Enter the Game Studio

The Game Studio at Champlain College brings together seven collaborative majors all taught by industry-expert faculty to provide students with a world-class education in game development.

Seven Majors.
One Experience.

The Game Studio at Champlain College is the premier destination for students who want to prepare for a career in game development in a real-world setting that mirrors how the professional game industry actually works. At Champlain, your game classes will start in your first semester and continue through your last. Our industry-expert faculty will guide you through the rigorous courses that will shape you into a polished game industry professional. There are two main factors that land people the most highly prized jobs in the game industry: the right education and a strong portfolio. Champlain’s Game Studio delivers both.

The Game Studio Experience

Game Art Major

Champlain’s Game Art program was one of the first in the country and remains the strongest among top Game Art programs because of our industry-expert faculty, skill-building curriculum, and Game Studio experience. As a Game Art major, you will apply your imagination and creativity to the challenge of taking video game art to the next level—literally. You will learn how to develop the graphic assets that define the visual aspects of games including the environments, props, characters, animations, user interface and visual effects that bring the game experience to life.

BFA

Game Business & Publishing Major

The game market represents $150 billion per year. That’s a huge market with endless possibilities. This major will teach you the business drivers that can make or break a game as it is published in the growing game market. As a Game Business & Publishing student, you will learn all aspects of the games industry, including prominent technologies, genres, and business practices. The game industry is fast moving and ever-evolving, and this major will prepare you to take advantage of new career opportunities in emerging business areas like Esports management, digital product management, and risk analysis.

Game Design Major

Game Design comprises three distinct areas of the game production process: System Design, Level Design, and Narrative Design. As a Game Design major, you will learn to excel in these complex and interdependent parts of the game production cycle. This program’s unmatched combination of creative, aesthetic, technical, and professional skills attracts some of the most promising Game Design students in the country. Many of our graduates go on to work in AAA studios.

Game Production Management Major

Gain the skills you need to be a player in the game industry and lead a development team to produce the next big video game. The game industry needs people with an aptitude for business, strong communication skills, and a passion for video games to manage the game production process. As a student in the Game Production Management major, you’ll develop essential skills for organizing, motivating and overseeing groups of game artists, designers, and programmers through the end-to-end production cycle.

Game Programming Major

Champlain’s degree in Game Programming—one of the first bachelor’s degrees of its kind in the nation—combines games and game theory with the intellectual challenge of software engineering to produce a highly versatile, valuable, and in-demand skill set. As a Game Programming major, you will learn to write the code that takes game art and conceptual game design ideas and transforms them into complex characters and full-blown game worlds. Explore artificial intelligence behaviors, game physics, game architecture, and 2D and 3D graphics rendering.

Student wearing headphones and sitting at sound mixing board

Game Sound Design Major

As a Game Sound Design major, you’ll learn music composition, scoring, voiceover recording, game engine scripting, and more, all while working directly with game engines on a game development team in the Game Studio. You’ll learn to develop game scores, create music, and record sound to serve specific functions in different media. Get hands-on experience in audio direction for full games and specific game assets using traditional and digitally facilitated methods.

A student and onlooker play a virtual reality game at Champlain's Senior Show for games.

Interactive Narrative for Games & Digital Media

Tap into your imagination and be the one behind exciting stories that make games great. Write and design game narratives that put players first and the storylines in their hands.

BRAGGING RIGHTS

THE BEST

The Game Studio at Champlain College consistently ranks in the Top 20 Game Design Schools by The Princeton Review.

100%

100% of classes are taught by game industry experts, who have been or remain highly active professionals in the industry.

the most

Champlain was named a “Most Innovative School” by U.S. News & World Report for the seventh consecutive year in its “America’s Best Colleges” 2022 rankings.

More Game industry Degree options from ONE OF THE TOP GAME DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Boasting more degree programs in game development than any other college in the country, Champlain College’s renowned Game Studio consistently ranks among the top game development programs, and many of it’s graduates go on to land coveted positions at AAA studios.

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Game Studio Highlights

Game STUDIO OVERVIEW

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7 Majors
1 experience

Enter Into the Experience

What I love most about working with Champlain students is that they are prepared to hit the ground running when it comes to developing games. Any student coming out of their program has the tools to make an immediate positive impact to a game development studio.

Steve Meim, West Coast Game Producer