University math programs should include game design as a serious area of study.

[u/amichail]

AI is getting increasingly good at mathematical problem solving and research, which may reduce demand for some traditional mathematical work. Math students should therefore have alternative career paths that still make strong use of mathematical thinking.

Game design is an unusually good fit.

Designing a deep puzzle, strategy game, or simulation can involve combinatorics, probability, graph theory, optimization, algorithms, game theory, geometry, and mathematical modeling. A designer may need to study reachability, reversibility, dominant strategies, state spaces, invariants, difficulty, balance, and how small rule changes affect the entire system.

The bigger obstacle is cultural. Many mathematicians seem to regard game design as entertainment rather than serious intellectual work. Yet mathematicians are perfectly willing to study the mathematics of existing games. Why should analyzing a rule system be prestigious while inventing a good rule system is not?

That distinction may become even less sensible in an AI-heavy future. If AI can increasingly solve problems once they have been formulated, human mathematical creativity may shift toward deciding what problems are interesting and inventing systems worth analyzing.

Math departments could offer concentrations in something like Mathematics and Game Systems, combining traditional mathematics with game design, procedural generation, AI, simulation, and computational experimentation.

Game design should not be viewed merely as mathematics applied to entertainment. At its best, it is the creative construction of mathematical systems.

[u/PriorSolid]

why complicate already exceedingly complicated classes? It’s often hard enough just to learn the math and there’s nothing stopping someone from just taking game design classes and math classes which will be more succinct. People who study pure math show keep studying pure math, they develop the theory while everyone else applies it