the disco will find you

Tuesday night, I sit here at my desk at Obsidian, digesting a freshly-devoured turkey sandwich. This sandwich, it should be noted, not only had pickles on it, but also coleslaw - some semi-spicy mustard - a dabble of half-fake mayonnaise, and some healthier (?) cheese substitute that still tastes enough like cheese that i will accept it. All of this, compliments of the fridge which resides next to my desk will i work, every day. Ah hell yes, it is the life, isn't it, folks???

So, I am a bit down lately. Work is taking me out a bit, I review my eleven preceding years in the games industry and realize I still have to make "the big hit." I have had a couple of close calls, that is I have been at some places where if things worked out differently for me I'd be a rather rich man by now. I could have had some crazy guitar hero residuals. I could have had some insane WOW money. God damn, if only I had a crystal ball... But that's the thing. It's hard to see this stuff coming. You never know where your studio is going to steer, nor what will be the Next Big Thing. I mean, to harp on it again, look at freakin' guitar hero. Look at it! That thing could have been made a decade ago! (Oh wait - it was!) Well, there's a clear-cut case of something showing up before it's time and not being properly implemented, but at least someone was on the ball with the thought process. Anyway even at the start of it's current genesis (as opposed to Konami's initial offerings) it still had some hurdles to pass, and a couple of iterations to catch on, but here it is. And now it's just a box with bars that float down it, while zillions of dollars are being made. So.. what, then, IS NEXT?

This is what all my bretheren are scratching their heads on while they cruise on the freeway each day. "Where's the next idea? Who's got the next crazy gimmick that everyone will want to shell out megabucks for? What do we want - what do THEY NEED?" And then, less troubling, how many times can we repackage this chippity choppity and crank it out until the stuff is milked and drained?

Well, I won't get all crazy with this. I am not in this "just for the money" - but hell. I get tired of working my ass off and pouring my heart and soul into this stuff, and years pass, and I'm still driving a beater, dressing like I am homeless, feeling kinda crushed and run-over while the world kind of keeps whizzing past me. It's funny, I can sometimes think of some ways to "get rich quick" but hey - it's pretty hard to just detach yourself from your relatively stable sure-thing routine and put everything on the line like that, especially when we are not living in the most prosperous of times. Honestly - I am so happy and fortunate right now to just have a JOB, and one where the people are cool, the projects are cool, and there's a lot of things that I can feel positive about. Yeah, of COURSE there's problems which make me feel madness. Sure I hate scrounging and compromising things in my life, who doesn't. But the industry is a different beast right now, it's no longer a case of "hum a few bars and I'll fake it." Competition is beyond ridiculous now (look how many AAA FPS titles released in the past few months!) - there's just not really much room for dicking around. 2008 was an incredibly rough year for games, one that really surprised me a lot - and so my guard is understandably up for the new year as a result. At this point - just let me keep doing what I do. I will walk the walk and talk the talk. I won't be a bitch and I won't be a whiny "i wiiiiish things could be difffferent!" Yeah, we all get antsy sometimes (we are people, not robots!) but at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, I pass through the main lobby of this office building - and I always feel pretty DAMN good to be passing in and out.

So what am I playing right now? Well.. COD4 oooorah, and Mappy.

OOorah! I want to put colecovision on my game boy micro. OOOOOrah!