Profiles of Schools/Colleges in North Carolina (NC) Offering Animation, Design, Gaming, and Media Related Programs

Did you know that North Carolina is home to nearly  half a dozen animation societies and possibly dozens of smaller, lesser-known groups? Animazement, AnimEgo, Carolina Otaku Uprising (COUP), DukAnime, and Nippon Anime Society are just a few popular animation groups in the state. North Carolina also has one of the most hospitable film offices in the country. In order to attract productions of all kinds (including animated productions) to the state, the North Carolina Film Office offers pluses such as a 25% film incentive, no corporate income tax on the production cap, and no application process. This encourages growth (including employment growth) in the industry here.

America’s game design & development industry has experienced such explosive growth over the years, that the U.S. is now the number one video game market in the world. Not only this, but it is now one of the top industries for designers and developers as a whole. In fact, the industry in the U.S. employs hundreds of thousands of professionals, with more than 200,000 salaried game designers alone. Even better is, experts expect the game industry to generate more than $68 billion in 2012 and employment is expected to increase by three to six percent between now and 2020 ( O*Net OnLine). Other reports predict a greater increase in employment by year 2018.