Free Xbox One/PC Game Dev Classes Will Be Held At Two Microsoft Stores

Learning game development can be a daunting task, especially if you have no prior coding, art, or design training. But there is an increasing number of resources available to make it easier. Today, Microsoft announced an initiative of its own that aims to help people learn to make games, called the Xbox Academy.

Microsoft will hold a series of free game development courses at its stores in New York City and Sydney, Australia. There are three different courses in the series, each specializing in an aspect of game development.

The first, simply called Game Development, covers how to design and deploy games onto Xbox One and PC. The second, Game Programming, involves learning how to use the Unity game engine to create adventure games. Finally, Game Design goes into depth on how to conceive of and pitch game ideas.

The Xbox One is a particularly open platform, considering that anyone can turn their console into a development kit. The Xbox Live Creators Program, which is currently in testing, will additionally provide a relatively cheap and simple way to get games published on the Xbox Store. It's cool to see Microsoft continuing this support and working to make the barrier to entry for game development as low as possible.

The courses in NYC take place once a day from August 20-September 3. Sydney's courses begin on September 25 and run through October 1. You can register for the NYC courses here and the Sydney courses here. The classes are officially credited, meaning that they can potentially carry over to full-time game development programs.