My issues with TIGA’s endorsement(at such an early stage) and MIS’ practices still stand, but I appreciate the efforts put into the course itself.

For me, TIGA’s approval should also cover the way the course is pitched, confirmation that the cost is made very clear in all literature, and the loan should be provided by a completely independent company and not pushed on to students. For legal reasons I’m not going to expand on this later point and nor am I going to discuss it, I just believe it to be a fair requirement for TIGA’s approval.

I disagree a little with the elitism comment Clive – I and many others find academic qualifications a useful guide to potential. However, I appreciate that they are not the only guide and degrees are a long way from being equal. Sadly this is a problem across UK degree level education these days.

I’m posting here to make a few points more clear

Ben: I was on the stand for most of the show and would have happily discussed our courses with you, indeed we spent a great deal of time talking to several lecturers and Uni’s with a totally open attitude and the offer of sharing information re all of our course material. Those who took the time to see us we’re remarkably excited about what we are doing and were very keen to interact.

We know that our content is in many cases more up to date and relevant that many of the current Com Sci courses and are keen to share what we have as we don’t see Universities as competitors at all, if students are able to go into full time education we encourage that wholeheartedly.

If you’d like to chat about what we do I’d be more than happy to take your call.

Andy P (and Alex really): at no time do we imply ‘a guaranteed pass’, we merely offer exactly the same as every college, school and university; the ability to re-sit. The difference being, we don’t charge for re-sits. Andy; I can’t agree that “anything free is taking money and giving nothing” that statement makes no sense to me. I have to say, I felt this part of the guide was pretty clear in the wording but accept that there are some who feel its too ‘marketing oriented’ so will change the text to be more specific.

Jim: where does it say ‘you can’t fail’ or even imply that? Surely as in all FE, if a student fails he/she recognises the need to seriously reconsider then, either, work really hard or withdraw. I don’t understand why there are such animated responses here when we all seem happy to accept the exact same process in any other form of learning (albeit we don’t charge for it).

Paul: I’m sorry to hear about the issue with your Course advisor and ‘old home address’ Please contact me at the office 01908 39 38 37 or via the forum: forum.train2game.com and I will resolve this issue immediately. Alex is right; do not shoot off and leave this unresolved as it much easier to fix while its all current. There will be no problem at all in taking you off the course and removing any finance issues.

Ali: your point re ‘Elitism’ is one of the core reasons we started down the road of T2G, I really dislike the way in which we have become so elitist in getting and giving roles. We’ve even been told that as T2G we are not allowed to use the term “graduate/graduation/graduated/graduates/etc” as this can only be used for people completing ‘degrees’; Elitism gone mad? Our role in all of this is to increase the resource available to the games industry, as a game development employer, I’m not at all concerned at the actual qualification, rather I want to see a portfolio that is current, relevant and of top quality. I want employees that can hit the ground running, grow with the company and work well in a team, all Dev teams want that too. Pandering to 2;1’s from Oxford in this day and age is plain and simple snobbery

Overall, as I said to Alex, we are a new course and just like every other learning institution, needed to build awareness, we’ve achieved that very well but I do accept that we allowed our marketing oiks to free-a-reign. We are reworking all of the initial content (not the courses as we are very pleased those and are getting the same feedback from our many students.

If you or others are not happy with your treatment then please also contact TIGA through their website since they have endorsed the course. You should then also contact trading standards and possibly the FSA, ensuring you have all relevant evidence for your complaint.

It’s important to differentiate between the course itself, the way the loan has been sold to you, and the loan provider as they are all – legally speaking – different companies.

Here is a thread featuring others who’ve had issues:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.....train.html

I am hopeful that you can resolve this problem amicably.

Whether you do this course or not, you need to have the creative and (usually) technical brain as a starting point. Many people think they are creative or think they can code, but they simply aren’t good enough to work within games. You wouldn’t expect “anyone” to do a distance learning course then be the doctor treating you in hospital just because they got a certificate on a course which you could barely fail. We’re not doctors but we have entry standards too.

It’s very competitive, you need to be good, and the point of the courses is to improve the quality of those entering the industry as well as to give options to those who didn’t attend uni for one reason or another. The later are going to find getting into games very hard but the truth is that just having 1-2 good demos is a massive help, course or no course.

For people with a T2G qualification I’m still going to look for the same things. I’m still going to look at the academic qualifications and I’m still going to look at their demos (most important thing) and I’m still going to judge their personality. AFAIK T2G has been designed with this in mind so I’m not going to be critical of the course at this point.

Going back to your comment, the Train2Game marketing implies anyone can do a course and get a job or write a game but that simply isn’t true. This is not fair on the students who have to pay around £5000 for the course. Whether it’s good or not, it’s not going to land many people a job.

The fact that it has no entry requirements and that it’s being sold in such a way, very obviously aiming at people who are perhaps unemployed, have no relevant qualifications, or just like to play games – that’s not fair to me. It’s too much money to pay out when even an awful lot of graduates can’t get a job, at least if you don’t understand how difficult developing games can be.

If you think that is elitist then so be it, but 1) we’re going to disagree and 2) I can tell you that the above goes double if you’re getting into the industry in America.

Please stay and read the High Court judgement

Regards

Well that says it. As you point out, you can’t fail. Which makes this course worthless as a qualification.

This course seems aimed at people with little confidence in their abilities to learn using the resources that are out there, and little initiative.

Anything that lets you re-try for free if you do fail is taking your money and giving you back nothing.

I always ensure potential students understand some painful realities, namely that programming games is pretty damn hard work. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts to becoming a good programmer. You wont get far without a solid understanding of comp sci, maths and physics.

Anyway, bunged in for the info pack. Should be fun.