Stop the press: News Report Shows Maths is Useful. Bit of a no-brainer, that one, but not everyone would appreciate just how useful maths and physical science skills are to one industry in particular – computer gaming.
The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones reports from the north-east of England on the state of the UK’s computer gaming industry and the dearth of programmers with the relevant academic background to make truly great computer games.
Star-Wars! (maths-haters need not apply)
The UK is a world-leader in the computer games industry, but risks losing that status if not enough students come to the industry with A-level or degree-level maths and physics.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that there is some fancy programming behind stuff like this, and this, and this; but it does take a bit of foresight to arm yourself for a career in the games industry with decent science and maths qualifications.
Computer games are modelling the real-world in increasingly sophisticated ways. Not only do objects in games have to look real, but they need to act in realistic ways – fall under gravity, deform or break correctly. The so-called ‘euphoria’ physics engine behind some new computer games (see it here) takes into account how humans move and how different materials respond.Â
Just as important as the physical world in video games is the human:  ‘artificial intellignce’ in computer games requires an understanding of psychology to create computer opponents worthy of the name. Rory Cellan-Jones gives a further insight into how computer games are made, here.
The top computer games of the 2020s are going to be designed and developed by the primary and secondary school children of today. If Maths-Whizz goes some way towards creating the next generation of computer experts, that’s no bad thing.
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[...] Duncan wrote an interesting post today on Get Maths, Make Games. Here’s a quick excerpt: [...]