QUIET MILESTONE

It slipped my mind at the time but last week would have been my one year anniversary at PopCap Vancouver. Here’s a bit of trivia for those keeping score at home, I haven’t been at a job longer than a year since I left Black Box in late 2010. I’ve had four jobs since that. Two were contracts that were supposed to last less than a year. In one of those cases, the contract ended way earlier because the game was cancelled. One job I left voluntarily before the a year had passed. Then most recently, there was the shutdown at PopCap.

Do I feel sorry for myself because of the unsteady employment? Absolutely not. In that time I haven’t gone more than four months without a job. I’ve also positioned myself so that money was never a problem. I’ve never lived paycheque to paycheque so even during those jobless days I didn’t worry about money. I feel really lucky in that respect.

I’ve heard people say you need a decent amount of fortitude to work in the games industry within Vancouver and I’d partially agree with that statement. Some people might have been totally turned off by how the last four years have gone but I’ve come out of it just fine. I wonder if I’ll ever work at a company for more than a year ever again!