Video Game Design Degrees for the Gamer at Heart
by Vicki Salemi
Meet Kristi Kuhnen, a University of Denver (Denver, CO) freshman who is studying game design in preparation for a video game design career. Her father bought a PlayStation when she was 11 years old, and Kristi soon caught the gaming bug. Since then, she's accumulated eight different consoles. The self-proclaimed joystick junkie admits she even brought Super Nintendo and GameCube to college "because I'm addicted to them." It's no wonder that she, like many other gamers, set her sights on video game design degrees.
Kristi's tech-savvy parents are actually software engineers, so it's no surprise that they are supportive of her pursuit of a video game design career. "When I told them I wanted to learn graphic design, they helped me pay for software and a graphics tablet," she says. At 13, the aspiring techie taught herself HTML and began designing simple Web pages and fan sites. And she already knew her career would be in video game design and gaming.
"Around my 17th birthday I bought 'Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams,' and was really inspired to create graphics that game enthusiasts all over the world would see and recognize," says the student whose major is digital media with a concentration in game development. Kristi hopes -- if she ever veers off the game design path -- that studying these fields will allow her to function in any number of video game design careers. In fact, her classes touch upon three primary aspects of game design -- the artistic, technical (programming), and critical (psychology and people component). "I'm more into the artistic aspect, since I really enjoy video game design, and somewhat into the technical side, since I know a basic amount of code," she says.
While her ultimate dream job is working for Nintendo or Naughty Dog, she's considering owning her own company and becoming their competitor someday. The business minor is a member of the Creativity and Entrepreneurship Living and Learning Community at her college, which helps her combine her passion for video game design with business skills. Case in point: Instead of selling her stuff on eBay, last year Kristi created a LiveJournal account to sell old clothes, opened a PayPal account, joined communities, and posted advertisements to get customers. She earned $500.
Kristi's tech-savvy parents are actually software engineers, so it's no surprise that they are supportive of her pursuit of a video game design career. "When I told them I wanted to learn graphic design, they helped me pay for software and a graphics tablet," she says. At 13, the aspiring techie taught herself HTML and began designing simple Web pages and fan sites. And she already knew her career would be in video game design and gaming.
"Around my 17th birthday I bought 'Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams,' and was really inspired to create graphics that game enthusiasts all over the world would see and recognize," says the student whose major is digital media with a concentration in game development. Kristi hopes -- if she ever veers off the game design path -- that studying these fields will allow her to function in any number of video game design careers. In fact, her classes touch upon three primary aspects of game design -- the artistic, technical (programming), and critical (psychology and people component). "I'm more into the artistic aspect, since I really enjoy video game design, and somewhat into the technical side, since I know a basic amount of code," she says.
While her ultimate dream job is working for Nintendo or Naughty Dog, she's considering owning her own company and becoming their competitor someday. The business minor is a member of the Creativity and Entrepreneurship Living and Learning Community at her college, which helps her combine her passion for video game design with business skills. Case in point: Instead of selling her stuff on eBay, last year Kristi created a LiveJournal account to sell old clothes, opened a PayPal account, joined communities, and posted advertisements to get customers. She earned $500.
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