A semester after its launch in the Summer 2025, The GAME School at ASU is cultivating interdisciplinary programs and extracurricular activities to prepare students for jobs in the growing gaming industry.
GAME stands for games, arts, media and engineering, and the school resulted from a rebranding of the Arts, Media and Engineering program. Pavan Turaga, the founding director of The GAME School, said the change marked a shift toward a more explicit focus on industry-specific skills in games and interactive media.
"The games industry is one of the fastest-growing media industries out there," Turaga said. "It's considered bigger than film and music combined, and the games industry is very well known for being able to absorb talent that is interdisciplinary."
Turaga said the school's mission centers on technological fluency, which focuses on preparing students to work with and be informed users of emerging technologies like AI, virtual reality and wearable hardware. They emphasized the role of creating "interesting human experiences" with the most recent innovations.
Turaga added that historically, game programs focused on one of three areas: storytelling, game programming or art and animation. They said ASU's program was built on an interdisciplinary approach, spanning from engineering to artistic disciplines, allowing students to pursue multiple opportunities within the same school.
"We are the most comprehensive game school, which gives you pathways into any of these tracks if you choose to pursue them," Turaga said.
Christine Tomlinson, a professor at The GAME School, said the school is emphasizing the societal role of video games. The school will offer courses on the potential impacts of gaming and the varied applications of "serious games," which include training, education and therapy.
Tomlinson added that games have several benefits, including stress reduction, catharsis, the creation of social bonds and improved spatial reasoning.
"There's this tendency to think about things that we do for leisure or that we do outside of work as somehow not important or not serious," Tomlinson said.
She said the school emphasizes collaborative, interdisciplinary projects to bring together students from different academic backgrounds, mirroring the structure of industry development teams.
READ MORE: ASU's Video Game Development Club brings virtual worlds to life one project at a time
Connor Rawls, the senior program coordinator for co-curricular initiatives at The GAME School, said the events, competitions and collaborations at the school are designed to extend learning beyond the classroom.
"The ones who already love the games are the people who are showing up to play," Rawls said. "The ones who are learning their passion are usually the ones who decide the way they want to get into it is by running an event."
Rawls said the school organizes various activities like free weekly Esports tournaments, hackathons and game jams. Such opportunities allow students to gain hands-on experience as well as connect with industry professionals and partners who attend as mentors or sponsors.
READ MORE: Connection and community through esports at ASU
Rawls said the school is currently working to expand the collaboration between the campuses in the Valley and in Los Angeles. The LA campus is working toward approval for a bachelor's degree in game studio development that would operate alongside the Tempe-based program in a collaborative setting, he said.
Turaga said success for the school over the next decade would include expanded enrollment and graduates launching independent game studios. Turaga said they hope The GAME School graduates describe the program as a place where they were allowed to experiment and learn.
"The GAME School should be a space where you're taking risks, and you're making mistakes," Turaga said. "You take this idea that 'play,' the word 'play' as a metaphor, is extremely important for you to live a happy, successful life."
Edited by Kate Gore, Senna James and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at ngmohta@asu.edu.
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Nikhil Mohta is a sophomore studying B.S. in Finance and is currently a Business Community Leader for the W.P. Carey School of business. He is also an active member in various clubs on campus like PIERA.
