2023-08-29 01:52:57
The video game industry has never stopped evolving, but at the moment it is doing so in such a way that according to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022-26 report, in 2026 said growth will reach a value of 321,000 million dollars, exceeding projected earnings for the film and music industry combined.
And it is that although it is true that this type of entertainment summons almost 3,000 million players in the world, of which 234 million are in Latin America, it is also true that they are not the only ones who are impacted, because the sector is so powerful that it has the ability to transcend into other professions such as music, writing, illustration, engineering and production.
For this reason, if 20 years ago, nobody remembers a university degree related to or focused on videogames in Medellín, today institutions such as Polygonus, Eafit, Cesde, UPB, UdeA, the National University, just to name a few, are offering them, as well as offer workshops, techniques, courses, specializations and even master’s degrees.
This is due, as explained by Christian Díaz León, a professor at the Eafit School of Arts and Humanities, to the fact that there was a cultural change. “The generations that were born playing are now at an average age between 30 and 40 years old, and that does two things. First, that the population that plays video games is much larger. And second, to increase interest in the subject and demand in areas such as education, why? Because many of those people who were born playing video games wanted to focus their professional lives on the sector”.
Added to this cultural change that he mentions is that today the myth that video games are just entertainment is very broken, and this has changed the dynamics of perception on the subject, diversifying its themes, its mechanics, its uses and that extend to business sectors or basic or secondary education, for example. “But in itself, if there had not been a prior demand, the universities would not have said: well, we are going to take undergraduate programs that focus on teaching young people to recognize the design, development, and evaluation of video games,” he points out. Diaz.
And if there is such a broad market, the increase in the educational offer is not surprising, since education is responsible for the training and generation of human talent capacities, which can respond to the industry, or at least it is so. Robert Restrepo Betancur, academic director of Cesde, conceives, who adds that the growing advances in technology around the world have allowed the game to be complemented with it, giving as a response an entire experience and an industry mediated by video games, and an implementation in the basic exercise of communication and entertainment.
In addition, he mentions that “according to ProColombia, there are opportunities for the country on the world stage, since, according to Newzoo, the video game industry had a value of 178.730 million dollars in 2021, which represents an increase of 14, 4% compared to 2020, and for what this industry is expected to have a value of 268,000 million dollars by 2025 at the national level, which at this time has even begun to export services in this sector to the United States, Chile, Ecuador and Romania”.
The truth is that if before those interested in making videogames had to be trained empirically, looking for information on what was done abroad, drawing on the few books that came to the city on the subject, or sticking to the subjects offered by certain undergraduates and that they could serve that purpose; Today those dynamics have changed.
On the one hand, there is the democratization of information that the Internet means, and on the other, there are the multiple academic programs that are offered, such as: Job Technician as Video Game Development Assistant (Cesde), Virtual Reality and Video Games, and Video Game Programming ( Eafit), Engineering in digital entertainment design with an emphasis on animation in visual experiences and video games (UPB), Digital art for film and video games (Academy by Polygonus), among many others.
And what do the young people learn? It depends on each institution and the orientation they have.
For example, every student who enters Cesde, Restrepo comments, “enters the only institution in the city that offers this program under the technical labor modality that is highly focused on learning by doing. Then, the student learns and acquires the necessary skills to perform as an artist and/or programmer in the development of interactive experiences and videogames, especially in techniques related to design parameters, development, structural components (video and sound) and images for virtual and augmented reality environments, mobile devices and interactive experiences”.
While people who enter Eafit, “will learn to introduce the design and development of interactive graphic applications, mixed reality and video games from a practical context to be applied in different areas of entertainment, education and advertising, among others. ”.
Thus, the grosso modo panorama of video game education in Medellín, it is worth mentioning that the panorama of the video game industry in the country, as mentioned by Díaz, is made up of about 80 companies, which are mainly concentrated in Bogotá , Medellín and Cali, and additionally there are 10 companies with commercial relations with international publishers.
“All these companies develop videogames on different platforms and with different technologies and have stood out for having a high level of production of their own new IPs, their artistic quality, mechanics, history and music, so of course, the students are going to have job alternatives once they graduate,” he concludes.
TO KNOW MORE
Yes there are educational opportunities
The recently emerged Employment Center for the Digital Industry Comfama, with the purpose of accelerating the development of the labor market in the digital industry, through key elements of work with the business sector and training in technological skills such as: data science, artificial intelligence, software development, IOT, development of video games, digital art, among others; in order to respond to the growing demand for digital human talent.
And for its first call, open from August 8 to 31, it will offer two training programs in partnership with Cesde and Academy by Polygonus: Digital Art Program for Cinema and Videogames and Videogame Development Program, in which, students will gain enough skills to excel in an increasingly competitive work environment.
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