DAY 1245
This is another question people ask me a lot.
I really wanted to get out of game design, which is a bit sad since so many people think (and my past self thought) of it as such a dream career.
Making the switch took 2.5 years with no income and a big pay cut at first, but even in the first year and month it was a no-contest great decision for me.
Here’s what I tell my game design friends when they ask me about it:
1. I want there to be a better match between the things I feel
responsible for and the things I have agency over. [I’ve always noticed that
engineers and artists can still seem to feel the sense of doing good work even
if the game overall is not a success.] Game designers have
responsibility over the entire game, but in practice not agency to make
improvements to the entire game. Engineers also have to ability to fix so many different kinds of problems compared to what a designer can do with pure tuning.
2. I can spend more
time focusing on the aspects of game design that I like (implementation,
process, solving technical challenges, objective decision making) and
less time focusing on the parts I don’t like (creative “brainstorming”,
high level theme/audience, subjective decision making).
3.
More companies to choose from. I applied to 360 companies in the bay
area before I got an offer, and there was no sign of me running out. In
games I got to the point where I couldn’t think of a single company I
wanted to work for, or if I could it would have meant relocating.
4. More potential to get a job working on issues that I care about/find meaningful. Education, health, civics, etc.
5.
More
flexibility on places in the US I can live and still be paid well. People on reddit
all the time are talking about how ridiculous it is to live in the bay
area when they can make 6 figures in much cheaper places, work remotely,
etc.
6. Better career progression for someone who doesn’t want to be a manager.
7. More of an established discipline with fewer disagreements about fundamental aspects.
8. Lots of new things to learn, no sense that I can ever start to run out/hit diminishing returns.
9.
I felt was fairly topped out in my game design salary as an individual contributor, but
that same amount of money is on the low end of what engineers can make.
10.
I wanted to see if I could pull it off. It was really scary and awful
and satisfying and fun. I would never have thought of something like
this in the past but I was lucky enough to have some savings finally,
and was also inspired by some friends who talk about things like early
retirement and generally just finding another path that makes you happy
besides the default one.