Last day at Krome tomorrow

It will be my last day at Krome tomorrow.

I'm unemployed once again!

Fortunately I've got an interview on Thursday for a job which starts Friday, which is completely divorced from the Games Industry.

Not sure if I can do it to be honest. I've had shit jobs before, and whilst this one won't be as shit as them, it won't be what I want to do.

I want to achieve my goal of being a producer on a big title (essentially I want to be 'the next' Dude Huge) but with so many good people out of work all over the world it is incredibly competitive at the moment.

As I'm older than 35, and I don't have a US, Canadian or UK passport it makes the whole process a hell of a lot harder for me to be competitive.

So, I've been looking outside the Games Industry at stable employment.

I guess if I get it, I'll go with an open mind and try and enjoy a new experience.

More layoffs

There were more layoffs at Krome today.

This time it was mostly in Brisbane, but about 5 guys in Melbourne were let go too, which makes it near 100 people in the last 3 months, or a third of the company.

How can an industry which makes so much money be laying off so many people?

I mean, I know why, it's just that no one seems to give a shit.

Everyone is jumping on the mobile/facebook bandwagon, and that might make you a quick buck, but it's terrible for long term stability of the industry.

Problem is, if we're not careful there won't be anyone left in Australia to make games any more - not big budget PS3 / Xbox360 / Wii titles any way.

I used to agree with Walshy when he said Australian Games companies didn't need Government support. His argument was that if we had government support, we'd be forced to make silly games that were culturally relevant to Australia, pretty much like film has to. There's no market for that kind of thing outside Australia, and it's devoting resources away from the main income sources for games companies.

I mean, can you imagine Rabbit Proof Fence: The Game?

But it's obvious to me now that was a misguided and somewhat short sighted statement.


Sure, no one could have predicted the Global Financial Crisis, but if we secured tax breaks for Australian Games Studios, Krome and the other studios that have bled staff and even closed down over the last year would have been buffered from it like other industries have been.

And looking at other film funding initiatives - mostly state based - there's hardly any requirement to be culturally relevant.

And so what if there was? Make a silly game for school kids based on Ned Kelly's life for example, then make something decent for wider audience - at least there would be people still employed. It would be no different to the current projects Krome is trying to become involved in (which, due to NDA agreements, I can't go into).

Been busy!

Yep, ok, so it's a long time between posts, but lets take stock of the situation...

My landlord's garden is dying because I haven't had time to water. My dishes from last weekend are in the sink. I haven't cooked my own dinner in a week, and any left over food is going off.

I've got 3 games to review, 6 CDs (mind you, 3 are singles) and I've only played one game and listened to the albums maybe twice each. Haven't even copied the singles to my ipod yet...

I paid for 3 months for Age of Conan and have played in once in the last month. I got Spore and have played it for maybe 2 hours.

I haven't been to a club in months, nor taken any pictures at any events.

AND

It's 7:30 on a Friday night and I'm still at work, waiting for a build... It takes about an hour to play through all the modes, once. And I'm working on one day of the weekend again.

Yes, I'm aware it's close to ZBR (zero bugs recorded) and that means it's crunchtime, but I've been working 12-14 hour days for the last 2 weeks now... still getting bugs!

And no doubt fuckhead reviewers and internet chat room cunts are going to diss our game because it introduces Avatars and tries to make the xbox more friendlier to a wider audience.

Supanova 08

Well, Supanova hit Melbourne for the first time, and had a pretty interesting time.

I went briefly on Saturday to scope it out and look around, and was appalled to find out autographs from the stars started at $30! Fuck that.

But I did go to the Cosplay, and took a heap of pictures which you can find on facebook.

The detail of the costumes and the funny little skits these kids worked on for the costumes was awesome. Some went on for a little too long, and I'm not sure who won, but it's really great to see this kind of thing happening here as it does in the US and Japan.

* * * * *

On Sunday I was a volunteer at the Queensland Games/Krome Studios stall. We demoed Viva Pinata and had Ty The Tasmanian Tiger posters, as well as Ty himself!

Some things I noticed about working this stall:
- We should have had Ty on display as well as Viva Pinata. Ty is a very popular game - I had people asking when the next one was coming out, or if we are making it for PSP / PS3 / Xbox360, constantly.
- Actually, we should have been showing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Whenever the QG video showed the trailer for that, people stopped to watch it. We would have been bigger than the SingStar stall if we had.
- Kids recognise and associate with the Viva Pinata cartoon, whereas older teens and adults know the game, and it really causes confusion. Our game, Viva Pinata Party Animals is based on the cartoon series and aimed at kids, and is not a true sequel to the original Rare game.
- There's some really sad and lonely people out there and games and game characters really touch them (and I'm not just talking about Steve in the Ty suit...)
- There are a lot of yummy mummies at conventions (or maybe I'm just being less picky in my old age)


I also attended the talks by John Rhys Davies and Lou Ferrigno.

Lou's talk was good, although he has trouble hearing and with the accent so had to get someone to repeat every question and the intention of some questions sometimes went awry. It's interesting to hear that he is 57 and still works out, and has trained with Chuck Norris, and how no one hassles him out in bars. He's a sheriff now with the California police, which is sure to freak out some drugged out crim he busts I bet!

John's talk was very moral and philosophical. He began by telling us he's pissed off that the UK government is thinking of denying ancestry rights to Australians. As he said, there's only 20,000 aussies in the last 5 years who've emigrated and not many of them have used Ancestry to stay there. He then went on a big diatribe on how he thinks pornography is wrong, how his generation championed rights but not responsibilities, and how he thinks we abandon children at 16, amongst other things. It was very interesting and although I don't agree with every point he made, it was very enlightening hearing that sort of talk from a celebrity.

I really wanted to stay for Jewel Staite and David Harris's talks, but I was pretty over it by 3... geeks/nerds are nice and all, but they're a little bit full on when in large numbers, even for me and I'm a pretty major nerd.

Melbourne is about to get a whole lot more funky...

Looks like Melbourne is about to get a whole lot more funky, because I just scored myself a position with Krome in Melbourne.

I'll be starting there in exactly 4 weeks.

I'll be Lead Tester, in charge of 10 people, working on a new Xbox360 project.

It's not as exciting as Star Wars which I'm working on in Adelaide, but on the other hand it's not working on a F-ing PSP title...

Never lived outside of South Australia, so I have a tiny bit of trepidation about it all, but on the other hand I've been bitching about needing to get away from Adelaide for years...