I want to be a game artist, and I'm currently deciding between two universities: Digipen and Gnomon. If I went with Digipen, Valve and Nintendo of America would pretty much be my only AAA studio options in the area for a job. My concern with Nintendo of America is the amount of actual game development they do. I know they have a division for game dev (NST), and have worked on a few obscure titles over the years, but I went to apply on the site, and the only fitting position they had was "Game Development" and didn't even bother distinguishing between art, design, and programming (which worries me). If I were to work for Nintendo, I'd want to be an artist for a title like Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or Splatoon--and I just don't know how likely that is at Nintendo of America in Redmond.

Anybody have any experience/knowledge on this? 

I know Nintendo America does most their hiring in the Seattle area which is also home to Microsoft, they might do some game development stuff there.  Amazon is also trying to get into game development too and is putting a bunch of money into it and has their own game engine built off unreal engine that is optimized for MMOs and twitch compatibility so they are really going all out. All the jobs I have seen posted currently are in the Seattle area.  You would probably have a better chance of being a concept/design artist there right after graduating working on most likely new properties with development based around where you live than you would designing flagship properties that usually are headed up by Japanese teams.  I have no idea how talented you are, what kind of portfolio you have or what the person doing the hiring and assigning roles at Nintendo is looking for, but if it's something you want to do pursue it.  As for the area, Puget Sound is good if you are looking for work in games but it's expensive.  You have to be motivated and willing to go without from time to time because everything is overpriced and traffic is horrible, but it's a pretty area and Seattle is relatively safe for a city its' size.  Be prepared to pay $1500 for a studio apartment very far from the city center when the safety gets a lot more "relative".  There are also lots of jobs in game development and quite a few AAA studios located there and great pho.

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1 hour ago, MetaBuster said:

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Why the fixation on Nintendo? 

NST has a long relationship with DigiPen, but from anecdotes it isn't a place I'd want to work. Other studios they are affiliated with, like Retro in Austin, have a better reputation.  There are lots of developers in the region, and many more regions with many other studios. 

Nintendo also has agreements with other studios to develop games for them under their first-party brand. Then there are third party games, those are are released on Nintendo's platforms developed by everybody else. If you're desperate to work there specifically you can try, but it will be easier to approach all the companies near you in the hope that something matches, rather than only one company.