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About two years ago a co-worker of mine started dating this lovely young woman. Let’s call my co-worker Shep and his new girlfriend Eunice. Despite being a software engineer, Shep was able to catch the eye of Eunice even though she did not partake in any nerdy nor geeky activities. She worked in an industry that was predominantly women. Her female friends were mostly like her, pretty, stylish, and hip. Shep, I admit, isn’t like your typical software engineer, so as a couple they didn’t seem mismatched in the slightest.

The interesting part of their relationship happened when it was after work or on the weekends. Often, Shep would be out on the town with our co-workers. We’d be having a great time at a bar or restaurant and then Shep would call Eunice to get her to drop by if she had been doing her own thing socially earlier in the evening. I distinctly remember the first time this happened. Eunice had been out with her friends and she explained to them that her boyfriend was somewhere else and she was going to see him now. She then convinced her friends to join her. I am certain she did not explain to her friends the exact situation they were about to get into.

I remember the exact moment Eunice and her friends arrived to join us. There they were, a group of beautiful young ladies, coming to join a bunch of dudes who worked in game development, mostly of the software engineering variety. Along with my keen sense of where the nearest fried chicken is, I also have a keen sense of the social awkwardness of any situation. It was at this moment, I realized this was going to be a gong show for however long these girls were going to stick around.

The girls were dressed for the bar, meaning they looked great, sexy even. Most of the dudes in our party were wearing t-shirts, some of which proclaimed a few slogans or lines from video games of various genres. The girls looked clean and fresh-faced. A few dudes had unkempt facial hair. If it weren’t for both Shep and Eunice, these two groups of people normally would not have mixed in the wild, yet here we were, some artificial force pushing together a layer of oil and water together.

Everyone that had arrived managed to get a seat but it was clear there was a divide between Eunice’s friends on one side and our twenty-sided die on our side. I could see the looks on the faces of the girls as they realized what they had gotten themselves into. The look that said, “we have gone out to have fun but we are now sitting at a bar with nerds and geeks of the highest order”. Eunice on the other hand, was fine, because she was now with Shep, so she was happy. My memory of what happened after that is a bit hazy. I believe the ladies ordered at least one round of drinks but the evening was not memorable beyond what I had just described.

The situation repeated itself perhaps two or three more times as I believe different friends of Eunice’s accompanied her to join us on various evenings out. I remember the last time I ever saw Eunice’s friends come out with her when we were around. It was a Friday night and someone had organized a huge social event at a bar for the entire gaming industry in Vancouver. So the concentration of nerds and geeks at this place was higher than normal. Eunice and her friends showed up a few hours into the event. I don’t think her friends lasted ten minutes at this thing. They took a look around the room and quickly realized this was not a normal bar crowd.

Unfortunately, Shep and Eunice aren’t dating any more so we won’t be seeing more episodes of awkwardness. It’s a shame because it became quite entertaining for me after a while.

This was from a few years ago but it’s still funny.

As some of you know, the game that I was (am?) working on was canceled last week by the publisher that was funding its development. With this surprising news, it left the studio I work for with much uncertainty, especially since the game is nearly complete. Many people were concerned about the security of their jobs, as they should be, given that there was no longer any money coming in from Activision.

After almost a week off, all of us returned to work today to get an update. There was a team meeting and we were told what had transpired during the week. What I can divulge is that with a nearly complete game, there are efforts under way to see if someone else would like to publish the title. Whoever that might be, would need to obviously fund the development the rest of the way but as I said before, the game is almost done. There were no mass layoffs today and everyone is still getting paid. We are to return to work on Monday for another update.

That’s really all I have to report for now, so I guess I’ll just relax and enjoy the rest of my week.

It was Valentine’s Day today and I hope none of you were waiting for my traditional Valentine’s Day post. I’m not going to write one this year because I honestly think most of you are tired of reading about me playing video games, drinking Mountain Dew, eating Hot Pockets, and masturbating by myself. If you want to read the “classics”, just type “valentine” into the search box to the right and you’ll find what you need.

For the last three years, I had another tradition on Valentine’s Day and that was giving out cards and chocolates to the women I work with. I would usually buy cheap and cheesy Valentine’s cards that were designed for elementary school kids to give out. My favourites were the superhero-themed cards. The chocolates would be Hershey’s Kisses. On the day before VD, I would stay late at work and then distribute the cards and chocolate at the desks of the ladies. Since I work in gaming, it didn’t take very long to place all the items. It was a huge hit with all the ladies and I would get thank-yous the next day.

The tradition was broken this year for several reasons. First, I don’t even work at EA any more. Second, even though I work for another studio (for now), we were told to stay at home for the last few days so there wasn’t even an opportunity for me to hand out the goodies. Lastly, I barely know anyone on my current team so it would be just awkward if I randomly handed out cards and chocolates to women that I hadn’t even met. The tradition has ended for now but I am envisioning a day in the near future where I’m handing out Justin Bieber VD cards.

You can take any day of the year and decide to look back upon the last 365 days. For me, today is as good as any to examine what went on in the last year. If you live in Vancouver, it’s not difficult to remember that it was exactly one year ago this weekend that the 2010 Olympic Winter Games kicked off. It was the beginning of a very special two weeks for anyone who was lucky enough to be in Vancouver during that time. I was not prepared for how great it was to have such a spectacle of an event in your city. It was literally a two week long party that went on day and night, the likes of which many residents had never seen before. Vancouver often gets labeled as a city that is no fun but at least for those two weeks, you couldn’t tell if you were partying on a Monday or Friday because either day had the same amount of people packed into the downtown core. I managed to attend three official events during the Games, all contests of the ice hockey variety. One of the games happened to be a game that had Team Canada playing which was a genuine treat. Outside of all-star games, it is very rare to see a single team with that many talented players. The game itself made me slightly nervous in that it required Canada to go to a shootout to defeat Switzerland, not known as a hockey powerhouse. Overall, it was amazing to see the country come together in my home town to cheer on our athletes. It was only fitting that the last day of the Olympics featured one of the greatest hockey games the country had ever witnessed.

Of course the Olympics did end after two weeks and it wasn’t long after that that the first of many bumps showed up in my career during the year. About a month later, I was pushed out of the job that I had loved doing for the last three and a half years. Working as part of the skate team, for Black Box, and in the Games label was an absolute joy. It went from that to doing stuff that I didn’t really care for, on a team that had no future for me. It was a terrible six months that made the summer of 2010 quite the unpleasant experience. I saw a lot of things that I did not like about the Sports label. I’m not sure if I would ever choose to work on another sports game going forward.

The pain mercifully ended in late October of 2010 when I was granted the layoff that I had requested. I was planning on leaving anyways and if they could give me a going-away present that would be even better. My tenure at EA lasted over four years and it represents the longest I’ve ever worked for any company. I was unemployed for just over a month before I got a contract gig at UFG. Things were looking alright for me work-wise but then things happened last week. The harsh reality is that I might not have a job beyond this Tuesday.

So the last 365 days overall were not so great mainly because my career took a nosedive. The last two game teams I’ve worked on, I was pretty much a nobody. Will that change in the future? I don’t know right now. So were there any highlights in the last year? Yes, I mentioned the Olympics above and in April I took a trip out to Washington, D.C. with a good friend. We saw some amazing museums and exhibits and ate some really pricey but great food. It was a reminder that I still love to travel and it is so rewarding to see what this world has to offer.

I sure hope the next 365 days are better than the last 365.

With no where to be today, I slept in until around 10am. Awake, but still in bed, I grabbed my phone and surfed the Internet for about an hour. I glanced over to the window and saw that it was fantastically sunny day. I knew it was probably a good idea to get out and enjoy the sun but I merely rolled over and closed my eyes. It was 2pm before I awoke again and this time I really did get up. A quick breakfast/lunch, I left my apartment and walked five minutes to reach the boardwalk down by the water. I then had a lovely stroll in the bright sun along the Fraser River. Later this evening, I had dinner with a friend and then I played video games until well after my usual bedtime.

I am hoping Friday will be just as relaxing, if not more so.

I was told by some important people at work today that I shouldn’t blog about what happened at the studio today. Their reasons are pretty good so I’ll abide by their wishes. Perhaps I’ll have more to say in the next few days.

The video above is from a prank call that comedian Lance Krall made a few years back. I swear I made a blog post about this before but I can’t find it. If you’ve seen it before I apologize. Anyways, I love this video for several reasons. First, Krall does an awesome Vietnamese accent during the call. It’s an accent that rarely is mastered in the comic world and he’s done a great job. To be fair though, Krall is half Vietnamese so should I deduct points for that? Second, the call is about a Vietnamese restaurant owner and I love pho. Sure pho isn’t mentioned at all during the call but I’m dreaming about rich, pungent pho broth the entire time.

In many of my posts I’ve mentioned the various roles that contribute to making a video game. You’ve read about software engineers, designers, project managers, and artists. When you think about that last role, that of artists, you probably are envisioning people who create art on the computer, using 3D modeling packages, Photoshop, or Flash. While you are right about that, in the digital world of video games, there are artists who still use traditional pencils, pastels, and paints to create art.

Concept artists can use traditional methods to create drawings, paintings, and sketches to help visual the various aspects of the game. Their work is invaluable at the initial stages of game development where the direction of the artistic vision is not fully known. A concept artist can provide a sketch of a wide overview of the gaming world or go into the fine details with a character design. Their work can help visualize the theme for a particular section of the world. Having all this art from the concept artist allows the world builders and character modelers to have a reference from which to work from.

On the skate franchise, I had the extreme pleasure of working with two of the most talented concept artists in the entire industry. Shaun and Tom are two of the coolest cats I’ve ever met. Being artists with roots in the traditional methods of creating art, they are both laid back and awesome to work with. Shaun was born and raised in Vancouver. He worked for 18 years at EA and has done art for just about every single non-sports game ever made in Vancouver for EA. He did a lot of the concepts for the various parts of the cities in the skate franchise. Shaun also worked on a lot of the various skateboard deck art to help promote the games. I have one of his decks as a gift for working on skate 3. Tom grew up in California and has worked in various industries ranging from industrial design, movie special effects, and finally video games. He worked for special effects house Digital Domain when James Cameron (the Avatar dude) was still a partner in the company. Tom also did a lot of concept art for the various set pieces within the skate franchise cities.

A post about art is pretty useless without seeing the art itself but lucky for us, both Shaun and Tom have online portfolios for us to look at. Shaun’s site is here and Tom’s is located here. Go look at some of their fantastic work.

Like many of you, I don’t get the required amount of sleep that I need during the week. As such, it’s left to weekends for me to catch up on my sleep debt. Despite being quite tired on Friday night, I managed to stay up until 4am before going to bed. I woke up around 11am the next morning. I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t even get eight hours of sleep but I was prepared to drag myself out of my bed and begin the day. Before I did that though, I grabbed my phone and began surfing the Internet over my wi-fi connection.

Between Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and the plain old, regular world wide web, an hour had passed and I was still in bed. I remember putting the phone down for a second and then closing my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was awake again and realized that I had fallen sleep once more. Grabbing my phone, I turned it on to find that it was just after 4pm. Whoa. I hadn’t slept in this late for a long, long time. The last time I remember waking up at 4pm was when I had come back from Las Vegas for the first time in 1999. It wasn’t even a fun trip as I went there on business of sorts to help a friend with a potential start-up company. We were at COMDEX, a large computer trade show that no longer exists. Anyways, we did lots of walking and standing on our feet, so I was exhausted by the end of the trip. The first night back I slept so soundly that I did not wake up until well after 4pm.

I sure wasted most of Saturday sleeping but I felt awesome after waking up.