Player, Student, Designer: Games Design Students and Changing Relationships With Games

Abstract

Drawing on empirical research conducted with U.K. games design students, games design course tutors, and professional designers alongside broader careers advice and guidance from industry representatives, this article will explore the changing relationships games design students describe with digital games and games technologies. Opening with accounts of their childhood pastimes and passions, the discussion will move to consider closely students’ development within a higher education context and the associated, emerging shifts in their engagements with games technologies. Through exploring the transition from hobby to career and the overlapping player/student/designer positions, questions concerning human and technological interactions, identity, and wider career and skills contexts are highlighted. In drawing out such questions and issues, this article will seek to outline how exploring the practices and understandings of students prompts reflection on both located and specific and more broadly applicable engagements between digital games technologies, industry, and individuals.