When I was younger, I was very involved with video games. In the days of Atari 2600, no company on earth was cooler than Activision. And no man represented Activision more than David Crane. If you look at the old Atari 2600 version of Pitfall, you'll see David Crane's name appear at the bottom of the screen when the Activision name rolls. David Crane was the hero of my world and I wanted more than anything to have that job some day.
In the early eighties, video game designers, artists and programmers were frequently all the same person. One person was often to only creator of some of the best early arcade and cartridge games. The autonomy and creative expression of these games is legendary even today.
As time progresssed, video games and video game companies became far more complex so my dream job mutated. I began to wish more to be a game designer viewing the role as somewhat similar to director of a Hollywood movie. This whole time, video games had become an obsession with me and had also been a great reliever of stress. I'd landed on Journalism as a major in college (having flirted with medical and computer science majors) and began writing game reviews for online and print magazines. My goal became: get a job as a magazine writer to get my foot in the door to eventually transition to development as a designer or producer.
An opportunity came when I graduated college. I'd met a friend who worked for a game company located here in Dallas and he had recommended me strongly to the company president siting my insight and abilities as a writer. I was hired as a technical writer who would fill the downtime of writing by learning minor artwork and animation. As time went on, I became less a writer and more of a 3D artist and animator. I worked with some of the most talented people I have ever known during this time and came to see my coworkers as family. When I give thanks for my blessings, I always remember this time in my life.
After two long years of effort, our publisher screwed the pooch (pardon my French) and our game that would have been every bit as popular as Everquest was shelved. I had been transitioned to another game to finally do design work with a Hollywood-type producer who was basically forced upon our company by a new publisher we were working with (who would eventually purchase the company and produce better games). To put it frankly, this guy was the biggest ******** I've ever had the displeasue of working with. He berated my team mates and had absolutely no iota of clue about what he was doing. Working with him became a great source of stress and my physical limitation were hit when my marriage fell into distress.
By this time, video games were no longer a stress reliever. Playing them made me think of work which often through me into a panic. Working on that game, I knew I was working on a game that could only turn out horrible at best. I left the company and surrendered my dream job. The game was finished and it tasted bittersweet knowing that my coworkers had gotten a game out (always a good feeling) but that it was indeed quite the turd of a game. I'm told that producer's roll was diminished more and more until he finally quit. I like to think today that he found his niche at some other company far removed from the video game industry where he never belonged and perhaps where I didn't belong either.
It's difficult to give up your dreams but the pay at the video game company was low, the hours were long and my love for the industry had become tainted. I began to think that if I really loved something, maybe I should just get a good paying job and do it as a hobby on my own.
I work with computers now because that's always come easy for me. I do minor programming and testing and it's a fairly mundane job, but it keeps a roof overhead and food in my stomach, so I can't complain. I hope to gain more experience and eventually transition into doing more systems and database work where the money and job security is a little better and the amount of things to learn number a bit higher.
I still today wonder about other options I'd been so close to persuing and often wonder if I might should explore my interests in sound engineering. I admire Tuberoller's ability to merge his hobby into something profitable and I wish I could do something similar myself. I'm obviously a big fan of Jan Meier's side business, too. It seems wrong somehow that I've not been able to think of something that I could at least break even on instead of buying equipment and posting poorly edited reviews.
