An Intro

Hey,

Do yourself a favor, stop now while you are ahead. Hit the back button on your browser because everything that follows is bad news to you if you an aspiring artists, programmer, or producer and you want to create you own game. I mean it, do it now and save yourself the trouble... Quit!

Seriously, if you continue reading then you will be bombarded with bad news and the harsh reality of game development. Impossible deadlines, slim funding, a team of programmers and artists that are too deprived of daylight that they start to go insane(no seriously, my friend Matt just returned from the psych ward at the local sanitarium not too long ago). Consider yourself warned!

Okay, okay... you didn't heed my warning and you are too ambitious, or you are passionate, or you just have a sick sadistic fascination with video games and you want to put all your years of playing EverQuest to good use and entertain us all with your wonderful storytelling and brilliant graphics or whatever. You think you can, but you obviously don't know what you are stepping into, and that is what I plan on changing!

So you might be asking yourself what does this kid know about game development? Well, that's a good question to ask. I could just list my resume with all the titles and the experience that I have in the industry, but instead I'll entertain you with a story.

It all began in 1999 when I quit my cushy little web development job and traveled all the way across the country to go work for a game company that later screwed me only to bounce from company to company working temp jobs, doing contract work, and getting knocked down and pulled right back up more then one of those blow up punch bags we used to have as kids. I guess I was the equivalent of a free agent. I would travel and I would work while managers would enforce judicious use of overtime(which means I worked my ass off), and I would take some involuntary time off(which means I got fired or my contract was up) and travel some more.

I would work in basements, in large sky rise buildings, in oddly placed corporate headquarters in the middle of nowhere. I would go to interviews half asleep and attempt to answer advanced programming questions and logic puzzles. For the longest time I was used to this, this was routine. I would show up just in time for crunch mode, then contract cancellations, corporate downsizing, publisher renegotiations, and even the occasional screw up on my behalf and my 90+ hours a week would get reduced to nothing and I would be headed on the plane, or on the bus, and even the occasional train to the next location.

I packed light, only 6 boxes and a sleeping bag. I would stay in hotels, over at friends house's, and sometimes, when I was really fortunate, I would stay in my own place. Those were the best times, when I had my own place, but also ended the quickest. One week in Dallas, three weeks in Seattle, I land in New York, I fly around, another month goes by, another year, and finally... I'm home.

I moved here, to Boston 8 months ago and this is the longest I've ever stayed in one spot since I began this crazy journey. Don't get me wrong, throughout all my travels and misadventures I had some great times and some wonderful stories to tell, but here is not the place to tell them. All I can say is that most game developers I know can really drink! But I'm here, now, in Boston and I love the company that I work for. It is, by far, the most ambitious project I've ever worked on and also the most challenging.

What can I say, I love a good challenge.

So there you have it, my background without all the technical details and boring info about who I worked for and what I did. What’s that? Oh, you want to know the specifics of my background! Well then, ask me for my resume!

So let’s get one thing straight. This is not your typical paper of the games industry written by some grad student trying to get a grasp on what is going on in the industry. This is coming from someone who has been there, done that and is currently in the process of writing the book, err, paper, err, whatever this may turn into.

Currently this is for my own edification, and my own pleasure, but I already know that the abundance of bad news that awaits you is going to shock you.

Consider yourself warned!

-Ken Noland