INTRODUCTION

In 2007 the video games industry turned over 976 million euros in Spain, making it the sixth biggest country in worldwide sales.

Today, over twenty companies produce video games professionally in Spain, and the industry has doubled in size since 2000.

With this in mind, UPF's Institute for Continuing Education is adding to its courses on video games with the 1st Video Games Summer School, a unique opportunity to gain quality knowledge both for amateurs in search of job opportunities and professionals in need of recycling.

Based on the success of the UPF's Master's in Video Game Design (the first Video Games Master's in Spain and the first in Europe to offer courses on XBox360), BCNplay'08 offers a setting unparalleled in Spain, a great meeting point for training, socialising and learning about this growing audiovisual and cultural industry.

The nucleus of the school's training will be the courses and workshops on the video games sector. Both will last 20 hours, in the form of four teaching hours a day for two weeks, in the morning and afternoon.

The courses and workshops differ in teaching content: the courses are more theoretical, whereas the workshops focus more on tools and techniques.

The aim of the Video Games Summer School is to offer the best possible teaching in all areas of video games, such as:

The video games industry and video games business
Programming video games
Creating contents for video games (art, animation, music)
Designing video games
Games platforms (PCs, mobiles, consoles, internet)
Trends in the sector
Humanistic studies of video games
Interactive narrative of games
Related sectors (computer animation, visual effects)
Convergence in the sector
The video games industry in Europe and Spain

AIMS

The aims of BCNplay are as follows:

To offer introductory courses for amateurs or independent individuals who would like to refresh their knowledge or discover this new sector.
To offer continuing education to professionals in the industry.
To promote the teaching of current topics and new trends.
To act as a meeting point for developers and academics.
To provide a complete teaching and leisure programme, in the tradition of summer schools, but with the personal stamp of the UPF and its history of experience with video games.

WHO IT IS AIMED AT

BCNplay'08 is aimed at students who would like to get into the world of video games, professionals in the sector who would like to improve their level and individuals from other sectors (e.g. the business world) who would like to learn more about this clearly expanding industry.

ACADEMIC STAFF

Daniel Sánchez-Crespo Director General of Novarama Technology, where he has worked on projects for platforms like GBA, PC, PSP, Nintendo DS, Xbox360, and clients such as UbiSoft, Cromosoma and Planeta. A trained computer engineer, he has combined his professional activity with teaching for the last seven years. He has given sessions on video games at universities in Spain, Portugal, Germany, The Czech Republic, China and New Zealand. He has also worked as a consultant in matters of innovation for several national and regional governments and has written four books and some forty articles on video games. He has worked for the Game Developers Conference, and has been a member of the Siggraph Course Reviewing Committee; sub director of ArtFutura and co-ordinator for IGDA Barcelona.

QUALIFICATION: BCNplay'08

All participants on the course will receive an attendance certificate awarded by IDEC-UPF.

ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS:

Entrance requirements for each course or workshop will be specified according to the level of the course chosen. Higher education qualifications will on no account be necessary, only an interest in the video games sector and the specific requirements for each course.

DURATION:

Courses are of 30 hours. Classes will take place from Monday to Friday, mornings and afternoons.

DATE:

July 2008.

TIMES:

Mornings from 10.00 to14.00 and afternoons from 16.00 to 20.00

LANGUAGE:

The courses will be taught in Spanish.
Some courses may be taught in English, but in this case this will be specified in the course programme.

PROGRAMME FEE:

270€ per course.