It’s All In How You Play The Game

University of Donkey Kong. Game Boy Tech. Go ahead, make the jokes.

Graduates of a new institute to train programmers and artists of video games, who can qualify for jobs paying $50,000 a year to start, are chuckling all the way to the work station.

DigiPen Institute of Technology plans to open a Seattle-area campus in September 1997 with an initial class of 100 students. They will be candidates for a bachelor of science degree in “real-time interactive simulation.”

The four-year school, which has been authorized by the state Higher Education Coordinating Board, is receiving support from Redmond-based Nintendo of America in the form of software development tools and hardware.

“Many of the youth of today grew up with video games and they wouldn’t mind making a living at it,” said Claude Comair, DigiPen’s founder and president.