The feeling of relief I have right now can’t be expressed with words (partially due to my poor vocabulary), but I feel more fortunate than anything. I was lucky enough to have a steady stream of unemployment checks to aid me in my job search through the past year and I understand the daily struggle for the millions of Americans out there. Little by little, as each day passes the anxiety caused by uncertainty creeps its way closer and closer to your bloodstream. After about 9 months it is in full circulation. I can’t even begin to imagine what it is like for those providing for a family and with greater financial obligations than my own.

I’m really excited to begin work on Monday, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still nervous. At the moment my employment is contingent upon my ability to pass the Series 6 and 63 license exams within approximately 1 month’s time. From my understanding I will receive top notch training from industry experts to help prepare me for the examination, but I won’t be completely comfortable until I’m in my desk doing what I was hired to do.

Those that know me are probably thinking “Why is this Ben Force wearing a tie to work?! He’s supposed to be making video games!” Never in a million years could I have predicted such a dramatic switch from video game development to investment management. THQ Wireless was great to me, and if they didn’t close their doors in San Diego I think that I actually could have worked it into something awesome, but getting laid off in the game industry is a scary feeling. Even when the economy is good there are very few places to turn to without moving, and with unemployment so high I feel studios aren’t looking very far for talent. Almost every week I hear about studios cutting dozens of jobs. For a guy with no programing skills and whose main qualification is a love of games, options can be bleak. I’m hoping having a business background and learning the true value of a dollar will open far more doors for me .

I think I’m a sensible young man. I got a good head on my shoulders. I’ve managed my money well through times of difficulty. I follow stocks in industries I’m interested in. I listen to the financial news… and even read some of it! Why not try my hand at investment management education? For me, making games was fun, but the people I worked with is what made it so awesome. If I can find that at Vanguard, and at the same time play my role in a system that helps people achieve their financial goals, I will be a happy man.

I hit the showroom floor and wandered about absorbing the lights, sounds and booth babes for about 15 minutes, then spent some time on a game available through Steam called Merchants of Brooklynn. They were demoing the expansion pack, Drug Wars, which doesn’t really have anything to do with the text based game we’ve all come to love. Paleo Entertainment‘s take on Drug Wars is a multiplayer FPS using the CryEngine 2.0. Teams must race to drug stacks, retrieve them, regroup and then defend the stash. It’s a pretty fun new multiplayer gametype that could easily be incorportaed into any FPS. It sort of reminds me of a mobile “territories”. The developers were definitely going easy on me.

A few booths away was GamersFirst.  I spent some time playing War Rock, another FPS, this one taking place entirely in NYC and running Unreal 3. I wouldn’t say I was extremely impressed but you get what you pay for, and this game is free, so I’d say you’re getting a lot. Perhaps something other than a traditional Team Deathmatch gameplay would have carried my interest longer.

I reached the Bungie booth and saw a long line leading into an enclosed area created from foldable walls and decorated Halo style. Instinctually, I got in line. Soon I learned I was waiting to play Halo:ODST; a huge smile came across my face and my loins warmed. I chatted it up with the people around me a bit, mostly the creator of StuffWeLike.com. He was a cool guy so I had to give him a little plug, not that anyone is reading. Bungie had 2 matches going simultaneously of “Firefight”, a new cooperative gametype where players are pinned down to a (fairly) large location and must share a set amount of lives as they defend against wave after wave of a Covenant assault. It was a lot of fun, and I thought I was kicking ass but Post Game Carnage Report proved otherwise. The setup was awesome, each player had their own huge LCD and a nice comfy chair with a headset. The Bungie guys were super cool, as I expected they would be, and it was probably the best 10 minutes of the show. Well, the presentation on ODST I saw later was pretty tight too.

I always like to hit the sides and back of conventions because you see so much cool stuff from businesses that can’t pay the big bucks to be front and center. I found an interesting title from Epicenter Studios for the Wii, Real Heroes: Firefighter. Firefighter is an interesting idea, a FPS where you play the role of a rookie firefighter. In this game you, obviously, use the wiimote to shoot things with a fire hose, and other fun features like chopping down doors, prying things open with the jaws of life and whatever you’d imagine Figthers doing, but probably not saving kittens from trees. What I’d like to see is a full featured deathmatch where you blast each other with firehoses, but something tells me that isn’t coming. I bet this game will do well and can even move to other markets with a simple translation because lets face it, what kid doesn’t love a big red fire engine?

After that I wondered about some. A lot of it is a blur. I was quite surprised with what THQ had to offer, considering I thought they were doomed. Homefront, a recently unveiled title by Kaos Studios, was particularly impressive, and had a particularly impressive booth babe as well. In Homefront you play the role of a resistance fighter during a North Korean occupation of the United States set 20 years in the future. The world is im the midst of an energy crises and fuel is scarce. The protaganist is important somehow, and that’s all we really know except that this game plans to keep you on the edge of your seat. It looks and sounds beautiful, the enviornment is rich with detail and the characters are believable and compelling. If the gameplay is there its going to be an instant winner.

Nintendo also has some promising offerings for the future… finally. And it’s no surprise they also have a lot of crap coming out like Wii MotionPlus, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and Wii Virtual Sensor. Pretty much anything branded with Wii is destined to suck and be a big ripoff in my opinion. As a huge fan of the Metroid series I’m really excited for Other M, but the colaboration with Team Ninja has me scared. Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be hot and Nintendo also has a Wii incarnation of New Super Mario Bros where gamers get to play through levels reminiscent of the Super Mario Brothers we all grew up on but with new twists and power-ups, and this time it can be done 4 players simultanesouly. I also found one obscure title for the DS called Scribblenauts where you play the role of a kid solving puzzles by typing nouns on a vitural keyboard. After you type a noun, it falls on the screen and you can use it to help solve the puzzle. I didn’t get to play but the kid in front of me tested the games knowledge with “Leviathon“, “Barbarian” and “Demon Slayer”; All 3 showed up. I don’t know what they do, or how they could help, but god damn that’s impressive. Picross 3D will be a nice time killer too.

This blog can’t be complete until I comment on Project Natal. This video is really cool. I can believe it, I just hope Microsoft doesn’t become annoying like Nintendo did and puts a little more effort and innovation into their games.

Now this one on the other hand…

Yeah Right! I just don’t see any of that happening the way it is portrayed in the promotional video. Good luck Microsoft, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you pull this one out because you got a lot of people excited.

Carnivorous Plant 01
This guy is based off of a dream I had quite often when I was a kid. I wanted to try something a bit nintendofied.

From 3D Art

Carnivorous Plant 02
For this one I wanted something a bit darker, some kind of strange dungeon plant. It sucks up flies that float around its snout.

From 3D Art

1. Required Handset Support Lists- Some of the major North American phone carriers provide a list of handsets which are required to support all incoming applications. It’s likely that decent percentage of these devices will surely produce a low, or even negative, ROI. The time spent developing these watered down ports of blotchy graphics with a beeps and boops soundtrack clutters up the development pipelines beyond belief and submission fees make it hurt even more. This gap between profitable and nonprofitable handsets has increased significantly with the increase of smart phones in the market and the carriers reluctance to pull older handsets from their support list.

2. NSTL- Verizon is the most profitable US carrier to work with but all supported devices must be certified by NSTL, and it is expensive. VERY EXPENSIVE! Grandfathered handsets aren’t required to pay entrance fees, but the grandfather chart hasn’t been updated by NSTL in many months. The FAQ section from NSTL’s website can’t be trusted. The submission process takes a long time, especially if you’ve been bestowed upon with the almighty Self Test Status. For all these reasons the costs just go up and up, not to mention the advancements to the actual devices that your porting and QA teams must adapt to.

You should have a top notch QA department if you plan on submitting to NSTL, and they better be testing with a TBT. Certification failures happen from time to time but if you are submitting to NSTL you need to be ready to wake up at 2AM (yes, NSTL QA has a night shift) and investigate if you get that email sent to your Blackberry saying you have a cancellation or even the dreaded failure. NSTL testers are quite good at what they do, making money for NSTL by failing or canceling builds. Fortunately there is some flexibility and their support, from my experience, is quite easy to work with. “Failures” can be contested but on some occasions NSTL will just not budge and leave you scratching your head and submitting to their mercy.

During my term as a Submissions Coordinator a strategy which I used a few times was to submit a build to NSTL about 2 weeks before the release to operator date. In the event of a failure this would minimize costs and also give QA and Post Production an opportunity to straighten out any issues before submitting the full batch of builds. This is highly recommended if time is on your side.

3. Carrier Decks- Most mobile gamers browse the current catalog for their device on the phone and the default homepage will most certainly be set to the carrier’s deck. For this reason good relations with the carrier and the Game Manager will be paramount to the success of your game. Your pipeline may at times be unexpectedly upset and cause delays for reasons out of your control. If the cost of your loss will be a reasonable % of your expected profit, I recommend you to work through it, stay focused, remain calm, and most importantly begin thinking about other projects in development before it is too late. Never take your aggression out at the carrier. This will only threaten the relationship your company has built and jeopardize your game’s status on their deck.

The lifespan for a mobile game is short and these decks are preplanned. Big names, big games and big publishers take the top spots and even on launch day your game will appear after them in the New Releases categories. Without a deal worked out you can kiss your chances of making it into the Featured games goodbye. The Most Popular section will always be dominated by Tetris, Bejeweled, a Bejeweled clone, some incarnation of Pacman and Guitar Hero.

Screenshots should be carefully chosen to entice consumers. Animated gameplay footage is recommended. Researching each deck’s search engine and using search keywords correctly would also be beneficial.

A lot of mudslinging has been going on at companies during these rough times, especially through all the closings in the game industry. Unfortunately THQ has recently dealt with massive closings and downsizing globally. It’s Wireless division was hit hard, really hard. I can only speak for myself, and only in regards to the San Diego office, but my humble opinion is that THQ was generous in it’s severance and really did its best to provide support to all those displaced.

That’s the last I’ll say on that subject. Out with the old and in with the new! Am I worried about my unemployment during this economic slump? No. Am I looking forward to it? Hell yah! This is just a small hurdle in life and rather than viewing it as an obstacle I see it as an opportunity to advance myself. As I mentioned this news was not a surprise for me so over the past few weeks I’ve been saving money and compiling a list of things, in order of importance, I’d like to do and ways I plan on bettering myself over the next few months.

• Unreal Editor 3 – First and foremost this is my main goal. I’m going to study this software heavily over my first 3 months of unemployment while I casually look for a job. The goal is to create one level per month.
• Painting and Drawing – I feel this and a lack of insider contacts prevented me from nailing a job in console development during my first push into the industry. I got the contacts now so I’m going to work on bettering my 2D portfolio.
• Chinese – I’ve been doing quite well through the first half of the semester, but I want to just destroy the second half.
• Exercise – Since August I’ve been getting quite a bit of exercise to stay fit but I’m going to try to double that time during my unemployment period.
• Traveling – This time I’ll just stick to the US. There is so much to see and do in So Cal and the surrounding area I need to take it in now in case I have to leave for professional reasons.
• Bonsai and horticulture – I’d like to get a few more plants and repot all my existing ones.
• Cooking
• Guitar
• 24 Hours of Halo – maybe not a way of “bettering” myself, but still pretty darn enticing.
• Laundry – There’s nothing I really hate more than sharing one washing machine and drier with a whole apartment complex. It still goes at the bottom of my priority list though.