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MA

Games Enterprise

The MA Games Enterprise is an innovative course that will give you the opportunity to develop artistic, design, technical, production and enterprise skills. It builds upon the existing successful teaching at undergraduate degree level within this subject area that has produced award-winning game developers, SMEs, artists, and designers.

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Key Course Details

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Cardiff

  • Campus Code

    B

Fees

  • Home students

    £10,800*

  • International students

    £16,900*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Cardiff

  • Campus Code

    B

Fees

  • Home students

    £1,200*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

As part of becoming a video game making master, you will develop several game projects that have robust documentation, detailed business strategy and, of course, a game to be proud of.

DESIGNED FOR

The Games Enterprise masters is aimed at those who wish to expand their existing skills and develop their practise within an environment that functions as a small development company, but who also wishes to tailor their learning to their own specialism. Enthusiasm for the industry is essential at every stage and throughout the course; professional industry practice will need to be mirrored in attitude and production.

Career paths

  • Game Designer
  • Game Artist
  • Project Manager
  • Community Manager
  • Mentor, Trainer and Lecturer
  • Quality Assurance
  • Programmer
  • UI designer

In partnership with

  • Epic Games
  • Unreal Engine

Skills taught

  • Develop industrial and creative research
  • Collaborative practices
  • Pitching concepts and ideas
  • Production and prototyping techniques
  • Detailed and critical project analysis

Course Highlights

Outstanding Facilities

Our students benefit from several industry-standard games labs. These provide access to common game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity 3D, and tools such as Adobe CS, Maya, 3DS Max, Substance and ZBrush along with other more specialist software packages.

Industry and Research-based Teaching

Be taught by engaging and highly knowledgeable staff with years of practical industry and research experience.

Challenging Briefs

Work on projects that challenge and push you to think critically and progress your skillset.

Module Overview

The MA Games Enterprise course will push students to develop their practice as games developers - analytical, artistic, conceptual, design, entrepreneurial, reflective, and technical areas are explored. The use of a wide range of software tools for development and project management is encouraged, which will also facilitate the capturing of developmental evidence for research and development journals and reflection.

  • Games Innovation Gauntlet
  • Creative Entrepreneurship
  • Exploration and Innovation
  • Games Specialisation
  • End Game
In partnership with

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

An Honours degree in a related field and/or substantial professional experience in a related field.

You will be expected to have some experience of design, development and production processes, such as asset production, level design, programming or enterprise/production activity. You will be interviewed and expected to bring along a portfolio of work.

Equivalent accredited international qualifications are acceptable. International students need to supply a CD or DVD of their work, or a link to their personal website, to evidence their ability. Commitment to study will be considered. Where possible, video-conferencing, Skype or other communication will be used to contact you.

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£10,800

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£16,900

per year*
UK Part-time Fee

£1,200

per 20 credits*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.  

Media Loans

You can hire a range of equipment, for your assignments and practical work, for free from our Media Loans facility.

Media Loans

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

The MA Games Enterprise course will be taught through a variety of seminars, discussions, and presentations. With a focus on active and practice-based learning, using live projects and collaboration.

You will study through a mixture of lectures, seminars, tutorials, and project supervision. Guest speakers from within the industry will enhance your experience – these might be from within the areas of design, programming, development or enterprise.

Towards the end of the course you will produce a final game with accompanying documentation that exemplifies the design process, play testing and evaluation, promotion and enterprise and, in addition, may have opportunities to showcase your work towards publishing your final game.

Teaching staff

All staff are active in research, consultancy, or employed within the games industry.

Facilities

Our students benefit from several industry-standard games labs. These provide access to common game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity 3D, and tools such as Adobe CS, Maya, 3DS Max, Substance and ZBrush along with other more specialist software packages.

Our games labs have been configured to support the latest technologies such as VR and our PC’s have plenty of RAM, graphics cards, SSD boot drives, and secondary storage to handle your creative ambitions. Many of our computers come equipped with ultra-wide monitors too, excellent for improving your productivity and workflow.

Equipment

At our Cardiff Campus we have a vast range of equipment that you will be trained to use as part of your course. To help support your studies we have a Media Loans facility that allows you to hire the equipment, at no cost, for you to then use for your assignments and practical work.  We have both basic and high-end film and photography cameras, portable lighting and sound equipment as well as a range of professional studio recording microphones, instruments and associated equipment to use in our music studios or on location. The team of technical officers and instructors are also available to help you with any queries and technical issues.

Careers and Employability

Possible career paths

Successful graduates will be in a position to apply for roles within games development and also have the skills and knowledge to be able to set up their own start-up companies.

Our graduates have gone on to work for companies Activision, Ubisoft, Rockstar North, Codemasters, TT Games, Cloud Imperium, Tiny Rebel Games, Fictioneers, Kwalee, Supermassive Games, Auroch Digital, Run Wild Entertainment, Bonsai Collective and SEGA Amusements.

Some have started up their own companies like Mochi Mode, Ironsmith Studios, Big Brain Games and others have gone on to work as freelancers or in games education.

Careers support

As a USW student, you will have access to advice from the Careers and Employability Service throughout your studies and after you graduate.

This includes: one-to-one appointments from faculty based Career Advisers, in person, over the phone or even on Skype and through email via the "Ask a Question" service. We also have extensive online resources for help with considering your career options and presenting yourself well to employers. Resources include psychometric tests, career assessments, a CV builder, interview simulator and application help. Our employer database has over 2,000 registered employers targeting USW students, you can receive weekly email alerts for jobs.

Our Careers service has dedicated teams: A central work experience team to help you find relevant placements; an employability development team which includes an employability programme called Grad Edge; and an Enterprise team focused on new business ideas and entrepreneurship.

How to apply

There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).

International admissions

Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.

Studying at USW

Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.

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