7 hours ago, krb said:

Amazon is also trying to get into game development too and is putting a bunch of money into it and has their own game engine built off unreal engine that is optimized for MMOs and twitch compatibility so they are really going all out.

Yeah, I just don't know if it's worth going to Digipen, paying $7000/yr difference for tuition, and staying in the Seattle area after I graduate, all for the off-chance that A) Amazon's endeavors in game development are successful, and B) They develop the sorts of games that I'd be interested in working on--as opposed to going to Gnomon, having my full tuition covered, staying in the LA area, and getting a job at Riot or Blizzard. 

The only reason I've confined my options of game studios to work for in the Seattle area to Valve and Nintendo of America (maybe ArenaNet) is because I have zero interest in doing photo-realistic art for games like Call of Duty (yuck). I want to work on games that have--at least loosely--Japanese inspired art styles. Hence my interest in games like Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, League of Legends, Overwatch, Guild Wars, and Dota. 

2 hours ago, swiftcoder said:

Digipen is in Redmond, right? There are far more AAA studios in the Seattle area than just Valve and Nintendo.

Bungie (Destiny) is here, 343 Industries (Halo), ArenaNet (Guild Wars). A bunch of mobile-focussed outfits like PopCap, Zynga, and Big Fish Games. Microsoft, Amazon, and Oculus all have in-house studios. Wizards of the Coast has a video game division... And that's not to mention the many indie efforts in the area.

Quite a bit going on around here

I'm aware of all the studios in the Seattle Area, but I'm not interested in doing art for games like Destiny or Halo. I want to work on more cartoonish games, especially if they are influenced by the Japanese style of art. That's why I mentioned that I was only interested in working at Valve, Nintendo, or maybe ArenaNet. 

1 hour ago, frob said:

Why the fixation on Nintendo? 

Because I don't want to do art for photo-realistic FPS's. I'd only have any passion working on a game that had a more cartoonish, especially Japanese, style of art. 

Unless it is for a work placement, surely you would study where you thought you'd get the best education / value, then perhaps spend some time honing your craft, apply for jobs, go for interviews, and if you successfully land a job move to the location? Sorry I may be naive that's how it works in my country.

Also although everyone has 'preferences' as to what they would like to work on, the difference between a hobby and a job is that in a job you typically don't get to choose what you work on (unless you are running the company / financing). Initially especially you may be looking for ANY related job you can get, and after a while learning the ropes you will be in a better position to move towards your 'dream role' (or perhaps your priorities will change, maybe job security / work environment etc may become more important to you).

Of course as said a lot of this will depend on your level of talent (and how easy you are to work with), if you are way better than the competition you will be in a better position to land your dream job.

5 hours ago, lawnjelly said:

and if you successfully land a job move to the location

The only reason I don't want to get my education and find a job in two different states, is because it would make dating much harder. I'd have to add "willing to move states at any given moment" to my already long list of standards. 

Meta i find your position on studios very pretentious and kind of disgusting. Coming out of college working at a AAA studio, any studio, on a AAA title that is supposed to be an honor, humbling. You say Call of Duty (yuck) would more hurt your chances of working at any AAA studio if any hiring managers want to look at your social stuff, especially forum activity. Call of Duty is always a best seller worldwide and to work on a title for them would not only grow your skills as an artist and producer but it'd give your AAA experience.

So, having AAA experience, I'd suggest getting into a studio to release a game for about 2 years, start to finish. Of course if you already had an absolute stellar portfolio it's not really a problem but considering you don't want to do photo-realistic games, only lower poly games, you probably don't have a stellar portfolio. 

This isn't to belittle you; Instead its to try and show you that your choices will be limited. Don't pretend like you'll work on anything important just because you went to college. A lot of places don't even include collegiate portfolios as professional ones. I very much urge you to reconsider. If your coming out of college you're probably 22-23 maybe and you still have a bunch of time to work on a AAA title. You need to focus actually working on a game with a studio before you can even remotely think about going to a AAA studio, focus on your portfolio, grow your skills and humble yourself. Of course its not as galourous working on a 500K title than a 2B title, but its experience, valuable experience.

Hope you didnt take this the wrong way as it wasn't meant to be belittling.

16 hours ago, jbadams said:

If you mean Lumberyard, it's a fork of CryEngine, not Unreal.

You're right, my bad.  I just remember the press release and seeing the jobs posted but I never really looked into the engine beyond that. 

15 hours ago, MetaBuster said:

Yeah, I just don't know if it's worth going to Digipen, paying $7000/yr difference for tuition, and staying in the Seattle area after I graduate, all for the off-chance that A) Amazon's endeavors in game development are successful, and B) They develop the sorts of games that I'd be interested in working on.

I mean they already dropped millions of dollars on engine development along with integrating that engine to their streaming platform.  The game they were hiring for when I saw the job postings was a DOTA clone.  Amazon basically chooses a market and pumps millions of dollars into it at a net loss until it hurts their competition enough to take a large portion of their market or puts them out of business.  Games are different than retail but look at what they are doing with shows.  They have huge budgets, big names and no one watches any of it but they keep making it because Jeff Bezos can not and will not admit failure.  Even if their game are a commercial flop they are going to pat themselves on the back and double down because they can.  Amazon's game studio is here to stay. 

5 hours ago, MetaBuster said:

The only reason I don't want to get my education and find a job in two different states, is because it would make dating much harder. I'd have to add "willing to move states at any given moment" to my already long list of standards. 

If dating is your main priority stay in LA because the Seattle freeze is a real thing.  People are cordial but not what you would call "friendly". Everyone is either a rich tech sector transplant that is introverted or an old local that resents the transplants and doesn't have time to care about your day because they work 3 jobs attempting to delay being priced out of the place they're from.  From what I understand this has already happened on a larger scale in LA with prettier people, plus you probably already know people there.

34 minutes ago, swiftcoder said:

That one, sadly, was cancelled. While Amazon does have a lot of money to throw around, it's not clear that makes them any better at game development than most other studios

As developers of quality games goes it doesn't make them any better than any other studio.  As far as employment goes it's steady work for the largest company in the country that just started a games development branch of their company and as I've stated before their business model is basically throw money at something until it's profitable so as far as potential employers go it's not a bad one and a relatively easy company to get your foot in the door at. Even if it's not in game development right away there are many other programmer and graphic artist jobs there and internal transfers are easy if you have the qualifications.  Their engine is even free to download and learn if I remember correctly.  

So no, I don't think they are the best studio or even good as far as quality of games goes, but I do think they are here to stay, have the money to be considered "AAA", and because they are relatively new it would be easier to not only get hired but have creative input there than it would be somewhere that is established and not doing mass hiring.

19 hours ago, Caleb Harwell said:

Meta i find your position on studios very pretentious and kind of disgusting. Coming out of college working at a AAA studio, any studio, on a AAA title that is supposed to be an honor, humbling. You say Call of Duty (yuck) would more hurt your chances of working at any AAA studio if any hiring managers want to look at your social stuff, especially forum activity. Call of Duty is always a best seller worldwide and to work on a title for them would not only grow your skills as an artist and producer but it'd give your AAA experience.

So, having AAA experience, I'd suggest getting into a studio to release a game for about 2 years, start to finish. Of course if you already had an absolute stellar portfolio it's not really a problem but considering you don't want to do photo-realistic games, only lower poly games, you probably don't have a stellar portfolio. 

This isn't to belittle you; Instead its to try and show you that your choices will be limited. Don't pretend like you'll work on anything important just because you went to college. A lot of places don't even include collegiate portfolios as professional ones. I very much urge you to reconsider. If your coming out of college you're probably 22-23 maybe and you still have a bunch of time to work on a AAA title. You need to focus actually working on a game with a studio before you can even remotely think about going to a AAA studio, focus on your portfolio, grow your skills and humble yourself. Of course its not as galourous working on a 500K title than a 2B title, but its experience, valuable experience.

Hope you didnt take this the wrong way as it wasn't meant to be belittling.

I didn't mean any disrespect to Treyarch, I was just being facetious. Photo-realism just isn't my preferred style, it's nothing personal. Of course I realize I will have to settle for anything I can get straight out of college, but I'm speaking long term. There has to be a prospect of working on the sorts of games that I'm enthusiastic about for there to be a future for me in that given area (Seattle or Los Angeles). 

17 hours ago, krb said:

If dating is your main priority stay in LA because the Seattle freeze is a real thing.  People are cordial but not what you would call "friendly". Everyone is either a rich tech sector transplant that is introverted or an old local that resents the transplants and doesn't have time to care about your day because they work 3 jobs attempting to delay being priced out of the place they're from.  From what I understand this has already happened on a larger scale in LA with prettier people, plus you probably already know people there.

Haha, I'm more introverted myself, so that doesn't sound so bad to me. Plus, I'm not afraid of breaking down walls.