At Georgian College in Barrie, Canada, HD in Game - Development is offered as a higher diploma in Digital Media & Game Development programme. The programme runs for 3 years, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 7,619 per semester (CAD 1,387 per semester for local students).
Game development combines creative, technical and artistic skills to build interactive environments, integrating levels, characters, assets, props and systems across platforms such as computers, consoles and mobile devices. Coursework covers developing narratives, creating and managing 2D and 3D digital assets, and techniques spanning multiplayer networking, game artificial intelligence, and lighting and rendering, along with emerging technologies and the development of serious games. Practical work with game engines and design tools builds skills in game mechanics and dynamics, which extend beyond gaming into simulations for fields such as education and training, manufacturing, healthcare, engineering, and architecture.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Georgian College's own admission-requirements page for Game – Development asks for an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or equivalent, or mature-student status, with Grade 12 English at the C or U level. Mature applicants 19 or older without an OSSD, non-secondary-school applicants, and home-schooled applicants can also be considered through equivalent courses, upgrading, a completed GED, or equivalency testing, and coursework from a recognized post-secondary institution or relevant life or learning experience is assessed through credit evaluation. The page lists no standardized English-language test scores (IELTS, TOEFL, PTE, Duolingo or CAEL) and no portfolio requirement. Before the programme starts, students need a personal laptop meeting specified hardware minimums with Windows 11, since MacOS machines and ARM-based devices are not supported.
Application Details
Start Date:Fall 2026 (Barrie campus) and Fall 2027 (Barrie Downtown)
Application Deadline:Domestic applicants apply through ontariocolleges.ca: 1 February 2027 is the equal-consideration date for Georgian's highly competitive programs, which now covers Fall 2027, Winter 2028 and Summer 2028 entry, and later applications are assessed first-come, first-served while seats last; offers of admission for this 2026-2027 cycle must be accepted by 1 May 2027. Programs outside the highly competitive list carry no equal-consideration date and are assessed on a rolling basis year-round. International applicants apply directly through Georgian's own portal with no published closing date and are assessed on a rolling basis while seats remain, though Georgian warns a program open when applied to may close before assessment. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
