The Life and Times of a Video Game Design Student

Although I knew I would want to revisit Lisa’s story again, I didn’t think it would be this soon. I’ve been keeping up with the comments on her blog, however, and I noticed that one of her classmates commented. I responded in thread, but I think that some of the points he brought up deserve more thought and analysis.

The person, calling themselves “Guildhall Student”, made the following argument:

It just takes a love, commitment, and talent to be in this industry. Its much like Music or Acting, honestly. You have to do lots of hard work to be discovered and only the best talent will make it and get the good jobs.

I first just want to take some time to talk about Guildhall Student’s comparison with the music and acting industries. I find it to be ironic that he mentions acting, with the recent debacle where it was reported that Jeff Robinov, the president of Warner Bros, said, “We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead”. While this allegation is “untrue” according to the studio (link roundup), it is an accurate reflection of what is taught in film school according to one student. Acting is no more free from discriminatory practices than game design is, nor the music industry for that matter.

Below I will look at how privilege enters into the equation when deciding on, and attending, gamer college. Although Guildhall Student specifically addresses age, I’ve decided to leave it out of this post because I don’t have the time to do the research to back up my argument. Instead I will focus on family and financial matters, and how the status quo can privilege young single men and end up discouraging diversity.

Preface: Establishing concepts

Since I might be using a definition of privilege in certain parts of this essay that readers are unfamiliar with, I want to first introduce how “privilege” (also referred to as “institutional privilege”) is used in an anti-oppression context:

Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.

[IBARW: A primer on privilege: what it is and what it isn't. by Betty]

It is also worth that noting that privilege is given on the institutional and cultural level, rather than something we have control over as individuals. Areas in which we have privilege give us subtle, and often invisible, advantages that give us that edge to succeed over someone without that same privilege, and thus that same edge.

The reality of the interactions of privilege are more complex than I can cover in a few paragraphs. If you’re interested in getting a better understanding, I would recommend starting with this page and visiting the links after you’ve read the post.

Privilege 1: Family matters

In many ways it’s easier to make the choice to go to school if you’re single. I’ve been living the single life for a few years now and, while I would welcome a solid relationship, I often think that it’s unrealistic. Right now I have my hands full with school and my other obligations like Cerise, not only that but I will also be uprooting my life and moving to Osaka in April. While that’s still six months away, I’m not sure I want to deal with the logistics of a breakup when I need to be focusing on moving (I don’t do long distance). Simply put: it’s easier for me to remain single right now than it is for me to make room in my already full schedule for a relationship.

Looking at it in broader terms: if one has a spouse, going to school (or, harder yet, going back to school) becomes a major decision. Consider the following:

• Is the school out of state? That would require either a period of separation or for the spouse to uproot their life and try to make a new one (including a job).
• Will the finances be okay? Assuming a dual-income household, it can be a huge financial strain for one partner to stop working and to have to start paying tuition at the same time. More on this in the next section.

Then add children into the mix. If the school is out of state, they’ll either have to be separated from their parent for the duration of the program, or have their lives uprooted in order for the family to move together. While this does happen because of things such as job transfers, it’s not an easy decision to make in any situation. Children also complicate monetary issues, because each one is another dependent who has to be taken care of financially.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that being single is an institutionalized privilege in of itself, but it interacts with other institutionalized privileges, such as male privilege. The assumed clientele of design schools is young white males and therefore the system naturally creates an environment designed for applicants of that type. Since the younger you are, the less likely you are to have already created a family, it’s probably a safe assumption to make that the system is also designed with single students in mind. In general, single people have fewer obligations than those with families, and therefore are more likely to be able to deal with intense work hours. This, of course, gives single people an edge over those with family who need to spend a certain amount of time outside of the school environment in order to function properly.

On top of the above, I also want to mention briefly that such a system privileges partnered male attendees over partnered female ones because women today still on average are responsible for the majority of the domestic tasks*.

For more information on the possible detrimental effects of long hours on relationships and family, please refer to The Effect of Long Hours on Family and Community Life [pdf] by Dr. Barbara Pocock. It covers a range of topic from the effects of long hours on the individual, to the strain it puts on relationships, and the consequences that children suffer. While it focuses specifically on longer working hours, the same principles are applicable in a situation when those hours are being required by school rather than work.

Privilege 2: Paying tuition

Despite efforts taken to make education universal, access to higher education such as university and graduate school is still in general something that is reserved for the upper classes. Although it is possible for working class and middle class people to attend college, there is no denying that the less money one has the harder it is, even with things like scholarships and financial aid to help ease the financial burden.

Let me put this into perspective. I am currently attending The Yamasa Institute and paying 154,875 yen (about 1,320 USD) per three-month semester (tuition only). New students pay 264,625 (about 2,255 USD) if they pay per semester. I’ve known two students who have decided to study past the point where their savings could support them. They’ve done it by working several part-time jobs and getting occasional loans from their families. In both cases their educations have suffered because they are over-stressed and don’t have enough time to study. And that tuition is, all things considered, fairly cheap.

Let’s look at what I’ll be paying for my first year at HAL: 1,211,000 yen (10,324 USD)**. While that’s still significantly cheaper than getting an out of state education at most American universities, it’s not anything to sneeze at. The actual costs for Guildhall aren’t given on their website, but according to this thread they are about 40,000 USD for the entire 21 month program, with options for financial aid in terms of Federal Aid, private loans, and scholarships.

Even with financial aid, though, if you’re going for your Masters you could still be paying off your undergrad loans and to add another 40k to that constitutes a major financial decision. It is possible to qualify for a scholarship, but that’s definitely not something to count on. There’s also the possibility of landing a high enough paying job once you’re in the industry in order to help you pay off your loans, but again it’s not the most reassuring thing to bank on an uncertain future, no matter how good the job placement is for graduates of the program.

It is a privilege to be able to attend school without financial worries. It’s a privilege to be able to focus only on one’s studies without worrying about how to make ends meet. If you’re like me and you have that privilege, you should count yourself lucky. But if someone doesn’t have that privilege, it is not a measurement of their devotion to the subject matter if they can’t give the same time commitment to the program as someone who is comfortable in their financial situation.

Conclusion

The result of treating the young white middle- to upper-class male as “normal” is that it creates an environment that makes it harder for people who don’t fit that demographic to succeed. Not through any malice, but rather because of a lack of understanding of why the problem is occurring. Like Guildhall Student, people chalk it up to not having enough “love”, “commitment” or “talent”, or otherwise individualize it instead of looking at what’s going on beneath the surface. But unless we take a more informed and proactive view on the situation, and realize that it’s not the individual’s problem but rather a systematic one, the gaming industry isn’t going to be able to continue meeting the challenges of its rapidly diversifying audience.

For more discussions and perspectives, please refer to these discussions: School and video game design on Iris’ forums, game school dropout (gamecareerguide.com) on IDGA’s forums, and two Guildhall specific articles: Playmakers and Behind the Guildhall - The Story of the Students.

* Based on statistics on the division of household labour, like the ones from this 1993 article [pdf]. I would cite newer studies but I have been unable to find any that are publicly available. It is also worth looking at a recent study (BBC article) that apparently found that partnered women in different sex couples did more housework than single women, while partnered men in different sex couples did less housework than single men.
** The actual cost might be slightly different, since it’s based on the pamphlet that I got from HAL in Nagoya, not Osaka. I won’t know the exact cost until the end of this month.