It’s Photo Album Week here on the blog.
I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago that one of the small but nice things about working in games was all the free swag that flows your way. Developer t-shirts are a mainstay, but over the years I’ve collected a veritable mountain of cups, clothing, and trinkets from various companies and projects.
While free t-shirts are no substitute for a good paycheck and benefits, it’s always nice to get something from a project you’ve worked on or to remember a team you loved working with.
Here then, in pictures, are a few items from my collection I love the most – and the memories they evoke.
Ensemble, fueled by its long success and Microsoft backing, always had great swag. But even before their biggest successes, the studio founders liked to team-build with nice stuff. The leather jacket was something every full-time employee got – over the years, you’d get an arm patch for each year you worked at the studio, and a patch for your department and all the projects.
Next to the jacket is a Halo Wars sweatshirt (sorry for the wrinkles). It was a nice change from the usual project t-shirt – great quality and cozy on a fall day. Halo Wars was a project done under difficult circumstances; during the final months, we all knew the studio was shutting down, but we all did our best to deliver a solid final product before we closed our doors.
Speaking of t-shirts – boy, do I have drawers full of project t-shirts. They’re the easy go-to for swag, and I probably have at least one tucked away for every project I’ve worked on.
The Orcs Must Die t-shirts are the best quality shirts I’ve ever gotten. I have three of them, and they’re all sturdy and have not faded at all (great for yard work!)
On the right is one of four Creativerse shirts we made when Playful first showed the game at PAX East. We had one for each of the game’s main creatures, each shirt in a different bright color, and we handed out several hundred at the show as free giveaways. They’re not the best quality – I have several, and they’ve gotten ragged over the years – but they’re cheerful and stand out.
Back to Ensemble again – when the studio shut down, everyone got this fantastic framed poster as a last gift. All the employees signed the master copy, so your favorite Ensemble developers are somewhere on there. It’s a wonderful tribute to a great team, mounted on the wall of my office.
The studio heads of Ensemble went on to lead Robot Entertainment and repeat a similar and awesome present. When we shipped our first original title, Orcs Must Die, they had one of our artists create this evocative image, then turned it into a signed and framed poster.
The first Orcs Must Die – for a host of reasons – is still the project I’m most proud of in my career. The poster now hangs prominently in my living room, over the fireplace. I love how it sums up what the game is about in a single, perfect image.
I started losing my hair in my twenties, so I love a good hat. On the left is a sweet cap from near the end of my time at BonusXP, with a logo from the game we were working on. The memories it evokes are bittersweet. The team was great, the game was great, but sadly it will not see the light of day due to the company’s closure – too common a story in the game industry.
On the right is my own personal swag, a dusty and much-loved Scree Games cap. I’ll throw in a plug for the company that made these for me, Queensboro. I didn’t have a ton of these made, so I went for quality over quantity. Queensboro absolutely delivered – the hat’s not only nice-looking but super comfortable and my go-to when I walk out the door on a sunny day.
Finally, if you squint at the black coffee cup in between the hats, you can just make out a faded logo. That cup has followed me through the industry for over 25 years; it’s from my Blade Runner days at Westwood in the late nineties.
Once, ages ago, that cup had the Virgin games and Blade Runner logos in red in that faded spot. Yes, it was made before Virgin and Westwood were fully swallowed up by the voracious EA acquisition machine.
I can’t remember exactly when I got the cup during the project, but I’ve kept it, despite years of washing completely rubbing away the logos. I still have a couple of threadbare t-shirts from Westwood days as well, but my stock of swag from the early days is pretty thin.
I had a wistful moment taking these pictures when I got overwhelmed seeing those items side-by-side on the counter, bookends of my game industry career to date – a cup from my first big project as design lead, and a hat from my current consulting business. It’s been a great run, and I’m extremely thankful for all the experiences at different studios over the years.
I’ve still got a few more games to build before I’m done – but seriously, studio execs, I have enough t-shirts now. (I’ll always take another hat, though!)
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