Commercial Games Development

This Master's in Commercial Games Development provides students with an intellectual experience of study in the field of games development. Created and delivered by staff with both research and games industry expertise, it is designed to meet the increasing shortage of adept games developers, designers and programmers. The course offers a unique pathway into the games industry and wider related research.

You will be engaged in advanced research and game development/design activities alongsidePlayWest, UWE Bristol's in-house commercial games studio. Each member of the cohort plays their part in the development team according to their prior experience: those with more experience or a related degree will help guide the cohort as a senior developer/designer, while others will take on the role of standard developer/designer.

During the course, you will develop a portfolio of live commercial and research projects, gaining practical experience, academic skills and a deeper awareness of commercial processes as you work in your multi-disciplinary game dev-team.

A rich stream of live PlayWest research and development projects with industry partners that have previously included Rolls-Royce Aerospace and Bloodhound SSC, allows you to explore the application of games technology and methodologies, as well as virtual and augmented reality for real-world applications.

By giving equal weight to both the research and games development aspects, the course aims to establish an essential bridge between ground-breaking academic research and the entertainment software industry, each often overlooked or misunderstood by the other.

Industry-ready skills

By helping students form strong professional identities as developer-practitioners, graduates will be well prepared to step into roles within the games industry, academia and other emergent fields of games development for the real world.

The degree provides an immersion into enterprise, cutting-edge technologies and game design practice. Along with practical skills, it gives students a thorough understanding of what is required to operate within a commercial entity and a diverse, mulri-disciplinary game development team of coders and designers.

Unique study facilities

PlayWest is one of a group of Enterprise Studios at UWE Bristol created to give students opportunities to work on live and funded commercial projects whilst undergoing their study. The studio is involved in high-impact work with a growing list of exciting industry partners and is based in the Foundry Collaboration space.

All principal members of the teaching team have AAA-studio experience.

The Games Technology subject area is part of "PlayStation First" program giving access to current PlayStation Dev-kits.

For more information, including the most up to date module listing, see the entry for this course on the UWE Bristol website, by clicking on the ‘Visit website’ button located further down this page.