Limbo, Pergatory, You Name It
Blech, what a long summer this has been. I honestly hope I never leave myself in position to have this happen again. I've asked myself several times if I should have been more proactive in getting out of the way of the bus.
There is little question in my mind that I clearly saw this coming. And not just all too accurate musings of AA. Deep down, I knew things were headed for the crash for about three years. Unless something radical had happened to turn things, of course. Problem was the last great thing to happen at the company took place in 1994 when they locked up the Star licenses. Everything since then was slowly circling the drain. Not saying there weren't things that could have made money, but only Star Wars was the kind of thing that had to make money, despite any efforts to get in the way of that.
I just didn't know how deep the pockets were, and how committed W was to emptying them. Also, I couldn't tell just how much damage C had inflicted to Star Wars cash reserves with Boy Crazy.
I'm all for loyalty, and fighting for people who have shown you loyalty. But is that why I stayed? I guess that was the noble part of it.
The less noble part was inertia, inertia in the daunting work of getting back into (engineering) industry. Now that I've jumped through that hoop, I can honestly say that I didn't underestimate the effort. And I was lucky to have the support of my brother and Pam, which sped things up a lot.
I also think that I will probably never get to work with a group of people as interesting and fun as those at the company, and that added to my inertia. During the last year or two, the work wasn't much of a draw, but the people still were. Even games become ugly work once you grow up and realize the "vision" (think air quotes there) behind the product means you are wasting your effort.
So I guess I was waiting for the end, and not acting. That will not happen again. I owe that to K and Pavel at the very least.
I told someone today that this summer felt a little like being home from college for break. I'm ready for school to start again.
There is little question in my mind that I clearly saw this coming. And not just all too accurate musings of AA. Deep down, I knew things were headed for the crash for about three years. Unless something radical had happened to turn things, of course. Problem was the last great thing to happen at the company took place in 1994 when they locked up the Star licenses. Everything since then was slowly circling the drain. Not saying there weren't things that could have made money, but only Star Wars was the kind of thing that had to make money, despite any efforts to get in the way of that.
I just didn't know how deep the pockets were, and how committed W was to emptying them. Also, I couldn't tell just how much damage C had inflicted to Star Wars cash reserves with Boy Crazy.
I'm all for loyalty, and fighting for people who have shown you loyalty. But is that why I stayed? I guess that was the noble part of it.
The less noble part was inertia, inertia in the daunting work of getting back into (engineering) industry. Now that I've jumped through that hoop, I can honestly say that I didn't underestimate the effort. And I was lucky to have the support of my brother and Pam, which sped things up a lot.
I also think that I will probably never get to work with a group of people as interesting and fun as those at the company, and that added to my inertia. During the last year or two, the work wasn't much of a draw, but the people still were. Even games become ugly work once you grow up and realize the "vision" (think air quotes there) behind the product means you are wasting your effort.
So I guess I was waiting for the end, and not acting. That will not happen again. I owe that to K and Pavel at the very least.
I told someone today that this summer felt a little like being home from college for break. I'm ready for school to start again.
posted by Tom at 11:59 PM
2 Comments:
I'm a bit more optimisitic.
I hope things work out in St. Louis. Maybe this time next year I can visit for a mlb game.
Once you learned to live with the D problems, and assuming you didn't want that industry to be your future (an important differentiator for many), it was kind of easy to disconnect your emotionw and lap up the benefits of the loose company structure. Of course, none of this was going to provide the company-saving solution (and by that stage, it could not be saved), but it avoided you having a nervous breakdown trying to change the thoughts and opinions of those (unfortunately core) parts that were immune to being righted.
At its not like many didn't hurtle themselves headlong at that wall, to no effect.
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