This is my first gaming blog and as such I am in need of a damned good rant on my current situation before I can settle into a decent rhythm, here we go.

I am currently twenty years of age. Slap bang in the middle of the "typical gamer" niche, that most elusive of sub-species the eighteen to twenty-five males.

I have so far in my life: travelled to far flung reaches of the world, had a number of meaningful relationships, fallen in love on two occasions, completed high school and sixth form, attended a year of a Philosophy and Film degree, decided to drop said degree in order to find something more worthwhile, made friends, lost friends, watched death, seen birth, drank until I passed out, given up drink as a sign of development, countless other random events and I am now thinking about the future. I am in a stable relationship which I am grateful for everyday, and am applying for a new degree, in that most dreamed about sector, Games Design.

Most institutions I have noticed make sure that programming is the main aspect of their computer game courses. This in my opinion is somewhat of a mistake. To design, one needs to be creative, to draw ideas from nothing and change the way people think in order to achieve a piece of work that will draw people in and allow them to develop some sort of skill therefore feel a sense of achievement. What programming does is develop that person into a just another drone. The crux of the problem revolves around the language used for progamming, it is by definition Logic.

I have the upmost respect for programmers, what they do I find damned near miraculous. However the reason the gaming sector is so damn stagnant is because people of creative and outwardly thinking minds find it damned near impossible to enter this "old boys club." Take Halo 3's success. Why, on this amazing and diverse planet does a sequel to (in my opinion) just another flashy shooter become the single largest entertainment property in the world! The answer in simple terms is marketing. The saturation of the market made it almost impossible not to notice Halo 3. Indeed if it was made from plastic held together by ducktape people would still have paid £40 for it, simple because of the branding. Take Nike for instance, everyone knows that their shoes arn't that special and that they are made by midgets and babies yet we still buy them because of the way they are marketed (note: I haven't bought a pair of nikes since 1997.)

Developers often drone on about how hard it is to get into the gaming business, however should they stop whittling on and set up some decent apprenticeship schemes and partnerships with universities then not only will they provide an opening into the business but they will solve any problems involving less than ideal workers. It's a give and take situation with guaranteed results.

My point is that in the countless hours spent searching through game design degrees in the UK I have found only one that really interests me. The University of Wales, Newport is a relatively small university. It is not high up on the leaugue tables however it seems to be very well regarded among it's student populus and a friend of mine who studies animation there seems to be enjoying it something wonderful. The degree centers around the creative aspects of game design, and by learning skills associated with animation, film, and other disciplines I feel it would be ideal for a solid grounding in creative thinking and game design. With my application underway I hope within the next few days to have completed my UCAS form and be on the way to creating a design portfolio that will help me get into this most intriguing of degrees.

There is an open day on the 14th of October so hopefully after attending that I will have a better understanding of how the course works. Therefore this blog will be a chart of my journey, hopefully, on the road to success. The reason I chose to do this on Gamespot as opposed to Blogspot or another of the myriad blogging services is simply because I always use gamespot for my gaming news and therefore I'm more likely to remember to fill this blog in on here. I am somewhat forgetful.