This is what it feels like when the production manager visits to see how you’re game is doing…

It’s worth understanding why redundancies are a natural consequence for an independent studio when they finish a project.

Firstly, it’s important to understand that the end of the project is always the point when the team is the largest, QA come onboard, people are generally added to get the project delivered to a high enough quality.

So, what happens when the project ships? What do all of these people do? As much as we’d like to believe that 100% of the team have meaningful work, it’s not going to be the case.

I’ve been following the thread over on Luke’s blog entitled ‘Goodbye, Realtime Worlds’ and I’ve commented in there when the discussion turned to the collateral effects that being made redundant has in an industry that’s so sparsely spread around the globe. The discussion isn’t about overtime in the short-term, it’s more about long-term careers in games when you’ve got other people to think about in your life.  Maybe your partner has a great job, maybe you’ve got other businesses you’re involved with, maybe you’ve got children?

It got me wondering what everyone else’s experience is like.

What compromises have you made to balance your career and family?

I’d like to share with you my game development career experience as part of a series of posts, the 1st part talked about my early career and I followed up with a second post that was more about how those games were made.
Let’s get back on track with the series and rejoin the fun back when the transition for PS1 to PlayStation 2 was happening.

I follow on from Part 1 of this series with some more information on how I got where I am today in the video game development community. Most of the old stuff is irrelevant but I hope it shares the need to actively plan your career to avoid some development cul-de-sacs.

Let’s continue…