Common Questions
Last Updated: 12/15/02

Official DigiPen FAQ

• What are the good and bad sides of life at DigiPen?
• What are the schedules like?
• What should I have on my application to give me a good chance of getting accepted?
• How exactly is DigiPen connected with Nintendo? Is it "The Nintendo School" or what?



• What exactly am I going to be learning at DigiPen?
• How much will I make when I graduate?
• When I graduate, will I be able to choose which company I work for?
• Why do so many people fail DigiPen?



• Will I really have to stay at DigiPen into the late hours of the night working on assignments?
• I want to design games. How is DigiPen going to help me become a game designer?
• How is DigiPen better or worse than game development programs in other universities?
• What can I do now to prepare myself for DigiPen?

The schudles tend to vary from day to day, semester to semester. Most of the courses at DigiPen are 3 credits, meaning that they have two hour and a half long lectures per week, and are held on two different days. Usually the lecutures are held between 9am and 5pm, although some of our instructors also have day jobs, so some classes are held between 5pm and 8pm. Under a full schedule (20 to 25 credits), 9am to 5pm is usually when lectures are held, and then you will spend a few hours after that getting homework done. Although, there are sometimes one to two hour gaps between lectures, so that is also a good time to get homework done. Typically students stay later as finals week starts getting closer and closer, because at that time we have more work to do. I personally take a reduced schedule of 14 credits, but I also take summer semester to make up for it. Below I have listed some examples of full and reduced schedules.

You may have also read in some news reports that we work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's a little exaggerated, although it is important to exaggerate statistics like that because we do not want a bunch of yahoos coming to this school. DigiPen is open from 8am to 10pm, Monday through Saturday, and there are some students that are here when we close at 10pm and also come on Saturday, although it is not a regular thing that all students do everyday. I personally have stayed until 10pm and come on Saturdays a few times, but usually because I slacked off and allowed work to pile up, and surfed the web and screwed around when I should have been doing work.

Full Schedule Examples

Reduced Schedule Examples

• Meet the minimum requirements. Believe it or not, many of the applications DigiPen recieves are from people that do not meet the minimum requirements. They tend to think that DigiPen is some kind of fun and games arcade club, and think that they can come here without meeting the math and CS requirements. Once you have this under your belt, your chances of getting accepted to DigiPen should increase dramatically. I got in (in 1999) with a 3.7 High School GPA, math up to AP Calculus, some High School physics, and no programming experience.




• Have a strong background in mathematics, physics and computer science - math being the most important. The reason you need so much math is because when you're walking around in 3D, you're walking around in a mathematically described 3D world. If you take the simple example of a cube, the x, y, and z values of each vertex of the cube are stored as variables in the computer's memory, and to display the cube on the screen, make it move (usually according to a robust physics model), detect collision, and every thing else you need to write very complicated mathematical algorithms that the computer's processor will compute millions of times per second. Note that this is an extremely high-level view, and in order to fully understand how it works you'll need to take all four years of the intense DigiPen program.




• Make yourself appear as though you're serious about being in this field - the computer game software field. Many people who apply tend to think that making games is like being in a happy fun and games arcade club, when in reality it is an advanced computer software technology club. It's only after you've learned the advanced math and computer science that you can start making the games. To use painting as an analogy, to paint a picture you need a canvas, some paint, and a brush to apply the paint to the canvas. To make a game you need computer hardware (the canvas), mathematical theories (the paint), and a knowledge of computer science (the brush) to apply the math to the computer hardware.




• Show that you can work well on a team. A major feature of the DigiPen program is the game project, in which you will spend each year working together on a team to produce a game, which is exactly how it works in the real world but without the money or office politics. The better you are at working with the team, the more smoothly the production will go, and the more likely your chances of success. This is why working well on a team is important. Experience in team-based development is also a key feature of the DigiPen program, and it is the number one reason companies would prefer a DigiPen graduate to a regular Computer Science graduate.




• Show a strong interest in games. This should pretty much be a no brainer. The workload in the games industry is very intense and brutal, so only the most fanatically interested people, that will be willing to handle this kind of work load, can get in (and survive once they get in). This is a trait that is most commonly looked for by employers when you're searching for a job.

A more appropriate name for DigiPen would be "The Programming School". At DigiPen you will be spending your time learning mostly math and computer science. The grades for the game projects class are almost entirely graded on the demonstration your programming abilities.

Programming is also something that is non-platform-specific, so graduating students wind up programming for a variety of different platforms including XBOX, PlayStation 2, PC, Macintosh, cellular phones, and so on. The ping pong ball and butterfly tech demos for the XBOX were actually programmed by former DigiPen students. Also, interestingly, so far Microsoft has given two guest lectures at DigiPen about the XBOX (at the monthly developer meeting Sputnik), whereas Nintendo has not given any guest lectures about the GameCube at all - and the chance of them ever doing it is extremely unlikely.

Although DigiPen does exist in the same building as Nintendo, it is in its own separate section. Unless you are specifically hired by Nintendo, you will never see the inside of their portion of the building (a section that is heavily guarded with magnetic-card-activated security locks, an intricut servailance system, intimidating security guards, and spikes that come out of the walls if you wander in the wrong direction. Ok, maybe not that last one, but you get the picture. Nintendo is pretty much off-limits to DigiPen students.)

As far as Nintendo giving jobs to DigiPen students goes, they don't offer high-position jobs to graduates any more than the next company. Your chances of getting a job at Nintendo are about the same, or even less, than getting a job at Sierra On-line, Microsoft, or any other game company. Actually, if there's one company you're most likely to work for after DigiPen, it's Microsoft - being that they are largest employer of software engineers in the Seattle area.

You may have also heard that here we learn to program for SNES and other Nintendo platforms. This is 99.9% false. The vast majority of our work is done on windows-based PCs, however in one of the twenty-one computer science courses we learn to program for Game Boy Color. The name of that course is Low Level Programming 2, which focuses on learning and implementing applications with assembly language. There was once a time when DigiPen did use the SNES in the program, but that was about seven years ago when DigiPen was still in Vancouver, BC. I am a Senior at DigiPen, and I have never known anyone that has ever programmed for SNES.

In short, how to program. When you program a computer, what happens at the hardware level is essentially the same, except there are various different languages you can use to tell the computer how to do what you want. DigiPen focuses the curriculum on teaching the theoretical concepts first, and then uses the C/C++ language to implement them. The reason for choosing this particular language is mostly because it is very commonly used throughout the computer industry, and is fairly easy to use compared to some other languages. As for learning more platform-specific programming languages (i.e. XBOX, Mac, cellular phones, etc), that is usually something that professional programmers do on their own. The main reason DigiPen teaches programming on the theoretical level, as opposed to just teaching you about the lastest industry trend (i.e. OpenGL, DirectX) is because that way when the current trend fades and the next one begins, DigiPen graduates will have a general understanding of how it works on the conceptual level, and can easily adapt to the new trend.

The first year is spent learning how to do things like make the computer display a bitmap in a window, writing an ascii version of tic-tac-toe, a game of pong and other things that require basic programming skills. The game project for the first year is to make a Text-Based adventure game, the types of games that were popular in the late-seventies and early-eighties. The second year involves learning how to do more complicated 2D stuff. The game project for that year is a 2D side-scrolling game. The third year you have to make a networking/simulation game that uses a very basic 3D engine, the kind you would see in some of the early PlayStation games. If you manage to be one of the fortunate, hard-working students that make it to fourth year, you will start learning about things that are closer to the cutting edge of game programming, and make a full-blown 3D game.

There is sometimes a misconception among people interested in DigiPen that they will be able to come here and be able to make a game like Super Mario GameCube right off the bat. This is far from true. In order to program a game that sophisticated, you will need to be compitent in high levels of math, physics, and computer science, which take years of effort to learn.

I cannot emphasize this enough. If you do not enjoy programming, the money does not matter. A programming job, especially in the games industry, is very demanding. A 60-80 hour work week is not far from common. During crunch time, which can last anywhere from two months to a year or more, sometimes employees sleep on the floor at work. Programming will basically be your life, so you had better make sure that programming is a lifestyle that you would be willing to accept. Also, this might seem obvious to some people, but programming games and playing games are very different things. Just because you like playing games doesn't mean you will like programming them.

The last statistics I heard were somewhere between 40,000 and 55,000 after graduating from DigiPen, and of course more after that. Programming jobs are in high demand, especially in an industry that is rapidly growing each year, so it is pretty safe to say that finding a job after graduation will be pretty easy. Although you should be aware that because the state of the industry is always changing, and the climate of the job market could be completely different in coming years.

Also, aside from game programming jobs, you should also be qualified to apply for desktop software programming jobs, which are even more abundantly available. Programming for games is much more complicated and requires more expertise than programming for desktop software, so you could say that a DigiPen degree could make you overqualified to program non-game software.

Yes and no. The last graduating class I talked to said that they got offers from two to three different companies, and I believe that was after they sent out their resumes. The job market in the industry is pretty healthy, so in that sense you will get to choose who you work for. However, your choices will still be limited, and you may not be able to work for any company you want.

If you think you can graduate from DigiPen and work for a famous company, such as Blizzard or id, this might not be as likely as you may think. The vast majority of game companies do not make any of the popular franchises. To give you an idea, in the Seattle area there are 42 game development companies, and only 5 or 6 of them are well-known (Nintendo Software Technologies, Microsoft, Valve, Bungie, Humungous, Sierra On-line). If you choose to work for a game company in the Seattle area after you graduate, you will most likely be working for one of the other 36 game companies that aren't as famous, perhaps even working on the latest version of Barbie Supermodel. This proportion of famous to non-famous companies is pretty much the same in all other parts of the world.

There are also quite a few people that think they will graduate from DigiPen and work for a famous Japanese company such as Squaresoft, Capcom, or Konami. All of the games for these companies are made in Japan, so if you want to work for them, in addition to your DigiPen degree you would also have to fluently speak, read, and write Japanese, and in order to do that you would probably have to live in Japan for a couple of years, most likely working as an English teacher until you become proficient enough to get a programming job. Even then, you may not be able to get a job at the specific company you want, and will instead have to go with a lesser known one. Then there's also the discrimination you may face as a gaijin. If you have dreams of working for Squaresoft on the Final Fantasy franchise, or something like that, that will be a very long, challenging road to go down. But if get there, you may have a chance to work on Final Fantasy XXVIII, assuming that the franchise is still popular by that time.

Basically because they don't get their work done. Many students become intimidated and overwhelmed by assignments and the heavy workload, and as a result end up surfing the web and playing games to make themselves feel better. This is why I always say that enjoying programming is essential to this career track; if you enjoy the work then you will not need web surfing and playing games to make yourself feel better. Some students are also afraid to ask for help when they can't quite figure out how to do an assignment, which is a grevious error.

There is also another common distraction: the game project. Many students find that working on the game is a lot more fun than working on assignments. That is another reason for why some people fail.

If you are strong-willed enough to overcome these distractions, get all of your assignments done, and study for every exam, then you should be just fine. Getting assignments done, however, usually means that you have to ask for help from the instructor and other students. Most students get help from their fellow classmates to get assignments completed (me, for instance). There are very few who are genious enough to get all assignments done without asking for help.

That mainly depends on how productive you are. Many students do spend a great deal of their free time in the lab, however much of that time is spent surfing the web, downloading mpegs of the latest games, IMing their friends, and playing games. If you spend all of your available time getting work done, then staying late (as in 8-10pm) should happen very seldomly, or at least for the first two years anyway.

It's also important to note that while you may be productive enough to avoid staying late to do work, after the first year you will be staying late to attend class. Some of the classes for second, third, and fourth year are held in the evening and early night.

Also, when it comes to the game project, whether or not you stay late for that is largely depended on your team. Often times a team will slack off for a while, and then as a deadline approaches they will all band together and code like crazy for a few days, staying late each day. However, if your team is able to organize itself so that everybody does a certain amount of coding each day, and everybody does their share of work, then the production should happen more smoothly and staying late should rarely happen. Of course, learning how to make your team work together well is an art in itself, and it is also a skill that you can aquire here.

First of all some background knowledge. Game Designer is a very ambiguous position whose duties tend to vary from company to company. In some big companies there may be a design team that spends six months designing games and then spends the next eighteen months as QA people that interface with the programmers, artists, marketers and other people. In some smaller companies a designer may be the president of the company that also doubles as one of the head programmers. For example, Sid Meier and Peter Molyneux are both actively involved in the programming of their games.

The stories for games are typically written by a Game Designer, although this is another aspect of game making that is ambiguous. A separate person may be hired with a robust background in creative writing. For example, the president of Oddworld Inhabitants is a former Hollywood screenplay writer. The stories and content for the game may also be partially made by the marketing department, or perhaps a collaboration of a few members of the production team. How a game is designed can take on many forms.

To my knowledge, Game Design typically requires a well-rounded background. A solid knowledge of computer science I would consider to be a must. Aside from that, a game designer should also have hobbies outside of computer programming. Kojima Hideo, for example, is a movie buff. He once said, "Most people are 70% water, but I am 70% movies." If a company were to make, say, a game set in medieval times, then it would make sense to hire somebody with a strong interest and background in the medieval world. The makers of Shogun: Total War have a strong interest in Japanese medieval warfare (probably).

For IGDA's shpiel on the Game Designer position, click here.

The way that DigiPen factors into this is that they will provide you with the strong background in computer science. Many people at the school are using the program as a base to jump off of into the design aspects of game making. Before somebody can design a game they will first need to know how it's going to be implemented, and be able to help get the code working if asked to do so. DigiPen provides you with this background knowledge that you need, and perhaps most importantly, it gives you loads of hands-on experience to show companies when you apply for a job.

I have never personally investigated any other game development programs, but what I have heard is that none of them even come close to the quality of the DigiPen program.

The major difference is that DigiPen was founded and put together by people from the industry. They realized that there was a shortage of qualified people, and so they founded a school dedicated to producing specialists in the field. The program was designed to simulate the industry and prepare its students for what they are going to be expected to do once they graduate and get a job - everything from the game projects courses and demanding workload down to the security card activated door locks. In the game projects course students write technical design documents, game design documents, practice team-based development, and run focus groups, all of which are a part of the industry development cycle. Lectures and discussions are also given about business and political aspects of the industry.

From what I have heard about the other programs tends to give me that impression that they are basically thrown together by computer science professors that do not really know what they are talking about. I think that DigiPen is definately the best choice school to go to for a career in games anywhere in the country, and possibly the world.

Math, Computer Science, and Physics are the areas that you should focus on. Also, as I mentioned on the front page, picking up copy of Microsoft Visual C++ - Standard Edition and Teach Yourself C in 21 Days would be a great way to begin learning programming. DigiPen also offers summer workshops for High School students. See the Official DigiPen website for more details. There are also a number of books that I would recommend you read.