UW Bothell’s Center for Serious Play Director Jason Pace will share how would-be game designers can best prepare for a career in making games. Pace is one of several gaming industry leaders and innovators who will appear at tonight’s sold out grand opening of The Art of Video Games at the Experience Music Project (EMP).

This groundbreaking interactive exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, explores the 40-year evolution of video games from Atari and Pac-Man to Mass Effect.

Pace will draw on his years spent as a Creative Director and Lead Producer for the Halo franchise on Xbox where he divided his time between developing new intellectual property with external studios and leading internal projects to grow the franchise in new directions.

Now at UW Bothell, Pace combines his gaming industry experience with his long history of connected experience design to lead the Center for Serious Play and closely collaborate on the university’s newest degree program, Interactive Media Design (IMD).

An IMD degree will develop highly trained students for a multitude of opportunities that involve designing, creating and evaluating next-generation, technology-based media applications.

Pace says this type of degree is necessary for anyone who wants a future in the industry: “Those who plan to pursue careers in game development need to possess highly developed skills to succeed, and the new Interactive Media Design degree at the University of Washington Bothell was designed specifically to prepare students for a wide range of career opportunities in this complex, fast-moving industry. The interactive media industry has grown dramatically over the last 20 years and is now a major global economic force.”