Racketboy

From GamePro.com:

Namco has announced that Toru Iwatani, maker of Pacman, will become a guest professor at Osaka University of Arts in the newly forming “Character Modeling” department.

The formation of the department is still pending for approval, but if accepted, Iwatani would start lectures on video games as early as April 2005. Currently a part of Namco’s Incubation Center (which focuses building on new ventures), Iwatani will join the department at the request of manga author Kazuo Koike, who is a professor in the department of literature at the university.

The Character Modeling department not only focuses on video game characters, but also manga and animation characters, and seeks to nurture and educate potential animators, game designers, CG designers, producers, and art directors. Students will not only learn about character creation, but also of marketing, publishing, and editing. Lab classes giving students a hands-on experience in creating games is also being planned for the start of the academic year in 2006.

This wouldn’t be the first university to have departments focusing on games–other universities in Japan including Tohoku University of Art and Design have game-related curriculums, with developers featured as guest speakers.

It is interesting to see how video games are creeping into more of our culture. It goes to show that video games are becoming a valid form of media, similar to music and movies. I could ramble on that subject for quite a while, but I’ll spare you — for now.

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videogames, games, pacman