understand all those basics; they don't really know what's going on under the hood… That's where the real discrepancy comes."

He added: "The industry's aging. The older people are sort of staying with it. It used to be all 20-year-olds or whatever but now it's a lot of people in their late 30s."

But he warned: "Because the US economy is depressed it's cheaper to develop there and people are looking at other places - everyone's setting up studios in Shanghai and Eastern Europe at the moment."