And he sat down next to his best friend Bloke Crone. Bloke Crone was the creative director of Austrlias biggist game development studio. It has a team of 250 and makes over 2.754 AAA titles a year. It makes a good deal of money. Not as much as an American counterpart but pretty good none the less.
The man who walked into the bar was named Mr House.
?G?day Bloke. How you going mate?? House asked him as he gave his shoulder a tap then sat on the bar stool next to him. He orders a hard Saki. He?s not Japanese but needs something as hard as saki after a 14-hour workday at Boomerang Studios.
?Shit?totally shit House!? He replies. His head in his hands. ?Where behind a milestone in production on our new game Dingo bounty hunter 5.? He said with a worried tone. ?In hindsight.. 12 months is fucking impossible to make a AAA title? We should of never signed that contract.. If we don?t catch up there gonna retract the deal and all assets are going to be liquidated..?
An erry silence contains both of them for a moment. House drinks down his entire saki.
?250 game developers out of a job.? Crone says with a sigh. Then looks deeply into his glass of nothing that he could drink. ?I suppose that just happens. I mean where with the worlds biggest publisher. You grow the fastest in your country but as your spreadsheets show lower figures your no longer an asset. Only a liability.? House nods to these words. He himself is a programmer at a studio in a different state and knew just how hard it was. He was here in this state on a meeting.
House liked bars. Slow and smoggy places one can just ?fuck it all? as he best puts it.
?Well.. I think where all a little bit of shit mate. Did you here that Mecroy publishing might be removing itself from the country and it?s investments inside it.? He motions the bar tender for another drink. Then looks to Crone. ?They?re naturally moving to china? faster and cheaper.? He adds and snickers. The irony of this story was that many of these Chinese studios had new fresh artists and programmers who learnt and got their degrees in Australia. Their families had lots of money at the time and well many universities found they could have a better spreadsheet if they crammed corks into their ears when the not so rich Australian students applied.
But that?s just Irony.
Crone filly lifts his head.
?You know.. Hard to grow an industry if you?re not given a fucking chanse!? He hollowly strains out in bitter frustration. He was half right.. as we always are. Nothing we do is always totally right but we take the best path given to us at any one moment.
Only ever half right.
Six bar stools to the left of the two veteran industry heroes sat a group of young men. They had just finished their exams and typically.. Where celebrating by drinking to erase every bit of learned knowledge.
One of them particularly was a guy called Jimbob. Jimbob wasn?t a rich kid and wasn?t the smartest ether, but he had two important things. He had an imagination and he had a lot of perseverance. He wanted to make his own games.
He was working on a mod..like you do. It was his own story and he was proud of what he had done. He has planed out an intricate story and had great ideas for game design.
Everyone told him to fuck off?. Too many IFS you see.
He was only a kid. No skill* at all and no way in. He tried everything to show people his idea. He went to the expos. He went and applied for many studios who all naturally knocked him back due to his lack of skill*. He went to the government with his ideas but they had no interest in his plans of building an Australian Game/Animation/toyline studio. It was flawed. Jimbob knew this and said quite frankly he?d get more skilful people to take management of the components.
He even went to the film state organization to bargen and plea with them. Yet again he had nothing tangible. Only 3 levels and 3 minutes worth of 2D animation? Ironic that those two things took up 6 hard months of his life.
Everyone told him to fuck off. No assurance.. no go. Too many ifs you see.
IRONIC? That he had a few mates in America. He went over there for a holiday and showed a few American studios his ambustions and game idea. And even more ironically they liked it..
They gave him the money and time but also threatened he could go to jail if he couldn?t make it work. Jimbob wasn?t a smart man and took the chance. He thought to himself that he only lives once and it?s better to do then to not do.
Unknown to the Australian government that 20 months later his studio had just released an AAA title that everyone was dying to buy. His company made lots of money. To bad it was outside his native country. He had the idea. He just let the more experienced people handle it.
So here now sits two very stressed out. Very worn out men. They are good people and great workers. The system however has screwed them both over.
The Problem is that no one has the right answer. Because there is NO right answer. Jimbobs idea would have cost the industry millions in Australia.. And if it failed surly a lot would of suffered. However with no risks being taken, while the industry is secure for now.. It could collapse at any moment with just one Macro environment upset.
Crone and House have a lot of right to be angry with the new generation of artists, programmers and designers. There are soooo many of them and all are biting each other?s heads off for a slice of video game pie. Having no idea just how hard you have to work to get the job done. So many are just lazy and think it will be a fun ride.
But on the same coin. There are so many that work so hard and have such great ambustions.
Crone and House both look into their empty glasses. Both pondering what will happen to their countries industry, if nothing new forms.
This was writen for paticialy no real reason...Just funny i guess.
*Skill: Skill is the measure of now damm good you are. Skill is 90% determaned by what people see of you. Your image.. Your work. The other 10% is your ability for luck and saying the words "trust me" in JUST the right way.
* and yes. im fully aware of how much shit im gonna get for this XD *
Great read, nicely done [:)] I'm still trying to figure out who's who, or which scenarios hypothetical or not [:D]