New York Film Academy [Sponsor]

My thanks to the New York Film Academy for sponsoring the candler blog this week.

Anyone who thinks digital games are for kids is missing out on just how popular gaming has become. A full 40 percent of the total U.S. population plays one or more digital game at least once a month, which has turned it into a multibillion-dollar juggernaut.

Of course, there are those very avid players who play, on average, 18 hours per week on a digital game console, a personal computer or handheld device such as a smart phone or tablet. It is largely from this subset come the game developers of tomorrow, those attending the Game Design School at the New York Film Academy.

Game designers are not necessarily computer programmers, although some attend the academy with that in their backgrounds. Students tend to be enthusiastic gamers, the kinds of people who enjoy the play and have their own ideas of games they would like to develop. Beyond the genre of World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, Runes of Magic and EverQuest II, “serious games” are a growing part of educational and business training.