I am finally back from my holiday hiatus. Had a very nice trip to Vegas, no gambling this time, but there were guns involved :-). I’m eager to get back to work on Dehoarder 2 tomorrow morning, but first, I wanted to write a bit about an experience that I had last month while on my vacation. The title of the post is no longer rhetorical. It is a question I actually had to answer.
A little before Thanksgiving, I was contacted by the VP of a start-up F2P game company, letting me know that they were fans of my work and that they were interested in interviewing me for a full-time position. I was very excited, and after some family discussion (relocation involved), I decided to pursue an interview.
After a very challenging but mostly doable two-hour at-home technical exam, I was invited for a Skype interview with two very friendly senior developers with the company. There were more technical and logical and problem-solving questions, which I’m told that I pretty much aced, even the C++ parts that I hadn’t used for over 15 years and was quite rusty on.
But then, we came to discussing Smiling Cat. I was contacted about this position through Smiling Cat, so I thought that maybe they would be cool with me continuing work on Smiling Cat, though it was a question for which I was eager to have a definitive answer. I was told that no, I would not be able to continue my work with Smiling Cat.
It really only took a nanosecond to make my decision. The interviewers were impressed enough with me to see if the CEO would make an exception in this case, but all three of us knew what the answer would be. The shop was a typical start-up environment with long hours expected and no room for side gigs. I’m not sure why I expected to find something different, like maybe a unicorn or something =/.
As I related to my interviewers, I could never give up Smiling Cat before it’s time. Smiling Cat is part of who I am. It is a place where I create my visions. It is (hopefully) a path to self sufficiency.
Ultimately, I want to work for myself. In the meantime, though, I wouldn’t mind working for a game development company for a salary, if that company understands that my Smiling Cat work is important to me and they are willing to allow me the room to work on my projects in the off hours. I know I face fairly steep odds on Smiling Cat, though I can only succeed if I put in the time and effort. If there was one single biggest mistake I can say that I’ve made in my career, it’s that I waited so long to start Smiling Cat in the first place.
So with that, it’s welcome to 2015, which will at least see the release of Dehoarder 2, plus work on one yet-to-be-announced project. Hopefully we’ll get some more updates out there, too, for Vintage Pachinko and perhaps for Breaking Block.