One of the things that struck me in this video is that shadows still are very problematic. When the shadow is adjusted manually, flickering faces on the rock appear, and on the face, they don't move smoothly either. Quality of reflections / refraction is hard to judge in this scene. All in alll this is just another high-detail demo that emphasizes the fact that we're stuck in terms of rendering quality; engine complexity goes through the roof, but returns are diminishing. Looking forward to the era of path tracing.

Did you ever consider studying in the Netherlands? We have a nice program here, called IGAD (International Game Architecture & Design). There's a visual art specialisation and a programming specialisation. 75% of the staff is 'foreign', and so the language is English. 90% of the staff has 10 years or more of game industry experience. And, best of all: Studying in the Netherlands is cheap. Check here: http://www.nhtv.nl/made . (end of shameless plug)

At the NHTV university of applied sciences, IGAD department, we are researching the use of ray tracing in games. Two student teams are working on proof-of-concept games using the technology. You can read about findings so far in my paper on real-time ray tracing in the context of games, on http://igad.nhtv.nl/~bikker and http://igad.nhtv.nl/~bikker/files/rtgames.pdf . There's also a real-time demo that shows what a modern PC can do.