How USC built one of the top video game schools in the country

LOS ANGELES — Mike Zyda, a professor at USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s computer science department and director of the GamePipe Laboratory at USC Games, has counted the number of games that have been shipped by alumni from USC’s game program. So far, it’s more than 790 million units.

Not bad. I took a tour of the school’s Advanced Games course with students from both the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science and the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media & Games division. (See our story on those games here). Zyda and his instructors put together huge teams with up to 60 students to create games that become part of a student’s resume. Some of the teams get hired en masse by venture capitalists or game publishers.