About GamePipe Labs

The USC GamePipe Laboratory’s mission is research, development and education on technologies and design for the future of interactive games and their application - from developing the supporting technologies for increasing the complexity and innovation in produced games, to developing serious and entertainment games for government and corporate sponsors.

GamePipe has developed two degree programs to support this research and development agenda – a BS in Computer Science specializing in Games, and an MS in Computer Science specializing in Game Development. The goal of the BS degree is to educate students capable of engineering next generation games immediately upon graduation. Students in this program receive a solid grounding in Computer Science in addition to the art and design required for functioning in the game industry. The goal of the MS degree is to graduate professionally educated students capable of engineering next generation games and their required technologies. Students graduated from these degree programs are strong computer scientists, strong programmers, strong system developers, and facile at working in cross-disciplinary collaborative game development teams.

Embedded in the degree programs is the full game development process, from game design to game engineering. Each student in the program takes a pipelines and game animation course sequence that teaches the student how to build models, animations and asset management for GamePipe supported game engines. Each student in the program learns how to utilize and create game engines. Each student in the program learns how to design both serious and entertainment games and then participates in team development of serious and entertainment games. The last year of each student in the program focuses on team collaborative game design and development, with the teams comprised of students from the BS in Computer Science (Games), the MS in Computer Science (Game Development), the MFA in Interactive Media (Game Design), the MFA in Animation, and the BFA Game Art and Design minor programs. These cross-disciplinary teams ensure that games built in the GamePipe Laboratory have the proper mix of skills for game-industry quality development.