From gamers to game makers: digital media design students level up on learning
- Laurie Dionne Babcock
- School of Entrepreneurship
- Contributors: James Greco, Photos | Chris Noonan, Video
7 – minute read
Long before they coded their first character, many students in Mike Salmond’s “Video Game Design” courses were kids huddled around a glowing screen, button-mashing their way through Mario levels or losing track of hours in the world of Pokémon. At Florida Gulf Coast University, they can learn to build games like those they played.
“I created the courses to serve as an on-ramp into the industry,” says Salmond, a professor of digital media design in the Daveler & Kauanui School of Entrepreneurship and the author of three books on video game development. “Every developer, designer and artist I talk to has a similar process into the industry. They made something — a level, a model, a game or a mod of a game — and that was what got them into the industry.”
Although games are associated on the surface with play, design students delve deeper to gain practical, marketable skills in storytelling, coding and design thinking that translate far beyond the console.
Developing fresh products for gamers and other digital users is serious business. U.S. consumer spending on video games reached $59.3 billion in 2024, according to figures from the Entertainment Software Association, Circana and Sensor Tower, underscoring the industry’s economic momentum. The U.S. Bureau of Labor also projects steady growth in web development and digital design, with employment expected to rise 7% from 2024 to 2034, creating an estimated 14,500 job openings annually.
Press start: Launching a game design journey
The digital media design program officially launched Sept. 16, 2019, and in just three days, 13 students had declared the new major. Previously offered only as a concentration under the bachelor’s in art program, it is currently housed within the Daveler & Kauanui School of Entrepreneurship but will transition to the Bower School of Music & the Arts in 2026–27, where it will become part of the art and design program. Enrollment in the major climbed from 166 in fall 2020 to 349 this past spring, reflecting its momentum and growing appeal.
Video game design is one of the program’s core strengths, blending creative and technical skill sets. Prerequisites include foundational courses in graphic design and digital media design. Students learn to understand games as an interactive medium and explore why people play.
“To understand how games are made, they make one,” says Salmond. “It is an experiential program.”
By the end of the course, students develop critical and creative thinking about the medium and recognize the complexity behind the games they play. They create a range of game types, from cozy simulations and first-person action experiences to retro-style 8-bit games. Using the industry-standard UnReal Engine, they can also produce hyper-realistic, graphically rich worlds like that of Fortnite. They learn to follow the design loop of “ideate, prototype, test” — an approach used across design disciplines but especially important in game development, according to Salmond.
“At the core of the digital media design program is the concept of ‘show, don’t tell.’ We teach rigorous theory and design history, and the students all make media and learn by doing.”
Quest accepted: Students build their own games
Every player knows the thrill of picking up a controller. Few understand the painstaking choices behind the pixels. The technical and creative skills FGCU students gain come directly from hands-on experience. The goal is to produce a functional, portfolio-worthy project that shows their capabilities to potential employers.
One of Salmond’s former students, Michael Rechkemmer (’16, art with a concentration in digital media design), is now FGCU’s website manager. In his work, he draws on a principle he learned in Salmond’s class: the importance of user experience.
“Just like in game design, every website interaction should feel intuitive and accessible,” he says. “We constantly think about how users will navigate the site, how easily they can find what they need and how our interface design influences that experience.”
For another alum, the decision to take Salmond’s two video game design classes was “a no-brainer.” Joey Tiseo (’23, digital media design) has been playing video games since he got a GameCube for Christmas when he was 6. By 13, he was already creating games.
At FGCU, he began development in class on a game he describes as “a discombobulated series of technical and artistic experiments.” His senior project eventually motivated him to sequence together an actual plotline, he says.
The flexibility of the video game design classes, along with having a deadline and feedback from Salmond and his classmates, “really helped me put myself on the path to a release-ready game,” he says.
His creation, “Dragonpaw,” will soon launch on Steam, the digital storefront. The demo has gotten over 10,000 downloads without any marketing, Tiseo says. “The new iteration makes the old one look super-dated, and I’m excited to get it out there.”
Game over? Never
For Salmond and his students, the creative possibilities of gaming continue to enthrall and inspire.
“I still want to be amazed and find that sense of wonder — and video games do that probably better than any other medium except theme parks,” he says. “Rather than watch Indiana Jones, you get to ‘be’ Indiana Jones. That’s what makes games so unique — you are the hero, the main character and the reason everything happens in the world of the game.”
That immersive experience is what makes games a serious medium worth studying, Salmond believes. Over the years, he has seen them evolve from niche hobby to mainstream culture.
“For so long, it was something a few people did and then grew out of. In 2025, lifelong gamers are common and the norm.”