2019 Review

It sucked.




But I suppose that when several pillars of your life are knocked out from under you, you can appreciate the ones that remain. The three main ones that were lost:

1. Job/Financial security. Having been in the game industry for well over 20 years I assumed I’d have no problem landing a job if I needed to. And, I guess that’s true. The problem is that the field has become very narrow due to life circumstances. I need a job that both provides the same health insurance plan, and is local. That’s because I need to keep Heather in the same network of providers who understand her disease. (More of that in the next point.) That’s the external narrowing of the field. Internally I can see I made a career error by not keeping up with the art pipeline for the way art assets are created in games. As my focus shifted to design I COULD have worked harder to stay current on the art side. But I didn’t, and because my transition to designer was still in the mid-way point when I got laid off, it’s hard to demand a design position that pays commiserate with my experience. Except in level design. I’m very confident in my level design experience and skill. However, the fates have decreed that almost all the game studios in my region are making games in a particular genre that isn’t EXACTLY what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years and so these studios are not hiring me because I can’t show them a published game just like the one they are making with my level design in it. I spent a LOT of time and sanity doing design tests, I’ve had a lot of really great interviews, but keep getting turned down.

Fortunately I was able to get a work-from-home gig that comes close to paying the bills, but since we have to pay over $2,100 a month to keep our medical insurance (This studio I’m doing this work for is in Europe and does not offer medical insurance for obvious reasons) there’s no way we can sustain ourselves over the long run. The system that so graciously allows us to keep our insurance runs out next September, so if I don’t have a job that provides medical insurance by then… I honestly don’t know what we’ll do. It’s too bad, because I love this job. Working from home has been a big blessing, especially because of…




2. Heather’s Health. This year has seen a rapid decline her health. She’s lost the ability to do so many of th things she loves. She used to walk for miles and take pictures almost ever day. But now, so many of her joints are so messed up, and she’s had a bunch of surgeries on her hands/wrists that can’t do that anymore. She’s a VERY social person, so getting out and doing things with friends is her favorite thing in the world, but she’s become so limited in her capacity that this is rapidly diminishing as well. She can’t even be on social media for long due to the strain holding a laptop of phone puts on her hands, shoulders, neck and back.

She finally got approved for disability, so it’s officially acknowledged by the government that she’s disabled. But the emotional journey of accepting that, not being able to work at the job she loved (because of all the customers she loves) and coming to grips with all the things she can’t do anymore is long and arduous. And there’s no signs of things getting better any time soon.

On top of all that she’s having to deal with the company that Starbucks hires to vet the disability claims being stupid, working on a statement for the judge of the guy who sexually assaulted her last year, and of course the worry about our financial situation… well it’s a lot.




So that’s a lot of pressure we’ve been dealing with. Here’s stuff that COULD have also fallen apart that didn’t.





1. Our marriage. This kind of stuff would probably take a heavy toll on many marriages. But for whatever blessed fate of personal chemistry we’re just as strong as ever. We are both processing a LOT more stress, but I don’t think either of us takes it out on the other. I recon the main reason we’re both doing… OK right now is because through all this we never doubt the love and respect we hold for each other.


2. Family. While neither of our parents in in a position to help us financially, we know they love and support us however they can. My mom and I got our first co-authored book out.  My son, Shane, has who is 20 now and still lives with us is doing an amazing job at teaching himself all kinds of computer art stuff from animation to game development and video editing. He’s actually getting to the point where’s he’s able to contribute to joint projects that could eventually become professional projects. So that’s encouraging.


3. Friends. I still see a lot of my friends on a fairly regular basis. (we have a ‘buddy lunch’ that meets weekly even though we all work at different companies now) I do creative projects with some. And a friend from ArenaNet donated a LOT of money to our medical bills that will allow us to survive for several more months. On top of that I got a lot of great letters of recommendations from former co-workers.




So that’s my year in review. Hoping for some stability next year.