So, uummm...
Prologue
I love video games. I still believe the best Christmas present I ever received was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Before then I'd only ever played my friends' systems. That gray box with purple buttons was my induction. I played every game I could convince my mother to buy, and played them over and over. Yes, I'm somewhat ashamed to say I used a Game Genie sometimes, but I was a "newb" in the most literal possible sense.
As the years passed I grew to appreciate games for the unique artistic medium that they were. I found my greatest delights in uncovering some new way to approach the challenges presented rather than simply reaching the end and saving the princess/the world. I began to understand that video games were entirely unique in the realm of entertainment mediums. Unlike the passive experiences found in books or movies, games didn't tell you a story, they asked what your story was, or at least what version you liked best.
From the most basic, story-devoid, premise of Space Invaders which simply asks "Would you be able to survive an oncoming horde of aliens that move faster with each new wave?" to the most recent open-world game that simply asks "What would you do if...?" before trailing off into possibilities to numerous to be listed on the whole of the Internet, video games provide the opportunity for the play to take what story they're given and make it theirs.
The best works of art, movie, novel, painting or sculpture leave room for interpretation, the opportunity for the audience to take away a slightly different experience than the person next to them. These same works of art only improve with multiple viewings. But when was the last time you watched Citizen Kane and had an entirely different experience? Kane will always die, Rosebud will still be a sled, your (realistic) interpretation will always have very definite limits.
With a game, however, you can go back and see how the story were different if you were the bad guy, or if you had saved this person, or killed that one, or gone left instead of right, or managed to get the ice beam before the fire beam. Even the most linear game allows you to ask "What if I had been fighting 20 guys instead of 12 or what if those 12 guys had been MUCH better fighters?" and then opens the floor for you to play out that story. It's exhilarating to find something you haven't experienced before, some mechanic or application of it that you had never seen until that very moment. There are few things as rewarding.
Video games are not the story of what has happened, they are the story of what is happening. This is true whether the game is telling you a story or asking you to come up with your own. It was before I even fully understood this that I understood something far more important, I wanted to make video games.
Unfortunately I allowed myself to believe that a "career" in video games was childish and that, as a "genius" (but who believes IQ tests, really?) I needed to become a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO in order to be counted as successful. So off to college I went, a PS2 in one hand and a Pre-Med curriculum in the other.
As a grew to dislike the complete lack of stimulation medical science offered for my more creative desires I spent more time reading and writing about games, taking my Playstation, and Gamecube, apart talking about games with whoever would listen and, occasionally, even playing some. This led to a lot of skipped classes, but with my grades averaging somewhere around a B in most cases the professors left me alone.
My right brain would leave me alone however. Facing a future that would leave me unsatisfied and (Current Doctors, back me up on this) without a social life, I finally changed my major to Computer Science and decided to pursue a life of making video games.
This decision came too late, however, as my financial aid would not fund more than four years of college and I was in no position to afford a college education without that aid.
I was stuck.
But I wasn't beaten. I continued to do what I could with what I had. I kept up on all the latest trends and major game releases. I read about the new hardware and software being employed. I built, rebuilt, customized and repaired PC's in my small, western New York town to keep what up with what technical skills I had. I played everything I could, opting for standard editions over "special" or "limited" to ensure that I had the budget for a larger number of games. I hunted down classics I had missed out on to see what they had to teach me about design. I applied to every company I could think in an attempt to at least get feedback on what they were looking for. I bought Paid to Play and Break into the Game Industry and filled them with bookmarks on things I needed to memorize. Through all of this, I worked on my own design documents. Some of them never made it further than outline a basic mechanic I wanted to use someday, others blossomed into full game concepts, all of them engaged my mind in ways that nothing else ever could.
While doing all this I also worked a "real job" and saved up what money I could, no easy task with the *cough* crooked *cough* holders of my "private student loans" breathing down my neck. But I did it, I had saved up enough money that I could grab my girlfriend and move to the place most saturated with game studios, including some of my all-time favorites: California. If I couldn't get a degree then I would push my way into the industry by jamming my foot in the door labeled "Quality Assurance."
Once again, however, my timing was terrible. The video game industry was in bad shape, teams were being let go, entire studios were shut down, the Southern California market was over-saturated and studios were moving out. QA positions were nearly impossible to come by without previous experience. Again, I was stuck. But I was stuck in a better position.
Far from the middle-of-nowhere from whence I had come, the industry was all around me. I still encountered numerous people that had no idea what a "Game Designer" was, but for every 1 of them there was someone at a different stage of the same journey I was on. I was hopeful.
So, once again, I found myself working what jobs I can, including some "acting" as an extra for a less-than glamorous MTV show, while saving money to either buy myself an education in game design or programmers and artists confident in my ability to design something worthy of all their time and effort. I continued to read and write about everything in the world of video games. I continued to play every game that has something to teach me about the medium, or simply show me what its best can be. I continued to search for any and every opening or unpaid internship studios offer while claiming "Yes, I do want to spend my life working at this desk," in order to support the one thing I really do want to spend my life doing.
One day, however, I came across a little group called The game Cookery and, well that's the next part of the story so you'll just have to wait.
As the years passed I grew to appreciate games for the unique artistic medium that they were. I found my greatest delights in uncovering some new way to approach the challenges presented rather than simply reaching the end and saving the princess/the world. I began to understand that video games were entirely unique in the realm of entertainment mediums. Unlike the passive experiences found in books or movies, games didn't tell you a story, they asked what your story was, or at least what version you liked best.
From the most basic, story-devoid, premise of Space Invaders which simply asks "Would you be able to survive an oncoming horde of aliens that move faster with each new wave?" to the most recent open-world game that simply asks "What would you do if...?" before trailing off into possibilities to numerous to be listed on the whole of the Internet, video games provide the opportunity for the play to take what story they're given and make it theirs.
The best works of art, movie, novel, painting or sculpture leave room for interpretation, the opportunity for the audience to take away a slightly different experience than the person next to them. These same works of art only improve with multiple viewings. But when was the last time you watched Citizen Kane and had an entirely different experience? Kane will always die, Rosebud will still be a sled, your (realistic) interpretation will always have very definite limits.
With a game, however, you can go back and see how the story were different if you were the bad guy, or if you had saved this person, or killed that one, or gone left instead of right, or managed to get the ice beam before the fire beam. Even the most linear game allows you to ask "What if I had been fighting 20 guys instead of 12 or what if those 12 guys had been MUCH better fighters?" and then opens the floor for you to play out that story. It's exhilarating to find something you haven't experienced before, some mechanic or application of it that you had never seen until that very moment. There are few things as rewarding.
Video games are not the story of what has happened, they are the story of what is happening. This is true whether the game is telling you a story or asking you to come up with your own. It was before I even fully understood this that I understood something far more important, I wanted to make video games.
Unfortunately I allowed myself to believe that a "career" in video games was childish and that, as a "genius" (but who believes IQ tests, really?) I needed to become a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO in order to be counted as successful. So off to college I went, a PS2 in one hand and a Pre-Med curriculum in the other.
As a grew to dislike the complete lack of stimulation medical science offered for my more creative desires I spent more time reading and writing about games, taking my Playstation, and Gamecube, apart talking about games with whoever would listen and, occasionally, even playing some. This led to a lot of skipped classes, but with my grades averaging somewhere around a B in most cases the professors left me alone.
My right brain would leave me alone however. Facing a future that would leave me unsatisfied and (Current Doctors, back me up on this) without a social life, I finally changed my major to Computer Science and decided to pursue a life of making video games.
This decision came too late, however, as my financial aid would not fund more than four years of college and I was in no position to afford a college education without that aid.
I was stuck.
But I wasn't beaten. I continued to do what I could with what I had. I kept up on all the latest trends and major game releases. I read about the new hardware and software being employed. I built, rebuilt, customized and repaired PC's in my small, western New York town to keep what up with what technical skills I had. I played everything I could, opting for standard editions over "special" or "limited" to ensure that I had the budget for a larger number of games. I hunted down classics I had missed out on to see what they had to teach me about design. I applied to every company I could think in an attempt to at least get feedback on what they were looking for. I bought Paid to Play and Break into the Game Industry and filled them with bookmarks on things I needed to memorize. Through all of this, I worked on my own design documents. Some of them never made it further than outline a basic mechanic I wanted to use someday, others blossomed into full game concepts, all of them engaged my mind in ways that nothing else ever could.
While doing all this I also worked a "real job" and saved up what money I could, no easy task with the *cough* crooked *cough* holders of my "private student loans" breathing down my neck. But I did it, I had saved up enough money that I could grab my girlfriend and move to the place most saturated with game studios, including some of my all-time favorites: California. If I couldn't get a degree then I would push my way into the industry by jamming my foot in the door labeled "Quality Assurance."
Once again, however, my timing was terrible. The video game industry was in bad shape, teams were being let go, entire studios were shut down, the Southern California market was over-saturated and studios were moving out. QA positions were nearly impossible to come by without previous experience. Again, I was stuck. But I was stuck in a better position.
Far from the middle-of-nowhere from whence I had come, the industry was all around me. I still encountered numerous people that had no idea what a "Game Designer" was, but for every 1 of them there was someone at a different stage of the same journey I was on. I was hopeful.
So, once again, I found myself working what jobs I can, including some "acting" as an extra for a less-than glamorous MTV show, while saving money to either buy myself an education in game design or programmers and artists confident in my ability to design something worthy of all their time and effort. I continued to read and write about everything in the world of video games. I continued to play every game that has something to teach me about the medium, or simply show me what its best can be. I continued to search for any and every opening or unpaid internship studios offer while claiming "Yes, I do want to spend my life working at this desk," in order to support the one thing I really do want to spend my life doing.
One day, however, I came across a little group called The game Cookery and, well that's the next part of the story so you'll just have to wait.
