History
DigiPen Institute of Technology was founded in 1988 by Claude Comair in Vancouver, B.C., Canada as DigiPen Corporation, a computer simulation and animation company.
In 1990, DigiPen began offering a 3D animation program and began collaborating with Nintendo of America to create a post-secondary program for video game programming. With Nintendo's support, DigiPen Applied Computer Graphics School accepted its first class of video game programming students in 1994.
In May 1996 the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board granted DigiPen the ability to award Associate and Bachelor of Science Degrees in Real-Time Interactive Simulation (R.T.I.S) and Associate of Applied Arts Degrees in 3D Computer Animation. This made DigiPen the first university in the world dedicated to computer and video game development.
The school relocated to Redmond, Washington, U.S. in January 1998.
DigiPen consisted of two campuses, the Main Campus and the Art Campus.
The Main Campus was part of a rented building from Nintendo of America. The bottom floor is Nintendo of America's warehouse where games and game systems are shipped out. The top floor was mostly DigiPen, with Nintendo Software Technology on the north-east quarter. In 2002, DigiPen expanded its hold on the second floor by acquiring approximately another quarter, adding four new classrooms and a new place for the library. Two-thirds of the rooms were filled with computers for student use — only one-third were lecture halls without computers.
The newer addition to DigiPen was the Art Campus, located about two miles (3 km) away from the Main Campus near Redmond Town Center. DigiPen opened this new campus at the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester to provide classrooms for all the BFA students, and to accommodate the growing student body. However, it was uncertain how this division will impact cooperation between the RTIS and BFA students during future student projects.
The school offered its first Associate of Applied Arts in 3D Computer Animation degrees in 1999.
In 2000, DigiPen awarded the first class of R.T.I.S. graduates. The R.T.I.S. program, renowned for the highly skilled game programmers that the intensive program creates, proceeded to be DigiPen's flagship course.
The school added BS.c in Computer Engineering, BF.a in Production Animation and MS.c in Computer Science programs in 2004. In 2008, the BS.c in Game Design and BF.a in Game Design programs were added.
A sister campus in Singapore started in 2008 and since 2010 in Bilbao (Spain)
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