George Mason University will offer the state’s first bachelor of fine arts degree in computer-game design this fall.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia approved the GMU degree program in March. Though it’s the first in Virginia, other universities offer similar programs, including the School of Florida and Carnegie Mellon University.

A senior course is pencilled in, as an example, in which students will develop games for nonentertainment purposes such as business management and medical training.

That’s one reason for the high demand for game designers in the Washington area, Martin said.

The area is home to such gaming corporations as EA Mythic Inc, developer of the net role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot, and ProGames Network, which distributes Hollywood action-adventure games including “Godzilla — Monster Mayhem.”

Currently, many in the business have fine-arts backgrounds, “but the technical wants are extraordinarily difficult” and they frequently need retraining, he revealed. The GMU program will focus on the creative design side while PC science courses will help students “understand what can and cannot be realized with current game engines and physics engines.”

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