The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts's Interactive Media & Games Division first accepted M.F.A. students in 2002. The division currently offers both undergraduate (B.F.A.) and graduate (M.F.A. and M.S.) programs in interactive media and game design, as well as B.F.A. programs in game art and themed entertainment and an M.A. in media, games and health. The programs include courses in game design, game development, production, audio, animation, and user research as well as experimental work in gestural and immersive interfaces, transmedia design, and interactive cinema. [1]
From 2010-2015 and 2017-2022, USC was named as the number-one design program for games in North America by the Princeton Review. [2]
Major funders of the USC IMGD include Microsoft and Electronic Arts, both of which companies have endowed faculty positions in the program. [3] [4] Game industry executive Bing Gordon was the first holder of the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair in Interactive Entertainment, which is currently held by game designer Tracy Fullerton. [5] The Microsoft Endowed Professorship is held by user research pioneer Dennis Wixon. [6]
In 2012, the school announced plans for a new building to house the Interactive Media program and associated research labs, including the Game Innovation Lab. [7] In early 2013, Tracy Fullerton, the Electronic Arts Endowed Chair of Interactive Media, announced that the division, formerly known as the Interactive Media Division, was renamed the Interactive Media & Games Division to "honor the groundbreaking work in games that our faculty and students have produced in the decade since our division was formed." [8]
In 2013, alumni Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, founders of thatgamecompany were honored with multiple awards for Game of the Year, Game Direction, Innovation, and Game Design for their game Journey (2012). [9]
In 2014, students and Kellee Santiago from IMGD were recruited to participate in a reality TV game show project that ended with the "indie community ultimately deciding it didn't need to put up with this s***." according to Eurogamer. [10]
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Currently, the division is chaired by Danny Bilson, a game producer, writer and former executive. Full-time faculty and staff include Tracy Fullerton, Richard Lemarchand, Mark Bolas, Peter Brinson, Marientina Gotsis, Andreas Kratky, Sam Roberts, Sean Bouchard, Jesse Vigil, Martzi Campos, Todd Furmanski, Lucas Peterson and Timothy Lee. Adjunct faculty include Laird Malamed, Gordon Bellamy, Carl Schnurr, Heather Desurvire, Vincent Diamante, Chevon Hicks, Robert Nashak, and Scott Rogers.
Former faculty and staff include Scott Fisher – founding chair of the division, Jen Stein, Steve Anderson, Anne Balsamo, Chris Swain, Peggy Weil, Jeremy Gibson, Julian Bleecker, Michael Lew, Erik Loyer, Michael Naimark, Eddo Stern, Perry Hoberman, William Huber, Mark Essen, Akira Thompson, Michael Kontopolous, Joseph Olin, Kurosh ValaNejad, Jeff Watson, Jane Pinckard, and Dennis Wixon.
Notable alumni have include the founders of thatgamecompany, including Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago. Also, Justin Hall, Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza of The Odd Gentlemen, Asher Vollmer (Threes!), Sean Plott (Day9), Adam Sulzdorf-Liszkiewicz (RUST LTD), and Elle Schneider (developer of the Digital Bolex) attended the program.
There are also notable dropouts of the program for example the creator of Giant Sparrow
The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses eight academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television; Interactive Media & Games; Media Arts + Practice; Peter Stark Producing Program and the Expanded Animation Research + Practice Program.
William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology venture capitalist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts (EA) prior to his current partnership with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). He was a founding director of Audible.com and has served on several high-profile Boards of Directors including Amazon, Ngmoco, Duolingo, and Zynga. He designed the video games Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's SimGolf and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
Don Daglow is an American video game designer, programmer, and producer. He is best known for being the creator of early games from several different genres, including pioneering simulation game Utopia for Intellivision in 1981, role-playing game Dungeon in 1975, sports games including the first interactive computer baseball game Baseball in 1971, and the first graphical MMORPG, Neverwinter Nights in 1991. He founded long-standing game developer Stormfront Studios in 1988.
Cloud is a 2005 puzzle video game developed by a team of students in the University of Southern California's (USC) Interactive Media Program. The team began development of the game for Microsoft Windows in January 2005 with a US$20,000 grant from the USC Game Innovation Lab; the game was released as a free download that October. By July 2006, the hosting website had received 6 million visits, and the game had been downloaded 600,000 times.
Xinghan Chen, known professionally as Jenova Chen, is a Chinese video game designer. He is the designer of the award-winning games Cloud, Flow, Flower, and Journey, co-founder of Thatgamecompany as well as an advisor for Annapurna Interactive.
Flow is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally released as a free Flash game in 2006 to accompany Chen's master's thesis, it was reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany, with assistance from Santa Monica Studio. SuperVillain Studios developed a PlayStation Portable version of the game in 2008, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions in 2013. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional (2D) planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.
Thatgamecompany, Inc. is an American independent video game development company founded by University of Southern California students Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago in 2006. The company was a developer for Sony Computer Entertainment, contracted to create three downloadable games for the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network service, and has since secured independent funding. The first of their games is a remake of Chen's award-winning Flash title Flow, with enhanced visuals and sound, added multiplayer modes and compatibility with the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller. The title was released on the PlayStation Store in 2007. The company's second PlayStation 3 game, Flower, was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009, and their third game, Journey, was released in March 2012 on the PlayStation Store. Their fourth game, Sky: Children of the Light, was released in July 2019 on iOS and in April 2020 on Android. Later, it released on the Nintendo Switch in June 2021 and on PlayStation 4 in December 2022.
Tracy Fullerton is an American game designer, educator and writer, best known for Walden, a game (2017). She is a Professor in the USC Interactive Media & Games Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and Director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC.
Chris Swain is an American game designer, entrepreneur, and professor. He is the founder of two venture-backed game companies. He worked full-time as a professor at The University of Southern California from 2004-2011.
Game Design Workshop is a book on game design by Tracy Fullerton, originally published by CMP Books in 2004. It has been updated and released in four subsequent editions, the latest by A K Peters/CRC Press in 2023.
Flower is a video game developed by Thatgamecompany and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was designed by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark and was released in February 2009 on the PlayStation 3, via the PlayStation Network. PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game were ported by Bluepoint Games and released in November 2013. An iOS version was released in September 2017, and a Windows version was released in February 2019, both published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was intended as a "spiritual successor" to Flow, a previous title by Chen and Thatgamecompany. In Flower, the player controls the wind, blowing a flower petal through the air using the movement of the game controller. Flying close to flowers results in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary wind turbines. The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues.
The academics of the University of Southern California center on The College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the Graduate School, and its 17 professional schools.
Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.
IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. Game types include video games, live-action games, and tabletop games. Independent game developers are selected to demo, screen, and promote their work at the annual IndieCade festival and showcase events. IndieCade also includes a conference track featuring classes, panels, workshops, and keynotes. Since 2020, the annual festival has taken place online under the name IndieCade Anywhere & Everywhere.
Created in 2013, Media Arts and Practice (MA+P) is the seventh degree-granting division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Journey is an indie adventure game developed by Thatgamecompany, published by Sony Computer Entertainment, and directed by Jenova Chen. It was released for the PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network in March 2012 and ported to PlayStation 4 in July 2015. It was later ported to Windows in June 2019 and iOS in August 2019.
The Critical Path Project is a video archive of interviews with video game designers and developers.
Walden, a game is a first-person open-world video game developed by Tracy Fullerton and the USC Game Innovation Lab for Microsoft Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game translates the experience of naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond in 1845–47 to a video game.
The 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards was the 16th edition of the D.I.C.E. Awards, an annual awards event that honored the best games in the video game industry during 2012. The awards were arranged by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), and were held at the Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 7, 2013. It was also held as part of the Academy's 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit, and was hosted by stand-up comedian Chris Hardwick.
