An Indie Game Designer’s Journal: Part 2 Sacrifice August 31, 2010

A sacrifice was made on my behalf, during my youth I have been obsessed with creating my own games and learning why other games were good. I have been so obsessed with understanding great games, that I chose to purchase and play new games, over getting a job. Many people criticize this and say that i was lazy and just played games all day, that may be true, but in my heart i know that i did it to learn, not just for entertainment. Every game I played I learned from, and can use that game’s failures and successes to my advantage. When I was accepted into my bachelor course I thought it had all paid off. I had found a bachelor program that covered 3D modeling, Traditional Art, Design, Web Design, Flash Animation and Programming, Video Editing and Effects, Story Writing for Games and last but not least, Game Design. I completed the three year course and received excellent grades, won a trip to EA Dice, and won Best Concept at the Norwegian Game Awards. Things were going my way for a while, in fact, I even managed to participate at the university as an assistant teacher.

Now that I am out of university, my bachelor diploma in hand, it was time to put the rest of my dreams in motion. I sat down with the rest of the team that developed the wining concept document for NGA and we decided to continue the game, we were to form a company and work in cooperation with Tumbleweed Interactive. This collaboration project would prove very fruitful for us, we would have control over how the game turned out, and we would provide the graphics, while TWI would provide their contacts and network, and one of their programmers to code the game. Things were moving forward.
However even though we had our company, and a game in production, we had no money so live off. It was quite obvious that we couldn’t work full time on our game without getting side jobs or selling it to the devil. So applied for support from the Norwegian Film Fond and received a load of support, most of which went to product licenses, hardware and out sourcing. But still, the ever huge threat of living a poor (money wise) life loomed over my shoulders.

My sacrifice? well as I stated in part 1, it hadn’t paid off. Sure, I am a good 3D modeler and a good designer, but who knows of this? Portfolios are good, but what about experience? Living where I do, there are no game companies that hire newly grads and this proves a huge problem. I may have the skills required, but with no actual work experience gaming companies have little interest in me. I had sacrificed working as a teenager so that I could better my future career, I was hoping it would be a tough journey, but that my bachelor grades would speak for me and that my sacrifice would pay off. Sadly it didn’t, and now I am stuck, still trying to get a job even remotely related to game development, all while trying to juggle in work on my companies game, and improving my portfolio.