/digipen/ - DigiPenitentiary

Do you have a friend who wants to come into the BAGD program or just curious?

You have to be a very good designer, and even then most of them need to be able to program so they can prototype their own ideas. Fucking nobody is going to hire an "idea guy" just to tell them what to do, that's fucking retarded and all the BAGDs who come here and want to do that are full of themselves.

Also the BAGD program has become significantly less art oriented. If they are being hired as artists that's only because the individual has a personal interest in art and pursued it on their own time, because the BAGD art classes are half assed at best. I 'd say the best BAGDS are less skilled artistically than the worst BFAs.

>>1833
Will that change your answer?

Artists don't get hired very often and if they then it's at minimum wage at a starbucks and freelance on the side. I wish I were joking considering the amount of stress a lot of them go through and how much tuition+art supplies of 4 years cost them. My roommate graduated three years back and he still doesn't have a job for art, but does freelance on the side and works some minimum wage job. Nobody really wants to pay you that much for art and there are a lot of freelancers available ready to suck dick for a very low pay. This applies for BAGD if they wanna just be an artist I guess.

Now I don't really interact with BAGDs, but what I've heard is more or less
>>1835
You have to overcome some insane obstacles to get hired or end up with a starbucks job.

Sell yourself more than a designer.
Why should they a fresh graduate over someone who made something with a decent following?
Why would a small studio hire you when everyone there can design? Which you may not think about, but there are a ton of small studios <20 people looking for programmers which is where a BSGD would trump then RTIS would shit all over BSGD.. in terms of why they should hire you.

As for hire rates, I honestly haven't heard anything too great out of there. If they are hired then it is for a design position with shit pay or a semi-important position such as assistant producer. So I hope my somewhat of an answer is good enough for you.

I honestly cannot fathom the reason why anyone would go into the BAGD/BFA program at Digipen. BAGD is an extremely limited field where the industry is already shit and ready to fire half the staff or disband. BFA is just way too costly for a fine arts degree.

Weed

>>1853
>You know the BFAs aren't just making oil paintings right? Yeah traditional animation is pretty much dead and you're not going to get a job for concept art unless you've already been doing it in industry for years in most cases, but many companies hire for 3D artists, and that is a part of the BFA program.
I never implied they're only making pretty pictures so I'm sorry if I lead you on with the art supplies comment. However, I still don't see how that changes anything.

BFA here. Third year.

To be honest a lot of the BFA's DO NOT even when they reach senior level, have the art skill to get a job.

Some kids really like the idea of making money off art and being an 'artist' but they don't actually put the work in or just don't get it.

Some kids try real hard and just never seem to improve, and they try and try to get jobs and just can't.

Then there are the top 5% that get it and are rare little unicorns who seem to find jobs pretty easily.

>>1866
Graduate BFA here, seconding pretty much all this shit. I'd say of the best and most hard working 10% of BFA graduates, only 20%-40% of them are lucky enough to get a job. I'm not discrediting their hard work, I'm saying that of the hard workers, the only reason most of them have a job is that they continued to work hard and got lucky being in the right place or knowing the right guy to get hired. The only reason I've ever been hired for the few freelance jobs I've gotten is just because I happened to apply at the right time, and had the skills to take advantage of my opportunity.

I know a good number of people who are way better than me in some ways, and they're just totally fucked over when looking for a job for no discernible reason. It's a real shame, honestly, because I know several of them would make perfect workers for any game.

Ive known BAGD's who have landed very good entry level jobs. What do they all have in common? They don't sit at home playing video games all day. They spend most of their time coding or practicing their discipline. All the BAGD's you see playing games in Edison or Tesla are trash paying Claude rent before they drop out.

>BAGD to know how
need to know*

>>1881
BAGD here, typing this from the desk of my entry level job at a major AAA studio

1. Stop being a lazy fuck and actually spend time/effort on your projects. Your projects are literally the only thing that matter. Your grades mean nothing, no one cares that you aced GAT210-212, which are a 100% waste of your time. I got hired pretty much solely because of one game I made in Zero.

2. Learn to be a good artist or a good scripter (and take coding classes), or both if you can. BAGD used to require honest to god BFA and RTIS classes, but now it's mostly pussified versions (Art 102 I'm looking at you). Take the hard version of classes or teach yourself.

3. Join good teams. Teams must have tools for you to work with (or you must be good enough to write code). Make the game not suck.

4. Make a shitload of games. Prototype shit in your free time. Do game jams.

5. Stop being autistic and talk to people and make friends. Knowing people means you have: resources for when you need help with a tough problem, connections for getting involved with good projects, contacts once you graduate, and just friends, because friends are good.

I'm guessing one poster in this thread is a dumb fuck fresh/soph BAGD who sits in Edison playing games all day. Claude wants his rent check bitch, keep payin

>>1923
>being this mad

Butthurt Sophomore detected. GAT250 is haaardddddd

Taking 15 minutes out of my workday to spread the light and glory to salty scrubs hardly makes me lazy.

Looking forward to your "fuck this I'm dropping out" post :^)

>>1902
So what do you do in your job (aside from browse 8chan)? Is it design specifically or qa?

>>1948
Design, mostly scripting, occasionally writing up design docs.

Also nobody cares if I mess around on the internet as long as my shit gets done. I didn't know this forum existed until I talked to some digifriends and heard about it. Apparently you all are supposed to be salty as hell.

As much fun as it is mocking people, I'd really like to spread joy and positivity! Digipen is hard fucking work, but it's absolutely the best option for people who want to get into game development in programming or design. Art has taken a bad turn but still a decent option compared to a lot of the other crappity crap out there.

Game teams alone make it worth it, you can't really appreciate how well they prepare you for what's coming. Digipen tries really hard to make it feel like working in a studio when you're on a team, and for the most part it's spot on. Some days it feels like I never left Edison (or I guess Tesla now).

>>1956
>Digipen is hard fucking work, but it's absolutely the best option
Dis mutha fucka is a straight dipshit.
You can be a game designer a lot easier than going to DP. You think even 5% of game designers through out the industry are from Digipen? No. A lot of them get degrees in a lot of fields and make game after game and present those.

Here's an example, at Valve in Bellevue I think they've hired maybe 1 or 2 Digipen students and certainly wasn't right after graduation, those guys spent a lot of time doing other stuff for a few years.

Digipen is shit, a waste of time and money.

>>1963
Uhh… I know an entire DigiPen team that got hired at Valve right out of school, and a second team I'm pretty sure also got hired right out of school.

… or wait, did you mean design students specifically?

>>1964
Yeah, we all do. That 2nd team if I recall was just 3 RTIS students that made their game in 2 months which someone from Valve only wanted the 'blob tech' to be ported to source.

>>1964
Specifically BAGD.
You're right, RTIS got hired and the Tag team are the reason we have portal.

I've this before, RTIS students reign king among students. They'll get more jobs with higher pay 99% of the time, they can work on games or just about anywhere else, it's such a flexible degree. BAGD is garbage as no one wants you on a team or at their office. You can't do anything better than anyone else on a team. A lot of the theory stuff that they teach is just fluff they make up, that's why Morrison and Ellinger are the head professors. Morrison doesn't have a masters degree, I don't even know if he has a bachelors. He said he got started by making Xwing maps in his moms basement. Ellinger I believe was a programmer.

So if you want to design games, just get your foot in the door as a programmer and go from there.

>>1963
>being this stupid

If 5% of the designers in the industry came from digipen that'd be an insane crazy endorsement holy shit.

Digipen produces MORE people that get into design jobs than any other individual school. Most of the people who got into design from other programs are the minority from their field, and a lot of them got into development before there even existed 'game design' degrees and schools.

No wonder you're dropping out jesus christ.

>>1972
This is me, adding an addendum

>>1963
Just was talking to the OTHER digipen designer who works on my team and while we were laughing at you we came up with a good way to put it:

There are no GOOD ways to get into the industry. No guaranteed schools or skills. But Digipen is the BEST way, because its a consistent mediocre chance as opposed to a snowball's chance in hell.

>>1972
You guys really like being attached to strict numeric values. It's just an expression, learn the difference

.>>1973
>But Digipen is the BEST way
You must have a lot of facts backing up that claim up. I'm backing off from you and buddy now, couple of bad asses over here.

>>1975
Prove me wrong :^) Job placement rates, percentage of graduates working in the industry, anything

>>1976
Well for one, the dropout rate here is insanely high (as is the depression rate, which isn't actually studied so good luck finding a statistic on that).

Also, technically, the burden of proof is on you, since you are the one claiming that Digipen is the best school for game developers. "Well my friend and I both have jobs" doesn't count as anything other than an amusing but unsubstantial and meaningless anecdote. By the same token, all of the people I know who got jobs out of Digipen (or who dropped out and found work) all attribute their success to themselves in SPITE of Digipen, not thanks to DP.

>>1977
>Well for one, the dropout rate here is insanely high
For RTIS it's roughly the same for any CS degree across the country which is somewhere around 50%.

>>1979
Is this catalogued by year or degree, somewhere? I'd love to get data on this.

>>1981
Actually, overall DigiPen has a marginally higher graduation rate than most schools.

That said, I know I'm not going to be contributing to that percentage..

>>1982
Does it fucking really? I must be way off with my assumptions about other colleges or something, because between a third and a fourth of the people I saw Freshman year actually made it to graduation, if that. I never would have guessed Digipen's grad rate was average, let alone higher. Maybe BFA and BAGD are just crazy outliers.

>>1981
By degree. If they have public fundings then that information should be public, if you cannot find anything on their websites then you can easily request the information from them. If it was by year then i'd say 75% of the 50% who drop out are within the first year, but that number I'm just purely guestimating.

>>1993
Well I only know of RTIS degree being on par with the rest of the country. BFA I can't say, but I'm sure a few google searchings can bring something up. BAGD on the other hand.. well there isn't really anything you can compare it to.

>>1993
Keep in mind that this is overall average, not necessarily per degree. The RTIS grad rate is probably higher than most of the other degrees.

>>1982
This is blatantly untrue. Perhaps for BSCSRTIS only, but the art and definitely the design programs drag the rates way the fuck down. BSCSGD graduation rates are so low that the public information website things don't even have the rates for them, because they're like statistically insignificant. Look at how many BSCSGD students graduate each year on The Wall, and look at how many freshman BSCSGD students there are. It's like 2-10 and 30-40 respectively.

>>1999
I think we have different sources. I'm not at my computer presently, but mine is from one of the first links when you google DigiPen graduation rates. That said, I don't disagree with that assessment. Ll, but I think the RTIS grad rate is what's holding up the rest of the school

>>1977
Dropout rate discussion aside (plenty of people seemed to have covered that), the people who claim to have succeeded in spite of DP are idiots. Its human nature to take credit for our successes and blame others for our failures.

Digipen is supposed to be hard. The industry is hard. And for its faults, its no different than any other school-some classes are shitty. Some professors are shitty. You're gonna run into the same problem whether you go to Harvard or a community college.

The project-centric curriculum is absolutely responsible for graduates getting jobs. You think the average programmer coming out of a regular CS school can write a graphics engine from scratch? You think the average applicant for an entry designer job has ever done anything more elaborate than a half-assed mod?

For game design in particular, there are almost no hard facts to teach. It's a new artistic medium. Virtually every book written on it is garbage and professors can at best pass on guidelines and advice. The only way to learn it is to DO it. And do it a lot.

And that's why GDs are generally so shitty. Because most of them want their hand held and to go home at 3 like they're still in highschool.

YOU ARE EXPLORERS OF A NEW MOTHERFUCKING FRONTIER. ACT LIKE IT.

>>2012
>For game design in particular, there are almost no hard facts to teach. It's a new artistic medium. Virtually every book written on it is garbage and professors can at best pass on guidelines and advice. The only way to learn it is to DO it. And do it a lot.

>And that's why GDs are generally so shitty. Because most of them want their hand held and to go home at 3 like they're still in highschool.

>YOU ARE EXPLORERS OF A NEW MOTHERFUCKING FRONTIER. ACT LIKE IT.
Yes yes but I can practice game design on my own with Unity for free without having to pay DigiPen. I could quite honestly summarize every useful, non-bullshit, non-ripped-from-someone-else's-YouTube-video game design thing I've learned at DigiPen into a short maybe 80-page PDF. And half of that shit only applies to traditional tabletop games, not video games at all.

I paid money for an education dammit, I don't want to be told, "But really, man, what is there to teach? Game design is like so broad, bro! Just design stuff all the time, man, and you'll be a better designer. But please keep giving me money every year so I can keep reinventing my acronymed 'theory of all game design' framework every year, also I haven't worked on a game in like a decade. Also let me tell you for the fortieth time about the one thing we actually are pretty sure about in game design, the Intensity Curve. It's all-important! Worship the curve! Endure yet another lecture about it, despite the fact that you're in your fourth semester in the game design program and have already heard all this same shit before! Multiple times!"

Fuck.

That.

I was making games on my own before DigiPen and I'll be making games on my own afterwards. I definitely had some valuable experiences while I was there, but almost none from the game design program. It can take its pretentious bullshit and die in a fire for all I care.

People seem to forget that almost every "amazingly designed" game from DigiPen came before the GD programs even existed. People love to point out old DigiPen games like Tag as being proof that the game design programs at DigiPen is good, even though they didn't even exist when those games were made!

And then there's the fact that people like to conflate "good design" with "innovative design" (including the GAM rubrics up until recently). I've designed games on my own for years. I think about design constantly. When I make something, I try to think about all of its individual parts and how they contribute to the overall experience of playing the game/using the website/whatever. I'd like to think that I'm an OK designer, not amazing, but OK.

I've never had an idea for a game that is as "groundbreaking" or "revolutionary" as Narbacular Drop/Portal or Tag/Portal 2. Or Perspective, or many of the other games that totally think outside of the box and do cool and unique shit. Does this mean that I'm a bad designer? First of all, no, and second, double fucking no because I'm a student at a school. DigiPen should urge students to not try crazy innovative things in their first three years of GAM, but instead focus on making really good, traditional-style video games.

I made a game for GAT 250 this year. It had an art style that I've never personally ever seen at this school, and one that I thought was unique enough and thinking-out-of-the-box enough to be considered "innovative." Yet on my rubric I was told "well, it is very unique for a DigiPen student game, but, y'know, I think like one other game might've looked like it this one time, also other real games use it too so I mean while I'll give you the next-highest level for graphics, I wouldn't quite say the graphics are innovative. What? What the fuck? I made a cool game (that did get a very, very good grade), but like, I'm supposed to create an entirely new art style that the games industry has never seen before in order to get the highest level of graphics on the rubric? And when I do, I get what, immediate job offers from every local game company because holy shit, this art style has literally never been done before and it's so unique and new and innovative, but instead like a +1.5% on my project grade?

DigiPen's design program is a fucking joke, plain and simple.

>>2042
Hey, give him some credit. He designed that Star Trek game that nobody remembers. Oh wait.