“We firmly believe in supporting indie game aspirations in tandem with AAA industry ones”: Danny Bilson, Director of USC Games on the future of USC Games Expo

sportskeeda.com:

USC Games, a flagship collaboration offered jointly by the School of Cinematic Arts Division of Interactive Media & Games and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Computer Science Department, focuses on both the design and production of interactive media and games.

USC Games recently hosted the sixth iteration of its annual expo featuring student-developed games from aspiring game developers, USG Games Expo 2022, along with Jam City. The virtual event included global premieres of over 50 student-made games and featured up-and-coming game designers and developers from USC Games' program.

In an exclusive conversation with Sportskeeda Gaming’s Suryadeepto Sengupta, Danny Bilson, the Chair of the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ (SCA) Interactive Media & Games Division (IMGD) and Director of USC Games, discussed the success of the event and its future.

A) Danny: Thank you! The Expo is a lot of work to produce, but it’s something we feel passionate about hosting annually to not only showcase the amazing, innovative work that our students have done in the past year, but also to show potential future applicants to our program what’s possible.

A) Danny: We feel what makes us unique is our focus on cross-discipline, project-based learning, with a particular focus on integrating the USC School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media & Games Division (IMGD) and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Computer Science (Games).

We believe the technological underpinning of game development and production has to be developed and taught in tandem with the creative storytelling aspect of the discipline. I’d add that the other thing that makes it different is that our faculty has actually worked in the industry and are able to bring those skills,