Most game design classes teach kids to play. I help districts build pathways that teach them to ship, and that the industry actually hires from.
Districts are launching game design pathways without anyone on staff who has actually built a game or worked in the industry.
Game design is one of the fastest-growing CTE pathway interests in California, and across the country. Districts know they need to offer it. Parents are asking for it. Students want it.
But the people building these programs usually don’t come from the industry. So the curriculum gets built around what’s teachable, not what’s hireable. Kids spend two years making Mario clones in Scratch and graduate with portfolios that get them rejected from every program they apply to.
The result: a CTE pathway in name only. Districts spend the money. Students take the seats. The industry still hires from the same four schools.
This is a fixable problem. It just needs someone who has been on both sides of the table.
Most game design programs make you pick a lane on day one. Design, or 3D art, or code. The good ones add production. Almost none teach you marketing. We do all of it.
You rotate. Because you don’t know yet. Maybe you’re scared of code and end up loving the control. Maybe 3D modeling turns out to be the most fun you’ve had. Maybe you find out design isn’t your thing but you can run a room, and that’s a producer. Maybe it’s marketing.
Med students do rotations before they choose a specialty. Nobody does that for games. You spend four years and forty thousand dollars finding out you picked the wrong lane. Year one here is the entire industry in one room.
Most game design programs start the other way, with theory. Ethics, systems, games as art. That stuff matters, and we get to it, in year two. Year one has a different job.
Year one has a design fundamentals unit. We just don’t camp there. You learn it and then you feel it, because a build gives you feedback a lecture can’t. Fun from the first interaction. Weight on every input. A decision that isn’t a decision is a chore.
Building does two things. It tells me who finishes. And it tells you whether you want this work, or whether you just want to be around games. Those feel identical from the outside. They stop feeling identical the first time a build breaks at midnight.
Most college programs filter at the door. Portfolios, admissions, letters of recommendation. I don’t get that. Anyone can sign up for an elective, so the filter lives inside the course, and production is the only honest one, because talking about games filters nobody.
Their filter protects the program. Ours protects the student. You find out in year one whether this is your work. Not sophomore year of college with tuition on the line.
That’s why this room ships finished games instead of pitch decks.
Jared Yeager, adjunct professor at USC’s Interactive Media and Games Division and former Executive Producer at Walt Disney Games, sat in this room and said these games hold up against half of what he sees at USC. USC is the top-ranked game design program in the country. This is a high school elective, on a public school budget, in a room I outfitted myself.
Draw your own conclusions.
For districts standing up a new game design or game development pathway. Standards mapping, curriculum architecture, hiring support, facilities specs, industry partnerships, and a launch plan you can actually execute.
For districts with an existing program that isn’t producing the outcomes they hoped for. I run a structured diagnostic across curriculum, equipment, staffing, and student outcomes, then deliver a roadmap to turn it around.
Half-day or full-day workshops for CTE teachers on game dev pedagogy, Unreal Engine in the classroom, industry-aligned project work, and using AI tools without producing slop.
Ongoing strategic support for CTE leadership at the district or county level. Monthly check-ins, async availability, and direct help when issues come up that need someone with industry context.
These are the actual course sites students use every week for deadlines, specs, and deliverables. Not sample syllabi written for an audit. If you want to know what a pathway built this way looks like in practice, read the schedule.
The full year, week by week: rotation through design, art, code, production, and marketing, then specialization, then a shipped game. Gates, rubrics, and the deliverable specs students are actually held to.
The same production-first structure applied to a design classroom: real briefs, real critique, and work assessed the way a studio would assess it rather than the way a worksheet would.
Both sites are live, maintained during the school year, and built to be read by students on a phone between classes.
Most consultants in this space are career educators who haven’t worked in the industry they’re preparing students for. I’m the opposite.
I spent seven years at Razer as Sr. Creative Manager, Head of Community & Content Marketing (Global). I founded the company’s in-house creative team, ran content and community operations across owned channels totaling tens of millions of followers, and was on the IPO team that took the company public.
From there I went to Red Bull Media House, where I led the global rebrand of Red Bull Esports into Red Bull Gaming: the highest growth and engagement that account had seen on record up to that point.
Then I crossed to the development side as Game Director at Tuned-Out Games on Demons Ate My Neighbors! (DAMN!), where I directed creative, design, and community, secured funding, and eventually sold the IP. The studio that bought it has since shipped a mobile version and is continuing development.
By 2022, I’d seen games from almost every angle: marketing them, building community for them, designing them, funding them, selling them. Every angle except teaching the next generation how to make them.
So I started teaching at Culver City High School. The program I built became the Creative Educators Network Model Pathway for Game Design and Integration. It’s funded, recognized, and producing students who are getting into the programs and jobs they want.
“It is so exciting to see how the original Mega Grant from Epic Games has developed into what it is today. The students are getting hands-on experience with professional-level tools that we use every day in the visual effects and gaming industry. The complexity of these projects that I’ve seen is remarkable, especially considering it’s an introductory course. Keep up the great work, and don’t forget to send me a resume when you’re done.”
“This work is unprecedented.”
A profile feature on the Culver City HS Game Development pathway and the model it offers for industry-aligned CTE.
I work with a small number of districts and education organizations at a time. Best to reach out early: most engagements get scheduled 60 to 90 days out.
kian@darien.games