Train2Game Reply

I had an interesting phone call this afternoon from Clive Roberts, responsible for Train2Game. I did some work for Clive many years ago so I did half expect this – I was not a random blog author to him.

We had quite an amicable chat. Clive was at pains to point out that the Study Guide is being redeveloped and has asked me to point out that it’s early days for them and that they were just trying to improve course awareness to the public, where as now they plan on touring developers to inform us what the course is all about.

While writing both this and the last blog post, I did read several forums and there’s a lot of spiteful stuff being said. Clive’s take is that particular posters are from a competitor and he says he has given up trying to engage with them as it’s causing more problems than it solves.

My personal take is more complicated. It sounds like at least some MIS (Metropolitan International Schools) staff are possibly being somewhat irresponsible and I believe that TIGA should try to nail any misbehaviour or misrepresentation as a condition of TIGA endorsement. It’s not like those behind MIS hadn’t been in trouble before with SkillsTrain. While a lot of time does seem to have gone into the course content, to partner up with an organisation who have attracted such negative attention does mean that some extra diligence should have taken place over public materials IMHO.

There are also some questions being brought up over who owns and earns from Train2Game. The fact is that someone is probably going to be making money from it, be it Clive Roberts, Jan Telensky, or someone else. I don’t really have an issue with this as long as the course is good and the industry benefits. We live in a capitalist society where people make money, sometimes undeserved, through our education systems. Let’s at least see if Train2Game does what it intends – helps bring forward new talent into the industry.

In addition, however good the distance learning course is and however bad some university game courses are, a diploma based qualification is always going to have to work much harder to prove itself to the professional industry.  It’s with this in mind that it’s such as bad idea to allow the release of materials such as the ones I quoted from.

Clive assures me that the course is good and that those in the industry who have evaluated it have been very positive. He’s offered to visit Tuna to explain it to us and we’ll be taking him up on that offer. In an industry which I find consistently insular and negative, I think it’s only right to give T2G a fair say. I look forward to seeing the course content itself.