15 hour workdays, including weekends, for months on end with no bonus awaits you.
And if you quit, they’ll tell you you’re not passionate enough.
Weaponizing your own passions against you.
I went there for two years… What a shit show. I assume they’ve stepped up their game then.
DAE has a massive problem and its tearing passionate souls apart.
I could not sum it up better than their own quote does:
“Het mooie is dat de uitreiking komt van mensen uit de game-industrie én dat de portfolio’s van de studenten beoordeeld worden”, vertelt opleidingsmanager Rik Leenknegt. “Het zijn dus professionals die kijken of de portfolio’s van onze studenten voldoen aan de verwachtingen die de industrie stelt aan toekomstige werknemers. Dat dat zo is, is geweldig. Als praktijkgerichte bacheloropleiding kan je niet beter wensen.”
DO NOT GO TO THIS SCHOOL WITH THE INTENTION TO GRADUATE.
Go with the intention to learn new skills. Grab every bit of knowledge you can find.
Drop out while you still have a soul to use those skills for your own projects.
Kortrijk geen gezeik
Graduated from a different education at that school about 10 years ago (NMCT) and I remember DAE being very new then.
DAE was definitely the hardest education at the school at that point, with lots of dropouts.
I remember us going to San Fransisco for a trip the school organizes each year, and the game companies being very interested in them, because game educations were very new at that point.
Many people I know that graduated from DAE however say that you should move abroad if you want to work in the industry, because it’s really small in Belgium. A lot of them, who didn’t want to move, became “regular” programmers working on things like mobile apps instead.
Game design school*
Gameschools teach you how to game, not how to design them. I don’t think Belgium has any of those, but Korea does.
I want to give my own experiences as someone who graduated from there over a decade ago (when it was still in its infancy), and as someone who now has been in the industry ever since.
If you decide to follow this course with the intent of going into the industry, separate what you consider passion and work. The amount of friends I’ve seen burn out because they placed their passion into their workplace is too damn high. At the end of the day it’s still a job, and that comes with all the mental baggage associated with it. I do my passion work at home, at work it’s strictly business (and business requirements will require you to do a lot of “unfun” things).
Graduation isn’t a guarantee for a job. Nobody in the industry cares if you graduated from the most prestigious institute, they care for two things: “what can you do” and “how do you function in a team”. Many companies care very little for “rockstar developers” (in fact consider those that do as a red flag), they want well functioning team dynamics, and if you are an “average” performer, they will treasure you if you are great in a team
Lastly, know your self worth, and value yourself. You’re not worth anything to anyone if you burn out. A company that wants you to burn out (through crunch or whatever) should be abandoned asap. Although not as frequent as in the US/UK, some companies are run by idiots, get out of there asap, you’re jeopardizing your own future for nothing by staying. Stay connected to your local scene (IGDA events, etc..) and you’ll easily find some form of replacement work. If you stay disconnected, you will have no “out” from that abusive situation.
Small addendum, crunch can happen, if it does it should last no longer than 2 weeks and be caused by external pressure (i.e not faulty planning from your corporation). It should also be fully voluntary (not volun-told). Sometimes a platform company (think Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc..) might require you to do a marketing push, or investors want to see the product in a particular state, this is unfortunate but not isolated to our industry. This is (and should be) a rare event. If the “planning” is on fire all the time, management is inept and you need to get out before your mental health is impacted. People who work for extended periods of time in such a place will talk about it in retrospect as if they have PTSD, especially when in groups of ex-workers of that company.
Don’t let passion blind you to work for terrible companies. Be critical during interviews processes, and don’t ignore red flags.
Let’s just say the years I spent at DAE were some of the worst in my adult life.
But DAE-stans will surely tell me that’s entirely my fault.
Rik once came on reddit to defend DAE as ‘a student’ but forgot to switch to his alt-account. *[laughs in basic hygiene signs]*
8 comments
Fuck the games industry, in general.
15 hour workdays, including weekends, for months on end with no bonus awaits you.
And if you quit, they’ll tell you you’re not passionate enough.
Weaponizing your own passions against you.
I went there for two years… What a shit show. I assume they’ve stepped up their game then.
DAE has a massive problem and its tearing passionate souls apart.
I could not sum it up better than their own quote does:
“Het mooie is dat de uitreiking komt van mensen uit de game-industrie én dat de portfolio’s van de studenten beoordeeld worden”, vertelt opleidingsmanager Rik Leenknegt. “Het zijn dus professionals die kijken of de portfolio’s van onze studenten voldoen aan de verwachtingen die de industrie stelt aan toekomstige werknemers. Dat dat zo is, is geweldig. Als praktijkgerichte bacheloropleiding kan je niet beter wensen.”
DO NOT GO TO THIS SCHOOL WITH THE INTENTION TO GRADUATE.
Go with the intention to learn new skills. Grab every bit of knowledge you can find.
Drop out while you still have a soul to use those skills for your own projects.
Kortrijk geen gezeik
Graduated from a different education at that school about 10 years ago (NMCT) and I remember DAE being very new then.
DAE was definitely the hardest education at the school at that point, with lots of dropouts.
I remember us going to San Fransisco for a trip the school organizes each year, and the game companies being very interested in them, because game educations were very new at that point.
Many people I know that graduated from DAE however say that you should move abroad if you want to work in the industry, because it’s really small in Belgium. A lot of them, who didn’t want to move, became “regular” programmers working on things like mobile apps instead.
Game design school*
Gameschools teach you how to game, not how to design them. I don’t think Belgium has any of those, but Korea does.
I want to give my own experiences as someone who graduated from there over a decade ago (when it was still in its infancy), and as someone who now has been in the industry ever since.
If you decide to follow this course with the intent of going into the industry, separate what you consider passion and work. The amount of friends I’ve seen burn out because they placed their passion into their workplace is too damn high. At the end of the day it’s still a job, and that comes with all the mental baggage associated with it. I do my passion work at home, at work it’s strictly business (and business requirements will require you to do a lot of “unfun” things).
Graduation isn’t a guarantee for a job. Nobody in the industry cares if you graduated from the most prestigious institute, they care for two things: “what can you do” and “how do you function in a team”. Many companies care very little for “rockstar developers” (in fact consider those that do as a red flag), they want well functioning team dynamics, and if you are an “average” performer, they will treasure you if you are great in a team
Lastly, know your self worth, and value yourself. You’re not worth anything to anyone if you burn out. A company that wants you to burn out (through crunch or whatever) should be abandoned asap. Although not as frequent as in the US/UK, some companies are run by idiots, get out of there asap, you’re jeopardizing your own future for nothing by staying. Stay connected to your local scene (IGDA events, etc..) and you’ll easily find some form of replacement work. If you stay disconnected, you will have no “out” from that abusive situation.
Small addendum, crunch can happen, if it does it should last no longer than 2 weeks and be caused by external pressure (i.e not faulty planning from your corporation). It should also be fully voluntary (not volun-told). Sometimes a platform company (think Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc..) might require you to do a marketing push, or investors want to see the product in a particular state, this is unfortunate but not isolated to our industry. This is (and should be) a rare event. If the “planning” is on fire all the time, management is inept and you need to get out before your mental health is impacted. People who work for extended periods of time in such a place will talk about it in retrospect as if they have PTSD, especially when in groups of ex-workers of that company.
Don’t let passion blind you to work for terrible companies. Be critical during interviews processes, and don’t ignore red flags.
Let’s just say the years I spent at DAE were some of the worst in my adult life.
But DAE-stans will surely tell me that’s entirely my fault.
Rik once came on reddit to defend DAE as ‘a student’ but forgot to switch to his alt-account. *[laughs in basic hygiene signs]*