Things going to school for game design have taught me.I've been in school since August working on my bachelor's degree in Game Design, and I've learned a few things.

1. Every video game is a Skinner Box.
For people who don't know what a Skinner Box is, it's basically a box they put a mouse (or any type of animal) in with a lever that releases food. The purpose is to train the mouse that pressing the lever rewards them. In video games this same system is used all over the place. Lets take Halo 4 for instance. All those experience points are there for one simple reason, to make you keep coming back for more. In a game like Resident Evil 6 the ammo and skill points dropped by zombies encourages you to keep killing zombie...

Things going to school for game design have taught me.I've been in school since August working on my bachelor's degree in Game Design, and I've learned a few things.

1. Every video game is a Skinner Box.
For people who don't know what a Skinner Box is, it's basically a box they put a mouse (or any type of animal) in with a lever that releases food. The purpose is to train the mouse that pressing the lever rewards them. In video games this same system is used all over the place. Lets take Halo 4 for instance. All those experience points are there for one simple reason, to make you keep coming back for more. In a game like Resident Evil 6 the ammo and skill points dropped by zombies encourages you to keep killing zombies by rewarding you. In MMORPG's its even worse because they entice you to keep doing the same thing over and over again(sometimes daily) by enticing you with gold. So if you love games, congrats your a mouse in a box.

2. Game Design is more about math and numbers then great ideas.
One of the first things they drove in to my skull was, Designers are not idea people. now they didn't mean that you weren't supposed to have great ideas about what to do in a game, but that's not your job. The Designers job is to lay the ground work for mechanics in the game that engineers will implement. Ideas are a dime a dozen, people who can take those ideas and make them work aren't.

3. Studying video game history is not as fun as it sounds.
The history of video games was one of the most interesting classes I ever had. Notice I said interesting not fun. While there are some real cool stories in the text book we got, there is also a lot of boring parts. Although I did find out that Atari had a lot of drug use going on back in the day. Ok maybe it was fun for the most part but jesus the courtroom stuff from the 90's is hard to get through after page 10.

4. There is a book that ruins how you think games are made.
The book, Theory of Fun made me realize that games aren't made to tell a story. This was kind of crushing when I first read it, but now it makes perfect sense. Very rarely is a game made where the story is the most important part. The fun gameplay comes first, if its not there, there is no point in telling your awesome story, cause no ones gonna play it. The book wasn't as gentle in its explanation of this, but I also don't 100% agree with what was said there.

Anyway that's about it. It's been a great experience so far, and if all goes well I hope to be making games that people love in a few years.