USP College awarded $25,000 from Fortnite software giant, Epic Game

Following a successful bid to leading American video and software company Epic Games, USP College has been selected to receive a $25,000 grant.

The money will go towards expanding games development provision and Live Creative both of which are within the fast-moving Creative and Digital Sector. Live Creative is a unique college company, where Creative Arts students gain experience undertaking ‘live’ projects for companies either locally or nationally. This incorporates the popular Level 3 UAL Extended Diploma in Games Development in conjunction with the delivery of other digital, creative and media courses.

Ryan Laley, Programme Co-ordinator for Creative Arts at Seevic Campus, originally applied to the gaming giant last year.

He said, “I went to London and pitched our vision and implementation of our College Company, Live Creative to Epic Games. They understood what we wanted to achieve and awarded us the $25,000 grant for resources, as well as training and development in their software Unreal Engine 4.

“The grant money will allow us to enable new cutting edge, live projects for students working with clients in our Creative Arts areas, most notably in games development, visual effects and film production. This will involve virtual reality, augmented reality, motion capture and architectural design.

“One of our goals is to have games students actually publish their games under the Live Creative studio so that students leave us with a valuable asset on their CV, as part of their portfolio and able demonstrate to potential employers their unique industry experience.”

Dan Pearson, Principal and CEO at the College added:

“This boost to the development of our Live Creative college company is the latest in a line of exciting technological advancements that we’ve been implementing over the past few months, including the expansion of our immersive and live-streaming classrooms and the introduction of an e-learning development suite, with the launch of an exciting new digital technology-focused campus in Canvey also planned for later this academic year.”

Epic Games, who are better known for creating Fortnite, has confirmed that all grant recipients will continue to own their IP and will be free to publish however they wish, meaning all students who created or developed a game published via USP College and Live Creative will have full ownership.