Game Design Geek

Its official, I will be leaving Southern California for good on Friday July 2nd. This was a very tough decision to make and I have to be honest that I have been wrestling with this for months. I have been scrambling to make some kind of decision and doing the research and hard work to see what all my options would be. Do I want to be a designer at another company, do I want to start my own studio, do I want to go back to school for programming, do I want to sit on my brothers couch and design an iPhone game.  (well that’s  out of the question now that my brother has to move)

Lots of talks with friends and family lead me to leave San Diego. Its really crazy expensive here with a very tough economy and an uncertain job market.  In fact, lots of my friends here are unemployed, some for over a year. Its just really insane here, so there aren’t a whole lot of options or jobs to chose from. I know that in these tough times, people are really freaking out, but I wasn’t one of them.  I did that 3 years ago, and I promised myself no matter how bad it gets I wont ever worry about layoffs, etc.  A coward dies a thousand deaths, but a brave man only dies but one.  So, basically what I’m saying is that I’m kinda over it. Now I’m just about doing what makes me happy, whatever that is, and hope the money follows. As long as my bills are paid, I’m a happy camper.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that it will be a while before I have any form of online presence, or forwarding address. I’m not saying I am going to live in my car…yet. but its going to be a while before I can figure out my living situation, so for those of you that really need me for something, I do (for now) have my iPhone. So, text, calls, or email to my mobile me account is going to be it for a while. Just thinking about the fact that I wont be able to play WOW….is killing me. My brother and his family should be packed by the time I make it to Phoenix, or at least they better be! (please scroll back to Nov25th 2007 post for why they better be….love you mom.)

I have to say that I have serious mixed emotions about leaving, especially since Austin will not be going with me. But the truth is  I must move forward both financially, professionally, and personally.  I guess what I am trying to say is I will miss it here.  Ill miss the people, my friends both home and at work.  Its fun, but its time to move on.

I have been working very hard to figure out what I was going to do next.  With the economy as bad as it is and the games industry practically exploding, I have had to rethink my old way of doing things.   I gave a lot of thought about going back to school.  I have been thinking more and more that programming and not design might be the way I want to go.  Over the years I have always felt as though not having the programming chops has held me back from being that complete package that I wanted to be.  I have done my own art, design, scripting, animation, etc….but programming was that one thing missing that I have yet to master.  There has been a lot of instances where I wished I could have just programmed a system myself so that I could get exactly what I want.  Sometimes programmers just don’t get what it is that a designer is really looking for.  Back when this video game stuff first started, there were no designers, the programmers were the designers.  I think I see the benefits to this and therefore that’s the direction I want to go for sure.

Now, how to make this happen is the real trick.  Going back to school full time and not working isn’t really a viable option, but working for someone and going to school at night is.  I was going to school full time and working full time back in 2003 and it was really killing me, but I have to admit that it was probably the best time I ever had because I felt like I was learning a lot and getting somewhere.  But we all know the games industry’s M.O. is to work you like a dog, with very long days and weekends.  Where crunch is almost a scheduled-in tactic for getting a game produced.  Trying to find a studio where they don’t work you so hard so that you really can go to school at night is a tough thing to find, and that’s been my mission.  To find someone that is willing to let me work as a Sr Technical Designer perhaps while I finish, and then switch me over to programming…or some other job where I can take advantage of both talents.

A lot of people have been asking me what I have been up to or working on and I haven’t been able to say for some time other then a yet to be announced Pixar title.  But today the game was officially announced from THQ so can finally spill the beans.  I’m not sure of a release date but we are going to be out some time around October from what I hear.  I went on Cars after the demise of the project I was on after the shipping of Globs of Doom.  It got pulled after like 3 months and I was told Id be going on Cars to help that team out.

This has been a very odd run compared to some other games I have been on.  As I said earlier I wasn’t on this game from the start, I came on just at the end of Pre-Production.  During production a myriad of things happened.  One was that THQ lost millions in the big economic slowdown, and was forced to drop our studio and we became Independant.  There were a lot of sleepless nights by many thinking that they would just shut down the studio and lay us all off wholesale.  When the word came down we were being spun off as an Indi, we were a little numb to it.   As you can imagine it wasnt exactly the smoothest of transitions and in that transition we lost our lead designer.  If you have never lost a lead designer mid-project, I can tell you that its a very tough loss for sure.  I have had this happen to me before on a project, and it went pretty bad after that.  I could wax philosophic about this all day long but the truth is that everyone of the designers on the project care about thier work and did thier best to get it wrapped even with the extra difficulties associated with such a big transition.

What the future holds for me from here on, I’m not sure.  I have been looking into many different options.   I have been giving serious thoughts to going back to school and changing gears away from design and more towards programming.  I think that it might more fit my personality and having a lot of design experiance will help me be a better engineer.  I will have a unique perspective on what is needed to make a good game.  I have also been thinking about doing something small like iPhone development.  Something that doesnt require a whole lot of time or money.  A project that will require to collaborate with a very small amount of people, and will keep me rather busy with all the other things I will have going on.  Ill try and post some more here when I know for sure where I am going and what I am doing.  Till them, who knows.