In the difficult days following a game studio’s shutdown or a round of layoffs, ex-employees often feel overwhelmed. Besides figuring out their next career step, the uniquely American employer-funded healthcare system means they’re forced to cope with the additional stressor of ensuring their families stay healthy while job-hunting. Thousands of think pieces have been written […]
Stayin’ Alive: Self-Employment and Healthcare Read More »
Over the years, I’ve taken feedback notes for a LOT of playtest sessions. Several studios I’ve worked for, notably Ensemble, relied heavily on an iterative process. Team playtesting was a factor in decision-making and identifying the next steps. It was an “agile” process (small-A) before there was Agile. While the weekly sessions could sometimes get
Friction Reduction: Better than Fun Read More »
So. How’s your last three years been? When I accepted a full-time role at BonusXP in April 2020, I’d just returned from a family trip to Florida, including a somewhat ill-advised trip to Disney World the week before all the theme parks shut down for COVID. I had no idea what was about to unfold
In these confusing, complex, and scary past few weeks, I’ve been constantly reminded of just how fortunate game developers are. We’re comfortable working remotely and operating, if not at 100% efficiency, something like 70-80%. We can hold online design meetings, write code, and make art. We can move our work forward – and with digital
It took me a few days to fully process my thoughts on the recently-announced sad changes at Playful – “changes” being a polite euphemism for “a bunch of people just lost their jobs.” While layoffs aren’t unusual in the game industry, this one hit uncomfortably close to home. Before I became a freelancer and started
Get ready – I’m about to badly date myself. When I was in sixth grade, one of my teachers started up an after-school Dungeons and Dragons club. Yeah, you don’t need to say it: it was a long, long time ago. Tom Hanks’ epic Mazes and Monsters breakdown was still to come, and Jack Chick’s
Back in September, I wrote about how the business plan for Scree Games changed over the course of the first year. I spent the recent holiday reflecting further on my long-term goals, the state of the game industry, and the viability of smaller games in the current market. The environment for game developers is constantly
2020 and the Road Ahead Read More »
I have things to say about Disco Elysium, which is easily my Game of the Year, but for context I first have to discuss my experience working on the Blade Runner game two decades ago. I had the great fortune to work on Blade Runner early in my career. It was my first lead role
September 2019 How do you start a game company? That’s the question that plagued me last October when I was getting ready to spin up Scree Games. I’m detail-oriented and a little anxious by nature. My default tendency – one which I fight all the time, and a bad tendency for a budding entrepreneur –
My first job in the game industry – a contract assistant design position – consisted of six months of heavy crunch on a project that was overdue and over budget. It ended in a no-notice layoff that eliminated not just my position, but the entire team, including veteran producers and engineers. Welcome to the game
The Right Investment Read More »