Sony Computer Entertainment Spain has presented the program PlayStation First, an academic association program for the video games development which promotes university education through official development tools for PlayStation gaming platforms. To explain the Luke Savage agreement (in the image below), Head of Academic Development at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe presented the details of this great initiative during the Meeting InnGame 2014 for Young People and Professionals of Video Games and Interactive Products that has been organized by the Institute of Youth (Injuve) in collaboration with the U-Tad University (University Center for Technology and Digital Art).
Luke Savage declared during the meeting that the main objective of the PlayStation First is to look for and work with best talents in the world so they can develop titles for the PlayStation platforms, forming the next generation of industry developers and offering training in the entire business process, from the code writing until the animation and the graphic design going through the marketing.
PlayStationFirst It is a pioneering program that is already implemented in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia or New Zealand. This agreement allows future professionals to have access, thanks to this program, to the official tools necessary to develop content for the PlayStation platform. In this way, the students enter the labor market With a deep knowledge and a real experience in the development, publication and communication of video games.
In Spain this academic alliance is very interesting because Sony has a long history of supporting the videogames sector and since 2008, it has led the production of a dozen of them developed mostly by Spanish studios and that have achieved great sales success all over the world. Among them are Geronimo Stilton: Journey to the Kingdom of Fantasy, Cars 2: The Video Game, Phineas and Ferb, the adaptation of Epic Mickey: The Return of Two Heroes, which have positioned Sony Spain as a world leader in the production of video games.
In Spain there are already two universities attached to the PlayStation First program: IT'S NE and the European University of Madrid. ESNE, University School of Design and Innovation in Madrid, has been training students since 2011 in the Official University Degree in Videogames Design and Development. Students of this degree have access to development kits for PlayStation3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Portable and, soon, PlayStation 4. In addition, young people will have the supervision and continuous advice of professionals from SCE Spain in several fundamental areas such as graphic arts, development , marketing and business.
The European University of Madrid teaches in the course of the PlayStation First, the Master in Creation and Management of Videogames. In it, the professionals of Sony Spain advise and give talks to the students to offer them a closer and more realistic vision of the moment in which the videogames sector lives.
And the best part is that the program is not only in academic collaboration but also reaches the commercial phase. If the video games that are being developed in the Universities attached to the program reach sufficient quality, Sony Spain approves the project and an agreement is reached for its definitive market launch.
Congratulations to Sony Spain for the initiative Playstation First which also affects the incubator and launcher model to identify new talents and new successful franchises for gaming platforms supported in game consoles.
In the first image they appear Maria Stukof, responsible for Academic Development of Sony Spain, Roberto Yeste, Head of Local Development of Sony Spain and Luke Savage, responsible for the PlayStation First program during his attendance at the presentations held at the InnGames 2014.
