Tuesday, September 16, 2008

it's All About the Games

I've revised the list of companies I'd like to work for. Here are my tops picks (in no particular order):

Insomniac Games, the developers of the Ratchet & Clank series. The reason I like Insomniac is that their games generally have strong storylines with well fleshed out characters. I've always been a fan of platformers and sometimes it's fun to forget about realistic graphics and just play. The benefits are good; 100% employer paid medical/dental/vision insurance, paid vacation, post production vacations, health insurance plans, and some really nice facilities. The catch is that the only office that's hiring much right now is in North Carolina, not my state of choice.

Rockstar games, the developers of Grand Theft Auto, among many other great games. It would be nice to get a chance to work on the next few GTA games. They have positions in many areas I'd be interested, but I'm having trouble deciding on one. The office I'd like to work at (San Diego) is a 3 hour drive from where Jason wants to go (Los Angeles), and there's also an office in NYC, in case Jason decides to go there instead.

Valve Software, creators of Half-Life and it's many branches. Unfortunately, also the creators of the Steam content delivery system. Valve has really been pushing graphics and physics forward for years with their Goldsource and Source engines. Their games are also heavily based in real science, which makes them unusually interesting. Unfortunatly, their head office is in Bellevue, WA.

Square Enix, who has produced innumerable RPGs, including Final Fantasy VII (along with the lesser Final Fantasy games). I really like RPGs and it might be fun to work on them, especially in the sci-fi genre. The US office is in El Segundo, part of Los Angeles. There really isn't much information available on Square's career page, but since the main office is in Tokyo, I'm going to assume bilingualism is a preferred skill, and I' not taking up Japanese any time soon.

I'm still left to decide which specific aspect of game design I want to go into. Right now I'm leaving it at the two main branches that interest me: programming and design.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

While Perched Upon a Ladder, Cleaning Tanks

I planned exactly what I'm going to do for the next five months:

Starting now I'm going to start paying down my credit card debt. The more I can pay off before December, the better off I'll be. I also want to put as much in my savings account as I can. That means I'm really going to have to start watching what I spend and maybe get a little money somewhere on the side.

In December I'll apply for two loans: a vehicle finance loan to buy a used car from craigslist and a student loan so i can go back to school in January. I'll get a big enough vehicle loan from Fifth Third so I can get a $3500-$4500 car and pay a few months of insurance. My student loan is going to be a little different. Being a computer guy and not having a completely functional laptop poses a little bit of a problem. I could get a great PC laptop for $1500, but I'm not. I want to get a Macbook Pro because it's chic (Hypocritical, I know). It's all part of the new image I want to create for myself, but I'll talk about that another time.

January I'll start going back to school at Macomb Community College. Since I'll probably have to take basic classes for my first semester I can continue figuring out what I want my major to be. I'm going into the IT field one way or another, but I don't know specifically what I want to do yet. I want to get involved in a lot of extra curricular stuff too, but I'll figure that out when the time comes.

February is the month our lease expires, so I'll move back into my parents house. It's not the best arrangement and it'll be a pain to drive 22 miles to work and 30 to school, but I'll be able to save a lot of money not paying as much rent and utilities. That will allow me to finish paying off my credit cards, start paying insurance with actual money, save a lot more money, and hopefully make some hefty payments toward my vehicle loan.

At that point I'll try to narrow down the list of jobs I'd like to get at various companies. Rockstar, Revision3, GRC, Square Enix, and Capcom are definitely among them, but that's a new post entirely.