The first students will graduate this year as part of Murdoch University’s bold plan to create a computer science-games centre of excellence as a precursor to establishing a world-class cyber industry in Perth.
Graduates will emerge after three years’ study from the university’s School of IT with a bachelor of science degree with a major in games technology.
The degree is the first of its type offered in Australia and will help them cash in on a booming international games industry worth more than $10 billion a year in North America.
And Professor Arnold Depickere, executive dean of Murdoch’s division of arts, is already in discussions with Asian educational institutions to take the degree overseas.
This will involve either Asian students coming to Perth, lecturers travelling to Asia, or both.
The new degree is part of Professor Depickere’s desire to create international job potential for Murdoch’s graduates. It also provides additional revenue flow for the university.
He concedes centre of excellence status for Murdoch is at least five years away and Perth’s growth as a computer games industry centre is even further out. But the School of IT recently scored a major coup by securing the prestigious international Cyber Games conference and expo to be hosted at Murdoch University in December 2006.
“It’s a good start,” Professor Depickere told WA Business News.
During the past 20 years the computer games industry has grown into a major part of the IT and media sectors, with increasing crossovers into other businesses, such as the multi billion dollar movie industry, where games-born computer graphics are now a feature of many modern productions.
From consumer hardware such as PCs and mobile phones, and specialised gaming hardware like Xbox and Playstation, the games industry is expanding across different platforms and media types, including digital applications.
The simplistic view of a degree for three years of playing games is not lost on Professor Depickere. However, he said the reality was steeped in basic mathematics, physics and computer sciences, involving research into such areas as artificial intelligence, networking, graphics, simulation and modeling, natural language processing, operating systems design and virtual reality.
Games technology can also be applied to education, training, health, defence and engineering.
“The cross business ramifications for these disciplines is enormous and growing,” Professor Depickere said.
