13 Master Programs in Game Design in USA for 2024

Are you passionate about video games? Now you can go from being a mere reader to devoting yourself professionally to producing them yourself. It doesn't matter what level you start from or your previous studies. You can become a professional comic artist and turn your passion into your profession. We will guide you like true mentors and show you step by step how to achieve it.

There are many roles to play in the game industry. At Duke, we prepare our graduates to play the game they choose by becoming game designers, developers, and leaders of dynamic production teams. We will empower you with the skills industry leaders are looking for, such as proficiency in programming—including C# and C++—and how to apply these skills to the leading game engines. You will also learn design principles for gameplay, art, user experience and storytelling.

The Game Design master of science program prepares you for a specialized role in the gaming industry by teaching the skills needed to contribute to multidisciplinary development teams. The coursework focuses on user experience research, production, and design - culminating with a game capstone experience. You’ll choose a track that allows you to focus on your chosen area of expertise, whether that’s working as a user experience researcher, producer, or game designer to create and publish games, or specializing in a genre or industry niche to evaluate and enhance existing real-world products.

As the only program of its kind in the United States, the Master of Arts in Game Design drives students to stretch their capacities as designers, developers, consumers, and game administrators and apply that to their unique fields of interest. Students bring to the program their own experiences—whether in politics, science, art, history, marketing, or international studies—and can choose from multidisciplinary courses across our schools of communication, business, and arts.

Explore the simulation, edutainment, or visualization landscape as you enhance your game design and development skills to create truly innovative games.

The MA in Game Development program allows students to further their careers by synthesizing traditional art and design fundamentals with today’s groundbreaking technologies. Students prepare their career skill-set through hands-on prototyping of game mechanics and art creation, followed by creating a final project industry-quality portfolio.

Are you passionate about movies, videogames and animation? Now you can go from being a mere expectator to devoting yourself professionally to producing them yourself. It doesn't matter what level you start from or your previous studies. You can become a professional and turn your passion into your profession. We will guide you like true mentors and show you step by step how to achieve it.

Welcome to the exciting world of Videogame Art and Game Design! On this journey, you'll discover the magic of creating stunning cities, magical vehicles, and powerful weapons that come to life in epic video games like Fortnite, The Last of Us, and The Witcher. But that is not all; This knowledge is not only applicable in the video game industry, but you will also find it useful in movies, commercials, board games, and much more.

The MFA Game Development program allows students to further their careers by synthesizing traditional art and design fundamentals with today’s groundbreaking technologies. Students level up their skills through hands-on prototyping of game mechanics and art creation, followed by creating a thesis project and an industry-quality portfolio.

Welcome to the exciting world of video game development training! If you've ever dreamed of creating your own virtual worlds, telling interactive stories, and immersing players in unique experiences, you've come to the right place. Our practical training will give you the opportunity to work on real projects from the beginning, collaborate as a team and face challenges that replicate real-world situations.

The Master of Science in Computational Design Practices (M.S.CDP) is an innovative program for recent graduates and practitioners that extends and integrates disciplines between architecture, data visualization, and urban planning—focusing specifically on computational design practices for the built environment at multiple scales. It aims to pioneer new concepts and pedagogies for an integrated multi-scalar and spatial approach to computational design at Columbia GSAPP. The M.S.CDP curriculum encourages critical and creative engagement with spatial computational design as both method and practice.

The Master of Science in Computational Design Practices (M.S.CDP) is an innovative program for recent graduates and practitioners that extends and integrates disciplines between architecture, data visualization, and urban planning—focusing specifically on computational design practices for the built environment at multiple scales. It aims to pioneer new concepts and pedagogies for an integrated multi-scalar and spatial approach to computational design at Columbia GSAPP. The M.S.CDP curriculum encourages critical and creative engagement with spatial computational design as both method and practice.

Laguna College of Art + Design’s Game Design MFA seeks to advance the art, science, and culture of play by creating a context for advanced study and innovative work. LCAD’s Game Design MFA is an online 2-year terminal Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree that allows you to explore the design and development of games as a creative practice. The program offers a unique, multidisciplinary approach that bridges the gap between theory and practice in game design. The Game Design MFA online curriculum is centered on the processes of both the creation and the development of games. The program acknowledges that games are responsible for providing much more than mere entertainment; they also are meaningful products of a thriving global economy that illuminate truths about our world, our societies, and ourselves. LCAD’s Game Design MFA is structured in such a way that will empower you with both the knowledge base and the skill sets to ensure that your own meaningful game design enterprises are economically impactful and sustainable. Our Game Design program will develop your creative skills and enhance your potential as a game designer, developer, and entrepreneur. Select program candidates will create a graduate-level game development environment, replicating that which reflects the current industry model, nurturing advanced skills in design, research, and development, leadership, and marketing in the creative art of game design.