Emergent Announces Gamebryo Academic Program

Major middleware tool provider Emergent Game Technologies has announced the creation of the Emergent Academic Program, a program designed support up and coming game developers by offering students and researchers hands-on experience and training with its game development tools and Gamebryo game engine. Emergent's game technologies have been used in titles such as Sid Meier's Civilization 4 as well as within Bethesda's popular role-playing epic The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and the company notes that its Gamebryo engine already in use within nearly a dozen, national and international universities. According to Emergent, the overall goal of the new academic program is to “elevate the skill level, practical knowledge and talent coming out of today's universities by giving students real-world development experiences early in their academic career.” In addition, the Emergent Academic Program will promote “creative collaboration” between schools, as well as provide students with access to interactive entertainment industry discussion forums. Emergent will also make available guest speakers, and initiate internship opportunities with Emergent. Specifically, the program addresses both teaching and research in academic institutions with two alliances. The Emergent Teaching Alliance provides any accredited colleges and university free licenses of Emergent products for use both in the classroom and in student projects, while the Emergent Research Alliance provides select colleges and universities free licenses of Emergent products for use in unfunded research projects. In addition, Emergent will also sponsor seminars at the annual Game Developers Conference, offering participants a venue where they may meet with company engineers and showcase their accomplishments. Members of the Research Alliance will also be invited to an annual Academic Summit, where they will meet and collaborate with other members, key industry architects and technologists. "Emergent is committed to advancing this industry from top to bottom and supporting creativity from its earliest stages," said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent. "With the launch of our Academic Program we are taking one more step to ensure we are able to offer game developers the most flexible and comprehensive commercial tools available. As our worldwide footprint rapidly grows we believe it is critical to have great involvement with, and a two way dialogue between, our customers and leading academic institutions." Those universities interested in participating in the Emergent Academic Program should visit Emergent’s official website for more information.