2013: Year in Review
Disclaimer: The following blog post is likely to be a prime candidate for TLDR; do let me know if you read it! For those just interested in the final score, I give it a 9/10.
So I did the classic “I’m going to make a blog and update it every week!” thing and rarely updated it at all…
Where have I been and where are all the games!?
2013 was a whirlwind of exciting opportunities, challenges, new faces and growth, so I’ll to start by saying thanks to everyone involved for all of those. It’d take a separate post to list everyone, but if I have made eye contact with you over the past year, then count yourself in!
Like many other artists, I’ve spent a lot of my career carrying a definite sense of Imposter Syndrome. It didn’t matter how many awesome projects and teams I got to be a part of, even if they went on to win prestigious awards, I held a pervading feeling of unworthiness and unfulfillment. Like I’d somehow stumbled my way into a creative industry, with nothing but a pack of crayons and a love for videogames. Meeting other artists that I have a lot of respect for, in the same position, was a comfort to me; but there were, and are, so many better artists out there than me, what had I done to find myself in such a fortunate position?
2013 started out hard, my team and I had spent 2012 putting every ounce of effort and dedication into producing a project very few of us had any passion for, under an incredibly short timeline. I was so proud of my team, but had let myself get a little burnt out. I knew, at this point, that it was time for me to move on to something fresh and exciting, hoping that new blood at Bossa would keep the rest of the artists going strong at the studio.
La La La La La
So I moved to London and joined the good ship DLaLa, as part of Lift London's incubation programme; and it was very probably the very best thing I have ever done in my career. Not only was I back working with some of my most trusted and loved old colleagues, I was surrounded by a new, amazing bunch of industry legends and talented newcomers to the games industry. Each and every one of these people challenged me to think about making games and art in a new way every day. By the end of the first week, we had something like 60 game ideas, all of which we would love to make. We whittled these down and started work on a number of concepts, some very early examples of which you can see in my portfolio here. I couldn’t believe our luck, every day we were not only meeting people who had shaped our childhood (both videogame heroes and punk rock stars) but they were contributing, feeding back and getting excited about our concepts. Everyone at Microsoft were open, welcoming, encouraging and generous the whole time we were there, I’m not being asked to say that, it is just an honest opinion
I can say for myself that I learnt a tonne about taking charge of art style development for a project, pitching to executives, considering the business side, driving an idea through and communicating it to the team and it’s partners. Lift’s Art director encouraged me daily to push things further, scrap cherished ideas and rebuild something cooler, realise its full potential. This definitely lead to friction from time to time, but it also lead to a lot of growth for every team member and the project. Yes, we didn’t get our game out, Dlala as a unit decided to move on and start afresh on a new game and I decided to go off on my own adventure; but I think it is fair to say that both studios valued the experience highly.
GoodBoy!
For the first month or two of 2014 I worked on my online portfolio and sought out new opportunities. I applied to, did art tests for and even got offered the job at some fantastic studios, a mixture of Triple-A, mobile and web companies, even put money down on a place in Leamington Spa, all ready to move on to pastures new…..but something in my gut just didn’t feel right.
That’s when a mix of good fortune and Goodboy came in. Ever since we made Skid Mk and experienced a good deal of success together, I have wanted to work with Mat and John again.
Just at that point when I was looking for something new, I helped them out with a quick sketch for a BBC pitch. We went on to win it and I came on as freelance to work on the project for a couple of weeks before I was due to go snowboarding, then move to Leamington. Only, something felt incredibly right, we were pushing technological and industry boundaries again. I was having fun making games. Pushing myself to try new things because I felt passionate about what we were making, contributing my own spare time by choice, just to pull something extra special out of the bag. Of course, it took a weekend of soul-searching after they offered me a full-time job to work this out and separate what i wanted out of my career from what I thought was the logical next step.
When we work together it just feels right, we gel and truly integrate on a deeper level that all teams should. When we tackle a project, none of us think about it purely from art, tech or market perspective, we all input on each constantly. There are no egos, if someone we meet plays one of our games and points out something that can be improved, we recognize that they are almost always right. It will often be something that we knew deep down needed changing, so we seek out these opportunities wherever possible to ensure we don’t release a project that is anything less than its full potential.
The Final Score
I’m not sure if anyone else will get something useful from this blog post, nor did I set out to do so, but I hope that it may prove interesting or even inspiring for someone out there.
This year, I have been able to remember why i got into this industry in the first place and separate out all the weight of external expectation that burdenedme for much of my career.
The simple truth of it was: Games are fun, making games should be fun. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be stressful at times, but if you aren’t
having any fun, why are you doing it and how can you hope to package some up for other people to enjoy?
I have seen the contrast personally a few times now between games that are a joy to make and go on to critical and commercial success and games that sought to tick boxes and accomplished very little or failed completely
.
(Of course we have games like Bioshock Infinite too, that are rumoured to be a negative hybrid of the two). It’s a scary, risky, but exciting world out there in the games industry right now and I’m personally happier spending my time firing a lot of small polished bullets over a wide area and learning quickly from it, than I am spending a year or more clumsily trying to load and continually minimise risk on a polished, but dull shotgun that you ultimately miss with and get eaten by a zombie.
I’m sure we’ve all heard it a thousand times from a lot of people, but only now do I truly appreciate the value of the statement. I’ve learnt not to chase ideals… money, fame success; but follow my passion and see where it leads, because, ultimately, that’s what life is about right? I’m happy to say that I don’t feel like an imposter anymore….