Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | March 2013 16 T he first graduates with a specialization in gaming technology will be leaving Macao Polytechnic Institute this summer to take their places among the industry innovators of tomorrow. This is a pretty big deal, considering the impact these young minds are likely to have on the technologies that are defining and redefining how casinos operate, how they’re regulated and the scope of the customer experience they offer, and not just in Macau, but worldwide. “It will train students to exploit the benefits communication standards offer, creating new market-specific products and services never seen before,” says Dr. Rita Tse, associate professor and coordinator of MPI’s Computing Program. The technology of communication is really what the specialization is all about, and the Gaming Standards Association has been one of its principal architects. “We realizedwe have to educate because there is a shortage of talent in technology,” says GSA President Peter DeRaedt. GSA, of course, has been the driving force behind development and adoption of the open standards embodied in the Game-to-System protocol—G2S, as it’s famously known—which is considered integral to the industry’s networked future. It provides a language for gaming machines and host systems to talk to each other. Indeed, it has revolutionized the conversation, enabling software downloads, remote configuration and remote software verification, tools which a few short years ago did not exist. “We shared the same vision. Asians think long- term. Which is what makes this program so unique. Standards is a long road. They understand that.” – GSA President Peter DeRaedt It was with a view to participating in the cultivation of a generation of programmers and networking specialists versed in the manifold benefits of open standards and inspired by its possibilities that GSA eagerly joined with Macao Polytechnic Institute and itsfacultyintheplanningofthespecialization back in 2007 and the shepherding of it into the classroom two years later. “It was the GSA standard that really stimulated us and gave us the idea for it,” Dr. Tse says. “That was very exciting for us.” “We shared the same vision,”Mr DeRaedt says. “Asians think long-term. Which is what makes this program so unique. Standards is a long road. They understand that.” A close and collaborative relationship with the industry has been part of what makes Macao Polytechnic Institute special. The first fruits of this were harvested back in 2007 with the establishment of the Gaming and Entertainment Information Technology Research and Development Centre, founded with the support of the Melco Group. It has provided students with an array of skills in game development and MICE-related prototypes and products, including some fascinating virtual modeling concepts. The Institute also is home to a gaming laboratory developed in partnership with Macao Polytechnic Institute’s gaming specialization, part of the school’s bachelor’s program in Computing Science, was developed in partnership with the Gaming Standards Association and IGT. Technology’s Next Generation Macao Polytechnic Institute is teaching computer science with a specialization in gaming—a unique course of study born of a unique collaboration with the industry In Focus