Politehnica University Timisoara is launching a master’s program for game enthusiasts.

Experts in the field are in high demand

• The video game industry is constantly growing and many UPT bachelor graduates have already developed games for their diploma projects;
• Politehnica University Timisoara is launching a new master’s program, called “Game Development”, with 20 places financed from the national budget and 15 with tuition being available;
• By training specialists in this field, it is possible that more companies in creative industries will open offices in Timisoara.

Politehnica University Timișoara continues the process of updating the educational offer to match the requirements of the labor market. Thus, starting from this year, graduates can enroll in a new master's program, called "Game Development". The program is designed specifically for gaming enthusiasts who want to develop their skills in a creative industry field. Also, the UPT specialists have found that there is real interest from students because many of them have developed video games from scratch for their final projects, teaching themselves from external sources.

The master's program is addressed not only to graduates of technical specializations, such as Automation and Computers or Informatics, but also to graduates in fields such as Design or Arts.

“We have chosen this way of working because the gaming industry is one of the creative industries. Here, we need people with programming skills, but also many people with design skills, open-minded young people who have ideas that we can perhaps find at the faculties of architecture or arts. The master's program is open to those who want to enter this industry and have the skills to do so. There is interest from our students, but there is also interest from companies present in Romania that want to hire specialists. This field is not developed in Timișoara, but we already have signals from the market that there are companies that want to come to the west of the country if we offer them what they want most: experts.”, declared Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eng. Florin Drăgan, Ph.D., the rector of UPT.

Through this master's program, students will have the opportunity to explore various aspects of game development, such as design, graphics and animation, game programming, sound and music in games, testing and evaluation, as well as aspects of project management in the video game industry. This comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach ensures that graduates will be well prepared to tackle the real challenges of the game development industry.

The "Game Development" specialization offers 20 budgeted places available, and another 15 places with tuition fee. The teachers come from several UPT faculties, but there are also ongoing talks with specialist professors from universities in Europe to come and teach in Romania. The professors will also collaborate with former graduates who have taken master's courses in the field of video games abroad.

“Besides the fact that many students were developing games for diploma projects, we noticed that some of them wanted to pursue master’s programs in this field, but had no options in Romania. Therefore, they were choosing universities from abroad, from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, which have up to date programs for the creative industries. We reached out to some of them and we are happy that they want to help us as volunteers – this is a great win.”, said  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eng. Florin Drăgan, Ph.D., the rector of UPT.

Another aspect considered by the UPT professors when they built the curriculum for the new program was developing the students’ entrepreneurial spirit. The students can develop games on their own and study marketing and sales techniques as part of the master’s program.