As time goes by

So I'm a year older today. What have I learned in the past year? Outside of video game related knowledge, practically nothing. Working at EA this past year, I did learn a lot about game design solely by being forced to sit through genres I normally would never play. Who knows if I'll ever get to use that knowledge.

Oh, I also learned what it's like to own a $250 paperweight. It's clear that Sony had no idea what they were competing against when they designed the PSP. What's the mindset you have to be in, in order to actually think that people would be willing to pay $30 for a movie on UMD - keeping in mind that the UMD movie has less extra features and costs more than a DVD of the same movie.

Anyway, I'm getting old real fast. I suppose it's time to start thinking about settling down and start a family of my own. Is a job in the video game industry stable enough to carry all of that? Maybe not. That probably explains why I haven't been searching for industry jobs lately and going back to my programming roots. I'd love to stay in the industry and reach my goals for game design, but maybe it'll take too long and it isn't financially good enough. Or maybe that's just my parents nagging that's stuck in the back of my head.

As my girlfriend says, "choose a career that you enjoy and the money will follow later." And I always tell her, "it's hard to do that with constant nagging by parents."