Dear Mom, I’m changing my major. I want to design video games!
Good news for all the parents out there who have received similar messages over the past year: UAlbany’s new major is actually leading to real careers.
Enrollment in the university’s new game design and development program has grown 150% this fall, with 142 students now paying tuition to learn how to build video games. That’s up from 49 students who enrolled when the program first became available in 2025. Before that, University at Albany piloted a concentration in game design and development in 2021.
Local gaming studios have enthusiastically embraced the program. Wolfjaw Studios, a development company in Troy, endowed a $35,000 scholarship for students. Wolfjaw is also running an annual event where students can win prizes and show off their games to top developers and designers.
The Capital Region has 20 digital gaming studios with more than 500 employees, including Blizzard Entertainment, 1st Playable, Velan Studios and WB Games New York.
But their practical experience isn’t coming from internships at those companies.
They’ve designed a school shooter simulation for the State Police Academy. They also designed physical games for Tri-City ValleyCats baseball games, based on the theme for each game. Some of the students are now working on a training program for librarians. They built a simulation with a person in the throes of a mental illness crisis, fleeing domestic violence, or struggling with drug addiction. The goal is to help librarians learn how to deal with those visitors, because while common, it isn’t generally covered in librarian studies.
About half the students go on to work at a gaming company, said Jason Corace, director of UAlbany’s Game Center, who has experience running similar programs at two other sites. But others continue on to more unusual fieldwork.
One of Corace’s former students now designs fireworks displays for the New York Mets. Others do virtual reality work for space telescopes or design scenarios to train disaster response teams.
“There’s all these chances to use play and design,” Corace said.
Still, parents want to know their child will end up in a paying job if they pursue this field of study.
“It does sound scary at first,” said Giuseppe Nicastri, 21, of Syracuse.
He initially enrolled at UAlbany as a software development major. Then he tried a game design class.
“I’m still coding, but it’s a lot more fun,” he said.
His first game was a success, played by many people. It is a version of hot potato, in which two players have 30 seconds to avoid each other. Whoever is holding the ball when the time ends loses.
UAlbany encourages students to release their games on Steam, where they can pick up thousands of plays. As his “Bombs Away” game became popular, his parents took notice.
“My parents slowly started believing,” he said.
Then he netted an internship at a nonprofit that makes games for children with cancer. He helped develop “Kidscape,” in which a grounded child sneaks out of his bedroom to collect candy, play games, and evade his babysitter and the family dog.
Graduate student Aidan Doherty, 22, of Staten Island, said his parents liked the idea of him designing games.
“They were super on board with it, because I played games my whole life,” he said.
As an undergrad, he majored in game design, which, at the time, was a concentration through the informatics major. He intended to only create games.
Now, he sees it differently.
“When you start working with tech creatively, there are so many opportunities,” Doherty said.
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This article originally published at Gamers are becoming designers of much more than video games at UAlbany.
