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Original post by Peter Yap
I study at University of Alberta, so I can tell you a bit about it. We''re insanely large, over 30 people (at my last count) doing research in games AI, although alot of them work in traditional games like chess, poker or Go, some of us do work on commercial games. We have worked in collaboration with BioWare, EA and Relic, so we''re not totally pie-in-the-sky academics. More info at http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games

As for marks... if you don''t have the marks to go into the PhD right away, you can always apply for a Masters first. The sad fact is that most schools look at marks for grad school. Graduate schools only look at university marks (no one cares what your high school mark is, everybody gets A''s anyways!), some ask for GRE scores too.

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I''m already living in Canada, would I need to take this GRE test? Also was your undergraduate gpa? ?/4.33

Last question is there any hope for a job outside the university with a PhD?

Peter Yap,
maybe you could tell us a bit about life as a graduate student working on game A.I?

after all thats the next big thing in the gaming industry...it wold be cool to know more about this field from an insider, such as your self.

do game companies take PHD students as staff?

To Timkin,
are you familiar with the masters program in melbourne uni, the masters in software system engineering specializing in A.I., you know anyting about this course, or does anyone else know anyting bout this course,

thanks

cheers

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Second, PhDs can get paid quite a bit, depending on where you go and how qualified you are.

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Are you saying that PhD students get paid quite a bit, or people who have been awarded a PhD?

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
A top US university will pay upwards of 50k US for a good PhD.

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...and if you mean they''ll give you a 50k pa scholarship to do a PhD, ask yourself just how many of these are awarded every year compared to the number of people doing PhDs... and evaluate this across every institution offering a PhD program. I can tell you that this is the exception, rather than the rule. In England, for example, the average PhD scholarship is around 20,000 pounds. That''s a pittance when you consider the cost of living. I know of quite a few British PhD students that had to share houses and eat baked beans for most meals just to get by... and they attended some of the countries top Universities.

In Australia, a PhD scholarship varies, but is around AUS$20k. You can sometimes get a top up scholarship, which might give you $25k. The top students get about $30k pa through private scholarships.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Anyhow, I would vehemently argue with anyone who says PhD gets paid peanuts.

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Go ahead... but make sure you have the facts before you do... and don''t just use the example of a couple of top schools in a single country, as this isn''t a realistic picture of the situation across the board.

milkywayman:

I''m not personally familar with the software systems engineering Masters you mentioned, however I can say that Melbourne Uni is well respected in industry for producing top graduates. It also consistantly obtains high levels of funding for research, making it one of Australia''s leading research institutions. You should contact the department directly if you want to get more information. You might also consider looking at the Department of Information Systems, withing the faculty of Science at Melbourne. I''ve done collaborative work with them on AI and they have a great bunch of people working in the Intelligent Agents lab. You might consider doing a Masters there.

Cheers,

Timkin

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Original post by milkywayman
Peter Yap,
maybe you could tell us a bit about life as a graduate student working on game A.I?

after all thats the next big thing in the gaming industry...it wold be cool to know more about this field from an insider, such as your self.

do game companies take PHD students as staff?

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Life as a graduate student working on game AI? Well, it''s lots of fun, while the pay isn''t as good as a real job, I certainly don''t get paid peanuts as a PhD student (although this is probably not universally true).

Anyhow, I''m quite happy. There are other graduate students working on games, you can browse through their webpages to see what fun stuff they are working on.

As for game companies hiring graduate students. It''s certainly helps. Although rare, there are many graduate students working on game companies nowadays. Eg; BioWare, TimeGate Studios, EA, etc... Right now, I''m doing a graduate internship at Relic. To answer your question, it''s definitely possible to get a gaming job with a PhD.

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Original post by Peter Yap To answer your question, it''s definitely possible to get a gaming job with a PhD.

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Definitely true... although one would wonder why anyone would want to go through a route of so much ''pain'' to get a job in the games industry... an undergraduate degree at the right college, a good portfolio and working your ass off in an internship will usually get you through the door eventually.

From experience, I can tell you that you should only do a PhD if you really want to. Don''t do it because you think you have to. Thankfully I did it because I love research and the research area I studied in. That''s the only thing that got me through in the end!

Cheers,

Timkin

thanks guys, good thing i posted this article, it has really helped.

i think i will probably just focus on a masters(with emphaisis on programming and A.I) and them try to get into the gaming A.I

cheers

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Original post by milkywayman
thanks guys, good thing i posted this article, it has really helped.

i think i will probably just focus on a masters(with emphaisis on programming and A.I) and them try to get into the gaming A.I

cheers

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One thing that''s as important as an education (and emphasis on ai is a good idea) is to actually work on a simple game that includes some AI. Doesn''t have to be much - just take a few of the AI topics that interest you and build a simple app around them. They don''t even have to be *games*, per se, as long as they show that you''ve spent some time developing AI.

You could also intern at local game developers, even if you''re just doing QA work - hang around with and absorb some information from the AI developers there. At the very least, you''ll have made some good industry contacts.

Bob Scott
AI Developer
Stainless Steel Studios