Background

Computer games are here to stay. We encounter them all the time, either because we play ourselves or because our children or grandchildren do it – or because we stumble upon a debate about the dangers of gaming. This is not a new debate and when looking at the past, you will see the same debates every time a new medium is developing. It happened at the arrival of the cartoon, the TV and the motion picture. It is quite natural, but it is also natural to be worried by the massive consumption of computer games by youngsters. However, it will not make the computer games vanish. Man has been playing forever and will continue to do so.

The play and the game has many functions, many of them very positive such as learning. And entertainment. We are playful creatures and as long as this does not overshadow everything else – and becomes an addiction – it is a positive part of our existence and it exists in all of man’s cultures. Instead of fighting it, we must learn to use it in the right and positive way. Games can be viewed as a product of culture, just like film, TV and books. Therefore a number of universities etc. have taken up games in terms of teaching as well as research. A national research network exists, spilforskning.dk, and the professional union for game researchers DAFCO. Especially the Department of Digital Aesthetic at the IT-University of Copenhagen has been very active doing research. They have also started the international academic journal Game Studies. This is the background for a number of universities and art schools taking the initiative to focus and coordinate the various existing courses within the National Academy for Digital, Interactive Entertainment. The work with games involves a number of different competencies: creative, organisational, graphical and technical. The vision for the Academy is to give the students a number of different competencies within game production.

Founding the Academy
After a number of informal contacts and discussions, IT-Vest arranged a meeting on August 6th 2003 at the Aarhus School of Business inviting anyone interested. An agreement was made to make a joint attempt to systematise and join all existing courses together. The discussions continued at a meeting on August 28th 2003, at University of Southern Denmark and at a meeting on December 9th at the National Film School. The latter with the presence of a number of key people from the industry (Janos Flösner (IO), Søren E. Jakobsen (Egmont), Chris Mottes (Deadline Games), Søren Sørensen (ITE), Malene Rafn (Producentforeningen). Everybody backed the idea and two groups were formed: a strategy group and a group working with the possibility of gathering the students from the different educations in a joint production. It was also decided to make groups with representatives from the industry to design the different curricula. These groups functioned in the spring of 2004 creating the joint curriculum for all of the game academy’s competencies. During the spring of 2004, IT-Vest also did analysis of competence and professional profiles within the game industry. The educations are specialisations of existing educations and are thus within the framework of the existing curricula at the universities and art schools involved (for the universities this means that the specialisation within computer games is within the existing graduate
level (MA) education). On January 31st 2005, the first board meeting at the National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment was held. Gunnar Wille (director of the animation director education at the National Film School ) was appointed the leader of the Academy. The following indstitutions are members: The National Film School, The Animation Workshop at University College of Western Denmark, Danmarks Designskole, Denmark’s Technical University, University of Aarhus, University of Aalborg, University of Copenhagen, IT-University of Copenhagen. IT-Vest supports the framework for the Academy. The coordination between the educations consists of the joint production and the joint curriculum. The latter prepare the students for the production and enable them to ‘speak the same language’.

On January 31st 2005, the first board meeting at the National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment was held. Gunnar Wille (director of the animation director education at the National Film School ) was appointed the leader of the Academy. The following indstitutions are members: The National Film School, The Animation Workshop at University College of Western Denmark, Danmarks Designskole, Denmark’s Technical University, University of Aarhus, University of Aalborg, University of Copenhagen, IT-University of Copenhagen. IT-Vest supports the framework for the Academy. The coordination between the educations consists of the joint production and the joint curriculum. The latter prepare the students for the production and enable them to ‘speak the same language’.

On February 1st 2005 the Secretariat opened. It is located at the Film School. The secretariat consists of the academy leader, a coordinator and a game consultant. Apart from the secretariat and the board of directors, the Academy also has a coordination group working on ensuring the quality and development of the Academy.