cohost ask: ideal games job

@johnnemann asked:

If you could wave a magic wand and have your ideal video game studio to work in, what would that look like? How big, what roles, and what would your job be?

I think all I want really is to be given a decent amount of free reign to do what I’m good at in service of someone else’s cool vision (because I usually can’t be fucked having a vision, and I don’t want one if I’m not in charge of it), which turns out to be a taller order than I would have really thought at any company that’s more than a few people (which will surprise zero people who have worked in AAA, but I’m in Australia so I more or less haven’t). I’m usually credited as a Technical Designer because that’s the nice desirable vague title for “does lots of shit that’s both technical and designey” and I guess that’s fine.

I’m happiest when I’m making my own stuff, but barring that, when I’m building tools and systems and workflows to empower someone else (writers/designers mainly) to be able to insert their work into the game unilaterally. I think any time someone creative has to get their work into the game via someone technical, it’s a terrible failure on the engineering side, albeit not always an avoidable one. I’m least happy when someone is putting up arbitrary roadblocks that stop me from doing what I know is the right thing, which happens all the time the closer you get to AAA, either because someone is actively recalcitrant or because the company is too roles-based to know what to do with the input of a generalist.

So basically I want to work for an indie that’s small enough that I can basically be a tech director, which is what I functionally am anyway half the time, but cashed up enough that I don’t take a pay cut doing it. Make it happen Johnnemann


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