Dr. Lewis Pulsipher

Revised late October 2008

The audience for this FAQ is potential students and supporters of potential students (parents, spouses, financial aid providers, etc.).

What’s the difference between a degree, a diploma, and a certificate?

Isn't this just for programmers?  Absolutely not.  Many more artists (such as 3D modelers) work in the game industry than programmers.  There are also designers, testers, sound experts, writers, producers, business people, and more.

What kinds of jobs do you do in this field? SGD involves two parts, games and simulations.  Game positions include the artists, programmers, game and level designers, sound people, game writers, game producers, and others who create games.  Simulation jobs include many of the same jobs, and the best training simulations are often games as well.

How much $$$$ do people make in simulation and game development? This depends on the level of success of the games you work on, your level of experience and talent, where you work (the company and the region), what job you do.  Game testers make as little as $20,000 a year.  Really valuable people can make six figures.   

What differentiates this from many other jobs is that SGD provides rapid upward mobility for people who are good at it. For example, if you’re a dental hygienist you might make $35,000 a year with a some years' experience. But ten years later, or even twenty years later, you won’t make much more than that. You may start in SGD lower than people in some other lines of work.

Don’t go into games and simulations because you want to make money; go into it because you enjoy creating games. The people who work in the industry work long hours, but say it's the best job ever. 

Game development is a field where life-long learning is absolutely required.  You should love what you're doing.  (Of course, this advice applies equally to anything you consider doing.)

The latest salary survey is here. 

How long does it take to make a game?  A AAA list game such as Halo or Far Cry takes two to five years, and at least 100 man-years, usually much more.  100-400 people will work on the game at one time or another.  Small video games can take months rather than years, with small groups of people (half a dozen or so) involved.  A commercial game made by one person is very rare, and unlikely to sell much.

Are there any jobs available now?   Yes, especially locally owing to the strong game company presence in the Triangle and the strong demand for simulations people in Cumberland County owing to the large military presence.

Do I need to know a lot about game creation to start out?  Our curriculum is designed for people with no prior knowledge of game creation.

Is there a lot of math?  This varies with the specialization, but in general, no.  Programming often involves logic and sometimes math, but most students aren't primarily interested in programming, and programming isn't primarily math.

Is this fun? We think so. And we try to make it so for the students.   Make no mistake: electronic game creation is complicated. Don’t think this is an easy way to make a lot of money. It’s a fun way, but not easy street.

Will I get hands-on experience? We want your resume to reflect experience, because employers put a premium on experience. In every SGD class you’ll get hands-on experience, and many classes consist of nearly 100% hands-on.  We value real-world experience over "book learning".

How up-to-date is the instruction (information, skills, etc.) that you provide to students? We are very fortunate in the support we receive from the college, so that we can use up-to-date equipment and software. The PCs in our newer labs are dual-core machine with LCD screens.  We use the latest version of 3ds Max.

What is 3D modeling?  3D modeling software is used to create objects and creatures for 3D games.  You start with a box.  The artist “extrudes” areas from the box—kind of like pulling clay or Play-Doh in various directions.  3D models consist of polygons, rectangles, triangles, and so on, all extruded from or cut into the original box.  A really detailed character from Unreal Tournament III can take 35 to 40 working days to make, though two weeks is more common.

What are the instructor’s qualifications?  Dr. Lew Pulsipher (Ph.D. Duke) has designed half a dozen commercially-published boardgames.  The most well-known, Britannia, was first published in 1986, and will soon be reprinted in four foreign languages.  He has 17,000 classroom hours of teaching experience, and 20 years of adjunct graduate faculty teaching.  See pulsiphergames.com.  lew@pulsipher.net

Mark Stevens has worked at Electronic Arts as a 3D modeler, and has worked on well-known games such as Hellgate: London and Madden 08.  He has taught 3D modeling for five years.

Rob Kallmeyer has taught at FTCC for many years in the Web department, especially on the art side (Photoshop, etc.), and runs his own Web development company.  He has published some flash games as well.

Kenneth Kleiner is chairman of the Web department at FTCC, and is in charge of making SGD happen.  KLEINERK@faytechcc.edu

(Dr. Pulsipher's games: top row U.S. edition of Britannia (1987), Valley of the Four Winds (1980), German edition of Britannia (1991), U.S. revised edition of Britannia (2006), bottom row, British edition of Britannia (1986)  book Hobby Games the 100 Best (Britannia is one of the 100, Dr. P also wrote an article in the book), Dragon Rage (1982), Swords & Wizardry (1980). Diplomacy Games & Variants and other foreign editions of Britannia not shown.)

What are your available credentials (degrees)? As of this writing we are in a "1 + 1" relationship with Wake Technical Community College.  Students take first year classes at FTCC, and would take second year at Wake.  However, the process to be independent of Wake is likely to be concluded later this academic year, and we will award two-year Associates degrees in Simulation and Game Development.

What’s the difference between a degree, a diploma, and a certificate? A degree is earned through two years (or more) of course work. A diploma is awarded for one-half to one-third as much work (a year, approximately). A certificate is awarded after you take several classes (typically four to six) in a particular area, such as Cisco.

Are classes available online?   We have responsibilities to both students and employers that make it impossible to offer this degree online:

This is the way MIT spokesperson Jon Paul Potts put it some years ago:

There are many general education classes online, where this is appropriate.

Some topics that are not experience-based lend themselves fairly well to online instruction. History, for example, or some forms of English. Others, where success is very much based on personal experience, do not lend themselves to online classes. As someone put it, if I’m having my appendix removed, I certainly don’t want my surgeon to be someone who learned surgery online! An SGD person is much closer in what he does to a surgeon than to an historian.

We have schools and classrooms because centuries of experience show that they are an efficient and effective way for people to learn. A school provides a site where students can interact repeatedly and frequently with teachers, and where students can take advantage of the facilities set up by the school, so that they don’t need such facilities at home.

Moreover, online classes are always more work for the student, if he or she is to learn as much as in a seated class. 

While other topics may be suitable for online classes, SGD is not.

Online continuing education classes (no college credit given) are a completely different subject, often worthwhile.

What’s the most important thing about getting a simulation/game development job? Interestingly enough, the most important thing in getting ANY job is attitude. It is hard for employers to judge attitude, however. (This is why employers want personal references. A teacher who is consulted as a reference is often asked questions like "did this person arrive at classes on time, did they hand in work on time, did they work well with the other students"?)

Aside from attitude, experience is the most important thing. Many employers who cannot get experienced people at the price they want to pay will take those with a good attitude who have shown he or she can do the work. But every employer would rather get someone who can "hit the ground running".  What we try to do at FTCC is give you the equivalent of experience.

If I get an SGD degree from FTCC, will I get a good job? Strictly on the basis of having taken the courses?–no.  The game and simulation industry is one of the few in the country where degrees are relatively unimportant.  You have to show a company what you can do (through your portfolio).  Our objective at FTCC is to help you learn how to do what the industry needs doing, and help you show companies that you can do it.  YOU are the one who earns the job.  There are no shortcuts.

Why go to community college–why not to a four-year school?

We offer hands-on job preparation.  Community colleges exist to teach people actual skills so they can do the job they want to do, as well as to educate them.  Universities are designed to teach educate students and teach enough theory so they can go to graduate school.   Community colleges "do".  Universities "ponder".

You won't owe an arm and a leg on tuition when you finish.  You can get an education and not end up with a ten-year debt.

You'll be employable in two to three years instead of four to six. (Put another way, it takes half as long to become marketable.)

You'll learn real-world skills instead of theory.

Relevance. 75% of the classes you'll take cover the specific skills you'll use in your job, instead of 30% as in a four-year school.

Small classes. This allows for individual attention.  Our classrooms accommodate no more than 24, and we try to keep classes smaller than that.

Accessible teachers. Do you want to be in a class of a hundred people? Do you want to be taught by graduate assistants? We are the experts, and we LIKE to talk with students. That's what makes teaching fun.

Caring environment. In four-year college YOU are solely responsible for your education; and in a four-year school the principle is often "sink or swim". At FTCC, you are still responsible for your education (it IS college, after all), but we have mechanisms designed to help you, and people who (because they don't have to contend with many dozens or even hundreds of students) can give you individual attention.

Full-time teachers.  Universities often use graduate students and poorly-paid part-time faculty to teach classes.  We use full-time faculty.

The full attention of the teachers. At many universities "publish or perish" determines the success of the instructors, so they are inevitably more concerned about research and writing than about teaching. At FTCC our whole job is teaching.

Why not go to a trade school like "Full Sail 'University'" or "Digipen"?  These are VERY expensive (six figures) schools, private, money-making concerns instead of a state-subsidized, not-for-profit schools such as FTCC.  Because they are "trade schools", your degree is not accredited as a "college degree" despite the names.  That is, it applies only to the subject you study, if at all, and is generally not regarded as a degree that qualifies you toward a job.  Our degree is recognized throughout the country as a two-year college degree, and that's important in the rising number of jobs that, no matter how much or how little you know, require as a minimum a college degree.

In the end, in the game industry what counts is what you can do.  We focus on this just as the trade schools do, but we're MUCH closer to home and MUCH less expensive.

Why FTCC SGD rather than another community college?  Other schools use instructors with little teaching experience and no industry experience.  One of our instructors is a published game designer with 17,000 classroom hours of teaching experience (see http://www.pulsipher.net/gameindex.htm), and another has worked on video games such as Hellgate:London.  This kind of experience is very rare at ANY school.

What is your "mission statement"? FTCC's SGD program provides students with the opportunity to acquire the necessary foundation knowledge, confidence, and practical skills needed to be a successful, effective employee in an entry-level game or simulation industry position.

How do I learn more? We are pleased to talk with prospective students. E-mail works, too, if you can’t get us on the phone. Contact:

Kenneth Kleiner, KLEINERK@faytechcc.edu,  (910) 678-8572  office: Advanced Technology Center 113H

"Always do right--this will gratify some and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

Send mail to webmaster (at) pulsipher (dot) net with comments about this web site.   Last modified: 12/14/10.  Copyright 2009 Lewis Pulsipher