game art college graduate success rate....

Rockley Bonner · Jan 2013

what would a general percentage be of the graduates from game art colleges that ended up getting a job? I know it differs from school to school but Ive heard somewhere that its around 10%, is this true?

Muzzoid · Jan 2013

In aus that number would be probably closer to 2-3%

Also is this actual reputable games companies, or do indies and related industries count?

Bibendum · Jan 2013

AIS graduate employment statistics claims 74% of their "Game Art and Design" graduates are employed in related fields.

What "related fields" means is anybodies guess, could be that half of them are working at GameStop.

Barbarian · Jan 2013

Some statistics from 2012 note that overall at least 60% of all college graduates do not find full-time employment in their field of study. For "game art" the percentage has to be near 85 to 90% in the U.S. if you count for-profit schools in the mix. Some stats were discussed on a CG forum last year about the large number of students in schools such as Full Sail every year that do not get full-time employment in the CG field.

I would note from my experience (my first degree was in math, physics, computer sci at a traditional college) that only about 20% of us that started made it through to the end. So, if you consider non-finishers the percentage has to be as high as 95% to 98% do not get jobs in the industry. For graduates I would guess it is around 80% do not get jobs in the industry (within three years of graduating). Part of the problem is that many graduates still think that the diploma will get them a job (and this is true for most college students, not just "game art"). It is a shame when you consider all the money spent, but if you are driven, work hard, and are hungry to learn I would argue that the percentage has to be much higher. These are the people that get shit done, improve over time, and seek out more knowledge to improve their skills.

ZacD · Jan 2013

Last time I heard, AI counts gamestop as a related field.

MikeF · Jan 2013

the "college" i went to for animation listed any employment after graduating as "an employed graduate" in the yearly stats sheet. To my knowledge only 2 other students from my graduating class of 30 are currently employed in a related field, so take any statistics with a grain of salt

Sean VanGorder · Jan 2013

In the past 5 years I can count on one hand the number of people who have graduated from my school and went on to AAA studios. A few have done freelance and smaller projects, but that's still not a very high percentage.

Kbrom12 · Jan 2013

safe to say lower than 10%...just graduated from SCAD...so far I've been fairly lucky with the job searching

Jason Young · Jan 2013

It's impossible to say really. Schools' stats can't be trusted and I haven't seen any third party research specific to media arts degrees.

I think most people's anecdotal evidence is going to put the percentage fairly low. I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere around 10%, though counting jobs like QA, game customer support, or anything that involves light graphics work pushes that percentage a decent bit higher. In my black and white scenario, if someone enters a game art program and doesn't find employment working as an artist in video games or a related field like film, tv, etc, they shouldn't really be counted as successfully employed in a school's advertising numbers.

Kwramm · Jan 2013

This is also just anecdotal, but in the last 10 years since graduation I didn't really meet that many graduates from any games school in the industry. The majority of people, if they studied, studied something else - traditional art, writing, CS, something entirely different/self taught.

Not all people who do not end up in the industry do so because their skills are not good. Some realize that they really want to do something different and go on to study something else. Others take non game but graphic related jobs because they want to live in a certain area where there's no studios. Many people take time out after graduating, and many more sit at home polishing their reels

Autocon · Jan 2013

ZacD wrote: »

Last time I heard, AI counts gamestop as a related field.

That wouldn't surprise me, I know they count QA.

Joopson · Jan 2013

Since I started school, in 2010, maybe 3 or 4 in my school have gone on to work at AAA studios. A few more have gone on to smaller studios, but no more than 15 I'd say, by eyeballing. Lots of them are too "proud" to go the indie route, but I do know a few folks here who have made games for the iphone, &c.

Many more don't even graduate.
So, success rates aren't too good, but none of that matters at all. What matters is you.
If you aren't willing to do the work, no school can help you get a job.

The moral of the story? Work your ass off, no matter. It's much more reliable than statistics.

LRoy · Jan 2013

Success rate at my school was abysmal and the staff make jokes about students working at burger king post graduation.

nyx702 · Jan 2013

Sean VanGorder wrote: »

In the past 5 years I can count on one hand the number of people who have graduated from my school and went on to AAA studios. A few have done freelance and smaller projects, but that's still not a very high percentage.

Yea this is pretty true. I agree with the 2-3% figure.

They never even asked me if I had a job or not so I have no idea how they get their numbers. I have never heard of anyone being asked either. I even had a job before graduating and they didn't ask during the exit interview. The exit interview was all about $$$.

Mrskullface · Jan 2013

100% of those that give a hoot

Hazardous · Jan 2013

Of a class of 35 - 40, 5 went on to work in games. The rest either dropped out, or are working somewhere else.

Of the 3-5 from my class only 2 that I know of are still actually working in games, Myself and one other guy from my class. The rest are working in IT, much more money and far less stress - but those guys do miss the creative melting pot / endless challenge of being in games.

Note regarding what MrSkullface said: Thinking back, All 5 of us gave a shit, the rest showed up, played or talked about games, and pretty much did the absolute bare minimum to get their diplomas. I like that none of those people ended up in the industry - there are way too many of those already.

Mask_Salesman · Jan 2013

4 out of the original 60, only 20 of which actually graduated from my year. Including myself, altho 2 of us came from modding backgrounds, the majority of peeps had no idea or interest tbh, just thought playing games = games job.

marks · Jan 2013

Kbrom12 wrote: »

safe to say lower than 10%...

Pretty much this.

chrisradsby · Jan 2013

Don't concern yourself with success rates. It all depends on your own skill, you have to grasp your own future. Usually you always have the people who drop out or slacks off and just do the bare minimum and still expect they'll land a job after 2-3 years of slacking. I hate that kind of attitude, especially in schools where you actually spent time and effort getting in.

Snight · Jan 2013

Yeah, I'm with chrisradsby. It's really what you make of it and having a positive outlook. Going to a game art school gave me many connections. I still am in contact with most of them today. Sure there are asshats at any school you go to. It's up to you to ignore them and focus on your work and success.

skylebones · Jan 2013

Mrskullface wrote: »

100% of those that give a hoot

Yes! No one got into games without working hard. Not something you can just fall into.

daphz · Jan 2013

In my experience, students going in for game art/film cg didn't know much about what they were getting themselves into. when the knowledge/workload got overwhelming people started dropping like flies or looking for easy ways out.

I know game schools have terrible reputations but I think it's not all their fault. Gotta work hard to get whatcha want! Some people don't want to work hard.

nyx702 · Jan 2013

Sure. I totally agree with this. I would say this happens to about 70% of them.

But to just say "They should have worked harder!" kinda gets under my skin. I knew some talented people that didn't ever get jobs and some slacker people did. Could I have worked harder? Maybe... but probably not without having mommy and daddy pay for everything for me. You can work crazy hard and if you are not working on the right things it's utterly useless. I always felt like I was fighting the curriculum. I had to waste time doing stupid assignments and rush to get them done so I could learn other things on my own. Things that they SHOULD have been teaching.

I don't regret going to school but I "was" a little bitter, Even with a job after graduating. It's hard to not have the feeling that you got ripped off when you spent so much money and you find out that you could have just learned what you needed on Polycount.

LRoy · Jan 2013

nyx702 wrote: »

It's hard to not have the feeling that you got ripped off when you spent so much money and you find out that you could have just learned what you needed on Polycount.

Kwramm · Jan 2013

nyx702 wrote: »

It's hard to not have the feeling that you got ripped off when you spent so much money and you find out that you could have just learned what you needed on Polycount.

That's why people should look really carefully into the syllabus of any "game college". I'm really glad my college had classes that are more difficult to do on your own, or which offered subjects that many people don't really explore when just focusing at game art; such as art history, life drawing, painting, lighting (in a studio with actual lights), acting for animators, traditional 2d animation, filming (with actual cameras), cinematography and story telling... sure, you can skip all this if you really just want to make it into the industry, but 10 years after graduation I value all the additional subjects I've been exposed to, some of which I probably wouldn't have touched on my own. Nevermind there was no PC or gnomon back then, but that's a different story

Frump · Jan 2013

I dunno if this actually has much to do with the schooling vs the individual. I feel like I got a good enough education, it's my own fault if I haven't been good enough or put enough work in to have succeeded more up to this point.

I graduated with 9 others in our art program and I think all but 3 have found professional artist work in the games in the or animation industry since 2009. I know of several others from classes after ours that have too. The ones that haven't are the ones that haven't put in the work.

If you can learn on your own, you can skip game art school, but if you lack discipline or have a hard time learning/doing on your own, you might be better off going to one.

I'd have never stuck with it if I didn't go to school because I had no discipline or motivation back in 2007. I'd learned photoshop years prior, but the jump to 3d art seemed to daunting to do on my own at the time.

uncle · Jan 2013

Anyone has some links/references for these numbers?

JO420 · Jan 2013

I began an art institute course in 97 with 80 students and in 99 there were 3 total graduates, as far as I can tell I was the only one to work in the industry. It is a tough time to get a foot in the door.

AlexCatMasterSupreme · Jan 2013

It really doesn't matter, if you are hardworking, have a good eye, and are smart, you can get a job. Connections are also important. Also having high personal standards for your work is super important.

Lucas Annunziata · Jan 2013

With my year:
~30 artists started.
~15 graduated
~6 got jobs
~3 in real-time 3d games.

McGreed · Jan 2013

There is unfortunately a bunch of "universities" and "art schools" that has high graduation %, but which turns out that they are financial depended on how many students graduate, which is bad for both the students and the industry as whole. So a high graduation % doesn't have to be a good thing, it's better to get first hand accounts from the people who has actually studied there, instead of the public numbers.

Justin Meisse · Jan 2013

My non scientific observation: I seem to bump into a lot of CCAD graduates in the game industry.

LMP · Jan 2013

My experience with my my friends who were classmates from Academy of Art University.

Out of 14, my self included.

I work for Gameloft on with a Full-time Permanent Position.
2 are working QA for various companies.
1 is full-time an Artist at ngmoco:)
2 had short-term contracts with ngmoco:) and are currently freelance while looking for something more permanent.
1 has been freelance since graduation.
1 has been contract for EA.
1 works at Bestbuy.
1 works at Walgreens.
1 works for Glu Mobile.
1 works for the school as a tutor.
1 is a Tech Artist at KIXEYE.

ebagg · Jan 2013

My tiny school (the now closed Henry Cogswell College based in Everett) has had some hugely successful artist graduates, some who've landed jobs related to their degree, and a large chunk that ended up in other careers. The current big school in the Seattle area churning out some awesome talent with a large amount of success (from what I can tell and the graduates I know) is Digipenn. Both my school and DP certainly seem to be well over 10% (at least of graduates, not sure about DP's dropout rate). But in the case of every success, I'd say it was moreso the individual's hard work than the school they went to. I think the percentage of successful students in a class is as much based on how many hard working individuals are in that class, as it is based on the curriculum.

Extra Credits has one of the best presentations on game schools, more from the "considering what school you want to go to" side of things;

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdGZk-fF98"]Extra Credits: On Game Schools - YouTube[/ame]

Saman · Jan 2013

In my last class of 22 people; 8 went to work in film/commercials, 4 went to work in games, 3 went to work with architecture and 7 just switched careers because they either weren't good enough(mostly because they didn't try very hard) or they felt that other careers than CG would serve them better.
It's the same in any class I've heard of and been in, the people who don't make it are usually the ones that hardly try to make good art or at least stuff that's commercially attractive.

littleclaude · Jan 2013

The University of Hertfordshire students 75% within six months baby! don't trust my word you heretic! then check the stats.
http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007147-CCANM-3D_GAMES_ART
ahh now you believe me!

Here is our student website - http://uhanimation.co.uk

Here is our student showreel -
[vv]55198000[/vv]

Here is our students real time showreel -
[vv]53611822[/vv]

Here is our main Polycount thread.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showt...=hertfordshire

Going to be cutting a new 2013 showreel soon! and boy this years students rock! We also have a new member of staff joining us from Weta next week after a nine year stint on Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Hobbit:) more details to follow on that one, happy days.

Forgot to say most of the students have A levels at AA +A*! and this year we have 800 applications for 78 places, they could have been Doctors

haha! I think playing games is the best cure though! Rock on!

littleclaude · Jan 2013

Just thought you might like to have a taster of one of this years busy beavers, he has a few more months to go yet.

Aleksandrs Jerjomins - http://www.jerjomin3d.co.uk/

His showreel
[vv]55299175[/vv]

Neox · Jan 2013

LMP wrote: »

1 works for the school as a tutor.

this seems to happen a lot

littleclaude · Jan 2013

Neox wrote: »

this seems to happen a lot

Ahh! Airborn but I love you guys

LRoy · Jan 2013

Neox wrote: »

this seems to happen a lot

yes it does. one of my classes was taught by someone who graduated the year before.

littleclaude · Jan 2013

TeeJay wrote: »

Littleclaude, out of those 75% what is the REAL percentage? By that I mean what percentage are working in games. If it's 75%, then great! But I'm curious;

I tend not to trust those stats because when I finished my degree, I got a call to do a survey that asked the same questions, but it only asked if I was employed, which I am, but didn't ask if I'm employed in a related field, which I am not.

The fairest way of doing this data is to ask the graduates themselves, here is a thread on our UH student forum. If you don't trust me ask any of our alumni if the list is true and what they think of the course

now where is my flogging whip http://3dhit.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14971&st=0

Also just to add, we are not just Games Art, we offer 2D, 3D and VFX and the students are quite an even split apart from my level 2 this year which has grown a bit to large. but we like to keep the class size down to around 20ish after the first year is finished.

Looking at the list there are also a lot of start ups that we need to add, like
http://www.rewindfx.com/

http://www.onedeadpixel.com

http://www.squareedge.co.uk/ and many more

Here are the companies

3D, 2D & VFX :-
Activ8
AixSponza
Analog
Aniboxx
Animated Storyboards
Archipelago
Atticus Finch
Axis Animation
Baby Cow
Base Black
Big Red Button
BinWeevils
BlinkInk
Blue Zoo
Boutiq
Caboom
The Character Shop
Cinesite
Click 3X
CoolToons
Cult Toons
Cumi Ltd
Digi-Guys
Digipost New Zealand
Disney Production
Double Negative
FireStep
Fluid Pictures
Framestore
Glassworks
Glowfrog
Gnu Films
Happy Finish
Hi-ReS
Huge Media
ImpossibleTV
Infinite Frameworks
Jellyfish Pictures
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Kavaleer Productions
Kazoo Creative
Keyframe Studios
Mainframe
Method Studios
Moving Picture Company
Munky
The Mill
National Space Centre
Natural Motion
The Neighbourhood
Neon
Nexus Productions
Nomint Pictures
Nvisage
Nvizible
One Dead Pixel
Overthrow Productions
Passion Pictures
Picasso Pictures
Picture House TV
Pipedreams 3D
Pixomondo
Plowman Craven
The Pond
Prime Focus
PTE media
Qvisten Studios
Realtime UK
Redvision
ReelGood
Rewind FX
Rise FX
RJDM Animations
Saddington &amp;amp; Baynes
Selex SI
The Senate VFX
The Sex Pixels
Sherbert
Smoke and Mirrors
Spider Eye
StitchthatTV
Storm Studios
Studio AKA
Studio Liddell
Sudden Black (SBTV)
Th1ng
The Third Floor, Inc
Tidal Films
Uber
Vine Post Production
Visual Method
Windmill Lane VFX
Zoo Films

Games:-
Activision (Shanghai)
Activision (UK)
Apache Solutions Ltd
Babel Media
Beatnik Games
Blitz Games
Climax
Creative Assembly
Crytek UK
Digi-Guys
Electronic Arts
Eurocom
Eutechnyx Ltd
FreestyleGames
Frontier
Frozenbyte
Geomerics
Gusto Games
Headstrong Games
Hothouse Creations
Idle Creations
Ignition London
Jagex
Juice Games
Keen Games
Kuju
nDreams
Nintendo - Japan
Outso
Playfish
Playground Games
Poly Assets United Inc
Psychotron
Rare-Microsoft Games
Real Time Worlds
Rebellion Games
Related Designs
Reloaded Productions
Rockstar North
Slinky Pictures
Sony-London Studio
Sony-Cambridge Studio
Splash Damage
Supermassive Games
Traveller's Tales
Ubisoft (Singapore)
Zoe Mode

Arch Vis
ArcMedia
AVR London
BAM Design
Build
Crystal CG
Last Pixel
Miller Hare
PreConstruct
Real Visual
Rock Hunter
Smoothe
Square Edge
Tiger X
Uniform
V-Real
Vyonyx

Other
Autonomy
Bentley Motors
Burrows CGI
The Creative Partnership
Dialectyx
Douglas Fisher
Firedog Design
Fusion Medical Animation
HMX Media
MediaSphere Ltd
Random 42
Sparkle Media
Taylor James
Tekuchi
Wilma Studios

Neox · Jan 2013

littleclaude wrote: »

Ahh! Airborn but I love you guys

thank you very much but its not really opic related

but often enough when i've been tutoring i met people working as teaching or IT or whatever staff at those schools. Not all schools, but some and i've been teaching on quite a few, though i'd call myself a very bad tacher.

D4V1DC · Jan 2013

littleclaude wrote: »

now where is my flogging whip http://3dhit.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14971&st=0
Sorry, we couldn't find that! < can't view link.
#103137
You do not have permission to view this topic.

It is great to see some success stories coming from colleges but PolyCount still did a lot of work with those very students as from what I've read on the forums many students keep saying their teachers forwarded them to these forums to get more help with their assignments/projects, but it is nice news.

littleclaude · Jan 2013

D4V1DC wrote: »

It is great to see some success stories coming from colleges but PolyCount still did a lot of work with those very students as from what I've read on the forums many students keep saying their teachers forwarded them to these forums to get more help with their assignments/projects, but it is nice news.

You need to create a login, we have also added facebook login as a quick solution.http://3dhit.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14971&st=0

Holly Crap, I have not looked on that thread in a while, Mario only graduated a couple of years ago!
http://www.mariomaruska.co.uk/
[vv]51404442[/vv]

Hell ya, I tell the students to use forums all the time! I think they are the best resource any one can use when learning. They would be crazy not to use a resource like Polycount, Uni teaching is only 10-5pm.

So yeah, thanks Polycount for training up my students you get 50% of the credit

Neox · Jan 2013

D4V1DC wrote: »

It is great to see some success stories coming from colleges but PolyCount still did a lot of work with those very students as from what I've read on the forums many students keep saying their teachers forwarded them to these forums to get more help with their assignments/projects, but it is nice news.

its also what i always do, get your ressources! i will never teach zbrush better than pixos classrooms, so i prefer not to do beginner classes in ANY software but rather show them my workflows, show them things they might not get as easily on the net, something thats worth more in production than just knowing where which button is.

littleclaude · Feb 2013

As a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire I believe studying at any educational establishment is like Gym membership. You have to turn up religiously every week, dont be afraid to ask the Gym staff if you are using the kit correctly, regularly meet up for tutorials and get coaching for better techniques, speak to the pros that have the big pecks and huge guns how they started off and more importantly its what you do outside the Gym that will show the best results in the long run....... AKA chilling out eating pizza, drinking beer and playing games is going to get you Zero points and thats why I have a six pack

See what the students think about how the course helped them in this video

[vv]31601310[/vv]

nick2730 · Feb 2013

school is not worth it now simply put, so many of us including myself spend alot of money for an education worth jack. Its my stupid fault for actually believing it. All i can do now is discourage anyone going to college. NOT WORTH IT

kinggambitben · Feb 2013

Can I ask all the experienced folks, what's the reason for this high unemployment rate? I'm assuming it's obviously just an impacted field of work but still..

I just started learning. I'm a bit scared by the stats, but I think I'm making a presumption that it's just like rolling dice and getting lucky, rather than having diligence pay off.

littleclaude · Feb 2013

nick2730 wrote: »

school is not worth it now simply put, so many of us including myself spend alot of money for an education worth jack. Its my stupid fault for actually believing it. All i can do now is discourage anyone going to college. NOT WORTH IT

Okay this is my last analogy,

"if you eat in a bad restaurant you can't say eating in a restaurant is not worth it."

I would simply take you to "The French Laundry in Yountville, California"

Best Wishes,
Neil

P.S. Did I say Frank Victoria joined the UHAnimation team this week after 12 years at Weta http://www.wetanz.com/frank-victoria/

Bibendum · Feb 2013

kinggambitben wrote: »

Can I ask all the experienced folks, what's the reason for this high unemployment rate? I'm assuming it's obviously just an impacted field of work but still..

I just started learning. I'm a bit scared by the stats, but I think I'm making a presumption that it's just like rolling dice and getting lucky, rather than having diligence pay off.

Because the game industry has an overwhelming excess of ostensibly "qualified" workers. People with degrees but portfolios that are too weak to get them hired.

Schools like AI basically accept anybody who is willing to sign their name on the financial aid papers. As a result most of their students end up being people who are behind the curve in both motivation and skill, as well as carrying serious misconceptions about what game development is actually like.

This wouldn't be a problem if the schools were willing to grind the students to the bone with work to rapidly improve their skillset but they don't because if you make school too hard the students will drop out and then you won't be able to get further tuition from them.

To add insult to injury they're often given poor quality educations to begin with because in order for the school to improve their graduating employment stats, graduates who couldn't get jobs in studios are sometimes given teaching positions at the school. So the next wave of students gets taught by the prior wave of graduates who weren't good enough to get jobs anywhere else.

Some of the more well meaning instructors may try to direct their students to sites like Polycount to improve their work. But being that their students are beginners whose work is probably toward the bottom end of the quality spectrum they become too intimidated to post, depriving themselves of vital feedback and reality checks needed to grow them as artists. So they coast along with minimal effort, comparing themselves to their other weaker classmates thinking "I'm doing pretty good" instead of comparing themselves to the actual industry workers and skilled people who post here. Eventually graduating with a meaningless degree and a portfolio filled with half assed school projects.

nick2730 · Feb 2013

@ bib couldnt be more right.

This was my exact experience half the teachers didnt know squat, and by the time your knee deep in debt your already halfway through so its better just to finish the get the piece of paper.

It's a shame you cant sue for poor education, them show you a great curriculum and when you actually get into the class you learn nothing and the teachers have no idea what they are talking about or they teach wrong/old methods

game art college graduate success rate....

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