School pupils from throughout Northern Ireland have been hearing how to turn computer games into big bucks from one of the industry’s leading figures. 

John Bustard, creative director at Sony Entertainment, Cambridge, outlined to the audience of spell-bound pupils at the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus the design and development process through which new game ideas are identified, selected and implemented.

Mr Bustard is the creative director of the next generation PS3 project for Sony Entertainment, Cambridge and his lecture took place just before the European launch of the Playstation 3.

He began by summarising the features of the new game console, pointing out some of the opportunities and challenges it offers to game developers.

He then outlined the game development process at Sony, demonstrating the steps from taking an initial concept and developing it into a practical game that excites its users, inspires developers and satisfies the sponsors.

Dr Darryl Charles, a lecturer in computer science at the School of Computing and Information Engineering, said: “The seminar, entitled “How to Design and Sell a Multi-Million Dollar Next Generation Game”, was aimed at school pupils as part of our computing outreach programme through our game development society.

“We invited schools from all around Northern Ireland to the event and we were delighted to have Mr Bustard as our guest speaker. He is one of the most influential people in the gaming industry and his talk was most timely, coinciding with the European launch of the new Playstation 3.”

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David Young
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