Videogame design program collection development

September 14, 2007 9:57 PM

Hypothetically, if you had $10,000 to build a library collection to support a videogame design/animation program, what items would include?

It doesn't have to be just books. Are there any online subscription resources you would recommend? Magazines? I don't know where to start.

posted by foxinthesnow to grab bag (7 comments total)

Game Developer Mag

Safari online books subscriptions, featuring titles from the likes of O'Reilly and others:

link

Easy way to get a wide gamut of titles for tech books, both game and non-game. It may take up too much of your money for a college wide account, I don't know the pricing for schools.

That, and I would trowel through places like Guild Hall and see what books they use for what courses. Here's an example of course materials from the Texas A&M Viz Lab.
posted by zabuni at 10:46 PM on September 14, 2007

Two books I've seen on the curriculum for Game Studies:

Video Game Theory Reader - Mark JP Wolf och Bernard Perron, Routledge, 2003

The Medium of the video game - Mark JP Wolf, University of Texas, 2001
posted by Rabarberofficer at 12:01 AM on September 15, 2007

build a library of older games, of course. Get one or two medium powered PCs, load them with emulation software, and build yourself a library of games. You will probably have to invest some pretty serious time in indexing and cataloging the games though. That way, when somebody wants to find a game that involves X, Y, and Z, you can just search your handy index of games and point them in the right direction.
posted by cosmicbandito at 7:28 AM on September 15, 2007

A librarian's perspective:

Find a university with a game development program, then contact the university's library and ask to speak with the person who purchases materials to support the game development program. This person will often work in a department called "collection development" or "collection management."

Failing that, troll through syllabi of game development courses and look for readings and other resources.
posted by rachelpapers at 9:22 AM on September 15, 2007

Carlos Baena has compiled a pretty good list of books for the animation side of things here.

"Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams and "Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston are essential.
posted by crumbly at 10:12 AM on September 15, 2007

SIGGRAPH materials/dvds.

Tutorial DVDs like Gnomon.

Books on visual art, photography, cinematography, story.
posted by milinar at 12:36 PM on September 15, 2007

Every single thing by Gnomon and the respective apps in the context of development goals.

I'm not sure if you're asking about the programming aspect or not but that would be an entirely different set of materials. Most of this is oriented towards classic visual arts, modeling and rendering.
posted by prostyle at 8:12 AM on September 17, 2007