Standing barefoot at the podium, the energetic teacher gestures and delivers colorful jokes throughout her lecture. Though the atmosphere is relatively relaxed, her enthusiasm is infectious.
Kim Pittman, 31, is a game level designer, scripter, teacher and mother. In addition, she plays “World of Warcraft” and reads, writes and runs a “Dungeons & Dragons” campaign. She watches movies, follows other designers on Twitter and plays games for inspiration in her work. How does she find time for everything? “Through exceptional time management skills,” Pittman said.
Pittman is one of the 13 percent of women in the video game industry, a statistic that is fairly well-represented by the ratio of male to female students in her classroom – 24 to 4.
The Game Design 1 class is captivated as their professor relays amusing anecdotes and tips about the video game industry. One of her stories involves when she worked at Toys “R” Us and she encountered a real-world opportunity to use her skills in level design. There had once been a wall in the store separating one section from the other, but “I suggested the wall be removed because it blocked the flow into that area,” she said. “Like in first-person shooters, people hug the wall,” she added, comparing customer psychology to artificial intelligence behavior in games. After the wall was removed from the aisle, the previously blocked-off department went on to make an extra $4,000 a week, a 400 percent profit increase. She did the same thing with a barrier in the R-Zone electronics section, giving that department a large boost in sales as well.
She proudly pulled out her phone to show off her Stealth Elf case – a character from “Skylanders,” the best-selling, kid-friendly video game series she’s helped create. It is an international success few expected, but Pittman saw it coming.
“I remember distinctly thinking, ‘This is gonna be huge!’” she said, beaming. “‘Skylanders’ is totally my kind of game! If I hadn’t worked on it, I still would have bought it.” With the series ported to seven different console and portable systems, it has garnered international praise since its initial release in October 2011. The games were so successful that she was able to pay off her six-figure school debt in one lump sum. “That doesn’t happen to everybody,” she admitted.
One of the game’s recipes for success is that it’s specifically tested by kids. The company Toys For Bob surveys 5-year-olds to see if they can play through each level, and then bring in kids up to age 13 to see if they still enjoy it. Pittman quoted an October interview with TFB’s parent company Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg, when he said while testing a creative idea, there are three populations: people who like the idea, people who dislike it and neutral people. “In this case, though, there was only one population, and that was people who loved it,” Pittman said.
Her current company is the fourth she’s worked at. “When I applied for Toys for Bob, they were already working on ‘Skylanders,’” she explained. “They were given a one-year extension from Activision and I was hired to help finish it.” She went on from “Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure” to work on “Skylanders: Giants,” and continues to receive royalties from the latest entry, “Skylanders: Swap Force,” even though it’s being led by a different developer team.
Pittman didn’t always want to be a game designer. Originally, she wanted to be a history teacher, and then an English teacher. After receiving an undergraduate degree in liberal arts, she received a full assistantship to Southern Methodist University in Texas. This means she would have received full tuition, room, board and stipend while also working as a teacher’s aid for an upper level creative writing class. But then she noticed the full game design master’s program associated with the campus – the Guild Hall.
“I was realizing I already have the skills for this,” she said. At the time, she had been working on her own campaigns for the PC game “Neverwinter Nights,” as well as custom maps for “Heroes of Might and Magic 3.” When she found out that Guild Hall’s curriculum included custom campaigns for “Neverwinter Nights 2,” along with working with the game engines Unreal 2k4, Valve Hammer SDK and Radiant, she had a career-changing realization. “There are schools for this? I wanna go there,” she said.
Last semester, there was an opening for a game design teacher at the SRJC Petaluma campus. Jeffrey Sondin-Kung, who left to accept a job offer across the country, previously taught the course. He first met Pittman when he hired her at Totally Games in 2007. “Even then,” he said, “her résumé was chock full of awesome game development accomplishments, [and it] naturally floated to the top of the heap.” When asked who he would recommend for the position, he immediately answered Kim Pittman.
“She’s able to juggle all of that and still have fun,” Sondin-Kung said. “I count myself lucky to know her as a friend and colleague.”
When SRJC’s current games programming teacher James Stewart was asked who he thought should take the job, he answered in kind. “Kim is one of the most innovative designers in the industry,” he said, “and she happens to work on one of the most successful game franchises of all time. We are unbelievably fortunate to have her as part of the faculty.”
Pittman still had to jump through some hoops to get where she is now, but she was eventually hired at SRJC in spring 2013 and started teaching her students to use Valve’s Hammer development kit right away. This semester, they are working with Game Maker.
It’s not all fun and games however. There are many obstacles in her line of work. When asked if working in the game industry is difficult, she nodded her head. “Yes,” she agreed, “I frequently say it’s not for the faint of heart.” While still difficult, her job is an outlier in several ways. In an industry where most people leave after eight years, most Toys For Bob employees have lasted at least 10.
Did her gender alter her experience in this field dominated by males? “Yes, significantly. Prior to working for Toys For Bob, I had encountered frequent sexism in the workplace,” Pittman said.
There are risks working for any game company, no matter your gender. “In the game industry, after shipping a game, you are just as likely to get laid off as you are to be kept on,” she said. “It’s harsh.”
Also, her career choice isn’t respected by everyone. “A lot of people still think games are for kids,” she said. Her father still asks her when she is going to get a ‘real job.’
On a scale from 1 to 10 for career satisfaction, she answered, “Definitely a 10. It’s exactly perfect for me,” she grinned. “I’m never bored. There’s always a new challenge. You never feel like a cog in the machine. You’re always going to do something that people will see on-screen, especially as a level designer!”
She can dress how she likes on the job. “At some point I decided that it’s not worth it to be uncomfortable, and the game industry really supports different thoughts like that,” Pittman said. “It’s why I always wear t-shirts and blue jeans, why I wear flip flops all the time, and why I never wear makeup.”
She wouldn’t change a thing about her career path. “Obviously, hindsight is 20/20… but where I’m at right now, I’m so exceptionally blessed, I wouldn’t change a thing, even the bad jobs,” Pittman said.
She also doesn’t take vacations from work longer than a week. “I miss it. I wanna go back. Maternity leave was super boring and I couldn’t wait to get back to work,” she added.
Her advice for aspiring game designers? “Mostly, to make games,” she said. “Specifically, just find the editor for a game that already exists, and get in it.”