Looking to Get Into Game Design? Read This List

If you want to get into game design these days, its a bit more complex than developing games in your basement. Many schools have instituted formal programs on the subject, and the Princeton Review has come up with the top eight game design schools, based on a survey of 50 college programs.

The 50 schools all have some sort of program in place, but the Review, which has been ranking schools based on major, financial aid and features since 1981, narrowed the list to the eight best. Those are:

1. University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
2. DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
3. Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
4. Becker College (Worcester, MA)
5. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
6. The Art Institute of Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia)
7. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)
8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)

GamePro took the list a step further, analyzing each school by tuition, student/faculty ratio and school background. From their research on Rensselaer Polytechnic:

Rensselaer's graduate pool includes a lot of chief executive officers: Kathrik Bala is founder and CEO of Vicarious Visions, which developed several Guitar Hero Wii games among other well-known projects. His fellow RPI alumna Tobi Sauliner worked at Vicarious Visions for five years before going off to found and become CEO of 1st Playable Productions-which handles Cartoon Network's Ben 10 and Secret Saturdays games for the Nintendo DS. More recent graduate Mike DelPrete is founder and CEO of Agora Games, an online game technology and community-building resource for many prominent games such as Guitar Hero and Call of Duty: World at War.

If you are interested in a career in game design, these articles are definitely a great place to start.