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DigiPen: The College That Teaches Crunch Culture (The Jimquisition) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-12-13 14:32:22
Edited:
2021-12-14 00:43:42
Imported:
2022-01

Content

DigiPen Institute of Technology is an incredibly influential establishment in the games industry. A college respected enough to land its students jobs on sheer reputation, DigiPen is highly regarded.  

It also teaches students to accept being overworked and crunched to breaking point.   

The Jimquisition has spoken with a number of DigiPen students who report feelings of mistreatment and dissatisfaction with the unprofessional and abusive way Digipen prepared them for a life in the game industry. It's a telling reflection of the industry's prevailing attitudes.

Files

DigiPen: The College That Teaches Crunch Culture (The Jimquisition)

http://www.thejimporium.com http://www.patreon.com/jimquisition http://www.twitch.tv/jimsterling DigiPen Institute of Technology is an incredibly influential establishment in the games industry. A college respected enough to land its students jobs on sheer reputation, DigiPen is highly regarded. It also teaches students to accept being overworked and crunched to breaking point. The Jimquisition has spoken with a number of DigiPen students who report feelings of mistreatment and dissatisfaction with the unprofessional and abusive way Digipen prepared them for a life in the game industry. It's a telling reflection of the industry's prevailing attitudes. #Digipen #GameIndustry #Journalism #JimSterling #StephanieSterling #Education #Videogames #Games #Game #Gaming #Jimquisition __ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimsterling Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jimsterling0 Bandcamp of the Sax Dragon - https://carlcatron.bandcamp.com Nathan Hanover - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-8L7n7l11PJM6FFcI6Ju8A

Comments

Beau C

Normalise not having a shit time at work

Luna

Just the four words "private, for-profit university" on their own are enough to know that it's awful and exploitative. There's so many "universities" like that in the US, and they do the capitalism. Oof, do they do the capitalism. Looks like this one does the capitalism *and* tosses in additional abuse. Fun times.

Anonymous

If it wasn’t a hyper competitive market with no unions it wouldn’t be this way. It’s easy to make fun of individual culprits. It’s hard to change culture in a meaningful way without several decades worth of context and work. School is only telling students the reality, that’s what school is for. Don’t like it, don’t work in gaming. It’s a hyper competitive market, it really doesn’t need you to thrive. The only way to get that market’s attention is with a union. That responsibility is on the “abused workers” the piece is defending. If Hollywood can check its ego to unionize then video games can do the same, but we have to quit treating adults like children on all sides.

Anonymous

This is so sad. I attended DigiPen circa 2001, and even then, the reality of crunch and the expectation of long lab/classroom hours (and the abysmal graduation rate) was instilled into us from day 1. It sounds like things have gotten so much worse.

Matthew Parmeter

I haven't watched this yet, but crunch perfectly describe my regular, state university experience. When you have a full load (for non-US people, that means you're scheduled for 15 hrs of classes or more per week, which roughly translates to being expected to do around 45 hours of classwork, both lecture & homework, not counting study time for tests) you have no choice but to be kind of crunchy with your time. While this was in the 90s and things may be different now, my professors didn't care how much work the other profs had assigned you. It wasn't unusual to be working on multiple week long projects simultaneously and all due roughly around the same date. This wasn't always work inside your major but all of the satellite classes as well. The choice was largely figure out to get yourself to crunch or fail classes.

Anonymous

Thank you so much for doing a video on DigiPen!! My best friend attended for 2 years starting in 2015 and dropped out. She wanted to do art for video games but it was beyond ridiculous what they demanded from her. She didn't get the standard American holidays off that all other American colleges get! She was working through Thanksgiving, over Christmas, and honestly had no real break to speak of. She went in with a passion for art, and they made her end up hating creating. She left, and has slowly rebuilt up her love of art again but refuses to join the game industry until unions form (which is smart on her part). She is an incredibly talented NB that they ground to the bone. When people drop out, it's not the standard college drop out experience. It's so much worse than that, it's typically because they made you hate your passion. Thank you again for making a video on this. As someone who lives in WA, I hope there is more publicity on the issues at that school in the future.

Benedict Holland

Well that was hard to watch. Thanks for making this.

Luna
>>73634480

This is still absolutely true in every sense, especially the bit about instructors not caring about the rest of your workload or that every major assignment is due on the same day. There's very much a boomer mentality of "well, I did it, and I excelled enough in the system to find a job in it, so you'll suffer just like I did!".

Ed

I have a friend who went there ages ago who didn't make it through the first term: one of the professors was too determined to make the experience miserable because "that's what the industry is like." That's always stuck with me, even as the school has gone on to rake in the kudos.

Trevor Bond

The problem with creeps, cretins, and authoritarian idiots is that they have no shame whatsoever and take it as a point of pride to be called out as such, as if being hated is a badge of merit and not a sign of severe personality failings, lousy application of probably poor skillsets, and general evil-mindedness.

Anonymous

...well, that's horrific and yet somehow completely expected. An aside, and hopefully not out of line, that's a particularly good look for you this episode.

John D

Looks like the video is no longer available.

Anonymous

came here to say the same thing. I hope it's not the sign of retaliation or take down

Anonymous

I hope it becomes available soon. I knew I should've watched it this morning.

Thomas Halpin

I didn't watch the video soon enough, I must see it!

SHolmes
>>73632844

I feel like the teachers could make a difference if they educated their students about the realities of the gaming industry without presenting it as a "suck it up or get lost." Let them know what companies treat their employees with respect and which ones to avoid. If new blood is strangled from awful companies at the source, they'll be the ones who have to adapt or die. Also, include courses to teach students how to form their own companies as an alternative to being forced into the AAA meat grinder. There's more possibilities than "stop being babies and unionize". Although, unions are definitely needed, which is another thing the instructors could educate their students about.

Anonymous

I know some people at Digipen, and your video is causing serious waves that may result in the asshole getting fired. The COO has apparently opened his door to all staff and students to report any issues with Radokovich as of this afternoon. And good riddance to him, should he be fired. I know Radokovich from the hobby game industry (circa 2008-2012), and he was impossible to work with there. He spent like 4 years (that I know of) trying to get this game called Alphabet Soup published across two companies (Catalyst Game Labs and Sandstorm), and while some of the issue was with the publishers, a lot of it was his angry unwillingness to accept any edit (cost cutting or otherwise) to the game. And he would basically stalk the presidents of Catalyst (and later Sandstorm) at conventions and trade shows to gripe about how it wasn't done yet. Also, IIRC, Radokovich was fired from Geek & Sundry for being a shithead.

Anonymous

Did anybody happen to download a copy of this video earlier before references to that guy's name were removed? Would love a copy of that...for reasons...also, my husband teaches a video game design course (among other things) at a high school near DigiPen, so we are following this very closely!

Emil Johansen

Excellent journalisming. Thanks.

Anonymous
>>73927760

Marxist bullshit=journalisming. You’re welcome. Bootstrap theory my ass, you’re a fucking nerd where I come from. Get laid.

Anonymous

You know I was the one leading people to this channel. I said you know Jim is gay, right? Only reason why people don’t think Stephanie is some fascist Trump supporter. Fuck your bootstrap theory, and fuck your stupid video games. Read a book you fucking weebs.

Anonymous
>>73927760

Lol, what made _you_ so mad? How tf is this video Marxist? Christ, go out and breathe some air, touch some grass, get a CO detector. You're spouting nonsense here. And paying for the privilege to do so, which is a bit awkward.

Anonymous
>>73632293

I feel like that's a very surface-level and kind of pointless take, really. Like, yeah, all actual scam universities have been for-profit universities... because, yeah? But being for-profit/private doesn't automatically necessitate that it's "awful". There are many valid criticisms you can make about DigiPen, but this is not one of them.

Anonymous
>>73633837

Well, it sounds like they hired a game design teacher who is particularly awful, and the complaints about that individual are being extrapolated to the entire rest of the school, as if literally all the faculty act in the same manner. Definitely hope the issues with him get resolved (it sounds like they may be considering firing him), but while there are a lot of valid complaints about the school, I don't think the hyper focus and extrapolation is particularly genuine.

Emil Johansen
>>73927760

That is kind of you to offer, Maci, but I am currently in a not-open marriage. I will let you know if that changes. In the interest of cultural exchange, I am also a sexually active nerd where I come from. Your observational skills are spot on and it is heartening to know that you care.