Recognition for game design talent at York St John

Some of the biggest video game manufacturers have seen numbers soar during the pandemic, and globally the gaming industry is predicted to be worth $300 billion within the next 5 years.

With a surge in demand for new gaming talent, Andy Sandham, Senior Lecturer in Game Design at York St John says it’s an exciting time for graduates to be joining the industry: “Gaming is now bigger than ever - and at York St. John we are training our students with a very specific skillset to make them industry ready Game Designers, prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.”

One of the recent graduates of the BA in Game Design is already making a name for himself. Ned Griffiths was one of the winners of the D&AD Rare & Xbox New Blood Awards 2020. The awards are open to advertising, design, digital and marketing students, recent graduates and young creatives worldwide.

Ned’s winning entry ‘Melody’ explores a world in which music is the only form of communication and gamers have to tame animals and work with them. He said: “Melody was submitted in response to a brief by Rare, and one element of this brief that caught my eye was an emphasis on communication. This led me down a path of exploring different ways communication can be implemented in a game format, and I settled on music as an interesting route. The rest of the project developed from this. I’m very pleased to win this award. 'Melody' was a result of a lot of work and it feels nice to be recognised and validated.”

Andy says awards like this are extremely important for up and coming designers: “In such a highly competitive field as game design, Awards like D&AD New Blood are vital in spotlighting the cream of the burgeoning talent, and helping students as a first step in achieving their dream careers. Ned carefully crafted a unique game design that hit all the requirements of the brief, and then focused on producing a compact and polished delivery - a fantastic job, and a well deserved prize.”

More about the awards and Ned’s winning entry here.