You Forgot One, Ben Franklin
In life, there are certain things that can be easily foretold without the need of applied mathematics, astrology charts, or inspecting the livers of freshly dead cows. Things like drinking too much alcohol leading to a massive hangover the next day. Or my wife and I crashing on the couch in the evenings to watch proper British murder mysteries. Or, as happened to me last month, seeing a short meeting pop-up unannounced in my calendar from my boss with no title: I had no doubt this was going to be me being informed that I was laid off.
It’s been a while, but as a card-carrying member of the games industry, it’s something almost everyone has to deal with. In fact, I think this is something that Ben Franklin missed; his saying should have been:
“The only things certain in life are death, taxes, and games industry layoffs.”
Budgets are cut, projects are canceled, studios are opened in a different country to take advantage of a tax incentive only for the studio to produce no games for years and then when a game is finally finished it is not an original IP and thus the studio does NOT qualify for the tax incentive leading to the closure of the entire studio… you know, the usual stuff.
So, indeed, I was laid off last month, and have since been looking for new opportunities.
The time since has been spent in a variety of ways:
Updating my resume. Or resumes, really, as my skill set is broad and deep enough that I need to split it between Production, Game Design, and even Video Production.
Looking into the Unemployment Benefits for New York.
Taking a new photo of myself for my LinkedIn profile. The new one shows me with far less hair, but far more monitors, so it’s a worthy trade-off.
Joining some job-hunting discussion groups.
Applying to various openings, not only in the area but across the nation. Remote or relocation, I’m not ruling anything out.
Prepping my high-level D&D campaign for my gaming group. Which, as it turns out, still involves a lot of game design. Frequent comment to myself: “What can I throw at them that wouldn’t be killed in the first round? Hmm… these Godzilla stats look promising….”
Teaching myself Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints. Thanks to a paid course and a lot of online content, I have a solid if basic understanding and am making headway on the next piece of this list…
Working on developing my own games.
The last point is really my main focus right now, aside from applying to positions. One thing I am really trying to do here is to take yonder lemons and see if I can not only make some lemonade, but add in some sugar so others will be open to taking a sip. Or, even better, plunking down 10 bucks for a glass.
I had been thinking about doing this for a while, but as long as I was employed, I just did not have the mental bandwidth required to learn a new software package that had nothing to do with my job. Likewise, given that I am married, have a young daughter, and generally run out of breath climbing the stairs between my office and the bedroom, it’s not like I am the young, single, energetic, go-getter that is favored by the games industry.
So, this is my chance to really take my own game ideas and bring them to life like Dr. Frankenstein: meticulously craft them with care and attention, then imbue them with life so that they may shamble around in a mockery of the laws of nature before turning on me.
…okay, that simile didn’t work out as well as I thought it would.
But the point is that everyone has some sort of creative project that they always wanted to try and make. Be it writing a book, making a movie, rebuilding a car, or whatever, I think we all have had the dream of taking the time to just focus on a passion project and see what we can develop.
Currently, I’m at that point where I am spending about ⅔ of my time just researching how to get a certain piece of functionality to work properly, but even so, the game is starting to take shape, and after spending some time writing up more about the world and the characters, I am even more excited to see it take shape with an assortment of stiff, non-expression polygons (just for testing, of course; the stiff, somewhat-expressive polygons upgrade happens later).
I also keep thinking about what another long-time game developer said, who had been in the same situation. “Well, my wife and I had about 6 months to put a game together, so we did.”
And they have been doing so ever since. Hopefully, I can follow in their footsteps.
Again, another modification of Franklin’s axiom needs to be made:
“The only things certain in life are death, taxes, games industry layoffs, and the persistent dream of creating your own art.”