Tiny Subversions

This is maybe the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

Can you tell what game I've been playing? I'll give you a hint. I was walking around and I got really excited when I saw these hanging off of a tree:

So as of yesterday, that makes three (four?) game companies in the Boston area that have said to me, "We really, really would like to hire you. Really. A lot. But we can't. Try again in six months, please?"

I have basically two more companies to apply to that I haven't yet. After that, it's time to start looking for non-games jobs. And now, the million-dollar question: do I look for a non-games (engineering) job that's rewarding but would keep me in a contract for a year? Or do I take a shorter-term crappier job with the freedom to leave if I get an opportunity with one of these companies in six months?

For me, this comes down to another, more interesting question in the terms of this blog: are the game companies just big stinking liars who don't actually want to hire me? Well, I know that's not true in one case. One of the companies actually offered me a job, twice, but both times I thought I'd be doing games research at a university and their two-month QA contract wasn't more attractive to me. Little did I know I'd be quitting that university job due to money issues.

I truly believe that these companies want to hire me, but I'm wondering if they will really be in a position to do so in six months.

For the record: in twenty years, when I'm running this industry, the first thing I'm going to fix is HR. But that's a thought for another post.

Labels: boston

How did I miss Rebelstar? It's a strategy RPG for the GameBoy Advance by some of the original X-Com developers! It was released a few weeks ago. Must... go... buy...

First of all, if you haven't read Greg Costikyan's new series of articles, Death to the Games Industry, do so. (Part I, Part II.) Yes, it has been established that I am a fanboy of his, but at the same time, I think it's for a good reason. So read those articles! In Part II, he says that developers

should try to fund their own development. If you can fund your own development, you get some big advantages. First, you can negotiate a higher royalty rate with the publisher, because they have less capital at risk. Second, you are not utterly at the publisher's mercy during the development process; if the publisher-side producer wants you to do something really stupid (and horror stories abound), you can tell him to screw off. And third, you can retain ownership of your own IP, so if you build a successful franchise, you (rather than the publisher) reaps the benefit.

What's interesting about the insistence on self-funding is that in the serious games sector, there has to be an emphasis on developers obtaining funding themselves. Costikyan suggests VC or Hollywood-style funding models, but the serious games people I've spoken to follow the contracting model of government funding. It's slow, but you do get the cash if you get the contract.

I'm waiting for one of the few companies that do both commercial entertainment games and noncommercial serious games to apply some version of the alternative funding models of the latter to their mainstream titles.

(Oh, by the way, The Escapist magazine is really good.)