Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my last day (hopefully ever) of working for someone else. With my wife Sarra’s support and encouragement I decided to quit my job in order to pursue my dream of starting a small game studio. It’s been one heck of a year. In the beginning I had a simple goal: decompress. I had been working hard for the prior five or so years to ship a AAA MMO and, frankly, I was drained. While the timing felt right to strike out on my own it was clear that until I could rest, recuperate, and recharge I would be crazy to dive headlong into a project that might very well consume me. So I took some time off and learned how to be a complete human being again. I rediscovered my neighborhood, revitalized my social life, started doing pilates, baked way more than is reasonable for a household of two, and tried not to freak out about not being insanely productive every day. It was a wonderful, if sometimes difficult, time and it was very, very good for me. When it came time to get down to work I was feeling full of energy and excitement to get started. My head was crammed with ideas and I had the sort of boundless optimism about timelines that can only come from naivete. As always, I had a lot to learn about the reality of what I was doing. My last game development experience involved a team that numbered in the hundreds. Even my specific feature team had between eight and twelve people at any given time. It seems like an obvious notion that such large teams can do things much faster than an individual, but somehow I needed to experience the difference first hand before I understood the magnitude of the change. The truth is that not only is a team of two faster than a single person, they’re probably more than twice as fast. Something special happens when there’s a good team dynamic. It becomes a nonlinear force multiplier for everything you do and the positive effects on individual morale are a huge advantage. Working alone is, among other things, an exercise in surviving isolation. As it turns out that’s no small effort for an extrovert like me and dealing with that feeling of isolation has been one of my greatest challenges over this past year. Of course the plan has never been to work alone forever. Honestly, I’m too ambitious for that. My ideas and dreams are simply too big. The idea has always been to build a small team and that’s still my goal. Timing, however, is critical. I have a finite amount of money to invest in this effort and while I fully expect to spend all of it before this is done I need to be smart about when and how I do so. Any money that I spend needs to be in the service of building a sustainable business. In practical terms that means that I need to fail as cheaply as possible for a while (because failure is absolutely, unavoidably a part of this process) so that when I do bet the bulk of my investment capital I have the best chance I can of that bet paying off. Ideally when I spend that money the result will be income: from sales, from investments, from crowdfunding, etc. So, for now, I’m working alone. Trying to bootstrap myself, my ideas, and ultimately my company. After a year (nine months, really, since I didn’t get started right away) of working for myself and by myself it’s a bit tempting to panic, honestly. Though I’ve absolutely come a long way it’s also true that by many objective measures it seems as though I’ve accomplished very little. It’s easy to feel as though all I’ve done is spend money and fool around with code for all this time. It’s not true, of course, but it’s an easy thought to hang on to because it’s powered by the twin demons of fear and self doubt. Though I have always known it, this last year has been a powerful reminder that fear and self doubt are my true enemies, my worst adversaries, and my constant companions. What if I’m creatively barren? What if I’m technically incompetent? What if I’m simply delusional about my own chances for success? What if I’m doomed to failure and just too stupid to know it? The funny thing is, that’s what it’s always sounded like inside my head. The nature of my work is, and has always been, that I’m constantly stepping out of my comfort zone and into the unknown. I have never felt as though I really know what I’m doing or how I’ll accomplish it. The trick is, as it has always been, to just keep working anyway. In spite of the fear, in spite of the doubt. To just keep looking at the next problem in front of me and asking the only questions that have ever mattered: How does this work? What next? It’s what I did when I ran out of money, dropped out of university, and started work at an information security startup eighteen years ago. It’s what I did while I climbed the ranks from a night-shift sysadmin monitoring backups to a senior security engineer pushing the boundaries of what we could accomplish with trusted operating systems and real time network inspection. It’s what I did when I walked away from a successful security career to go back to school so I could learn to make video games. It’s how I graduated at the top of my class and got a job at one of the best studios in the business. It’s what I did when I broke the build with my first code check in as a professional game developer and it’s what I did every day after that until I walked out the door having made a substantial contribution the development of an absolutely massive (and massively successful) game. It’s what I’m doing right now. I dont’ think that I’ll ever be entirely free of fear and self doubt. After all, they’ve been with me every step of the way so far. But here, on the anniversary of my latest crazy endeavour, I feel like it’s important to take a moment to put things into perspective. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount over this last year. About myself, about business, about software development, and about specific engines and tools. I’ve created (and rejected) designs and prototypes, built clever and stupid little experiments, made difficult business decisions, and made a ton of mistakes at every step along the way. Based on my life experience to date I’m pretty sure that’s what success looks like in the early stages of everything. Not knowing what I’m doing, not feeling like I’ve accomplished enough, not being satisfied with what I’ve done: these are all very good signs! It means I’m not complacent, it means I haven’t stopped growing, and it means that I’m doing what I’ve always done which, given my success to date, is probably a very good sign indeed. Nothing that I have ever accomplished in my life has been done without the help and support of those around me. I am extremely fortunate to be surrounded by a loving and supportive community. My amazing partners, my wonderful friends, and my crazy talented professional peers have not only helped me to get where I am but are supporting me every step of the way as I continue to chase my dreams. I can’t predict the future. There’s no way to know if my efforts will be successful. But as I reflect on how I came to this point I can’t imagine doing it any other way. So here’s to another year of adventure!
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 21:33:06 +0000
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