Albert Pucciani: Burning out and unrealistic expectations.

After I released AGENT:SHOOTER and AGENT:GUNNER, almost 4 years ago, I was burned out on game development. Frankly I never wanted to think about game development again, and so I went to work in the enterprise¹ world, working on enterprise applications, for enterprise customers. The game development world had been brutal to me, although my first game AGENT:SHOOTER had been a mild success, I had poured 3000 hours combined into both of my games, and had really expected to make a comfortable living, but was still scrounging up money to live each month. This isn't a boohoo tale, and you shouldn't feel sorry for me, because a lot really great things were born out of my work.

(Episode 2, Outdoors, AGENT:SHOOTER)

Instead this is a confession.



When I left the game development world, I distanced myself from my creations, to me they were a few bullet points on my resume, talking points that helped me acquire employment. I ignored customer emails. I discarded a fan base that I had spent two years building.

All because I had unrealistic expectations. The mobile world was very different in 2008-2009, the "Indie" movement did not have the steam it carries today, and the dream of overnight² millionaires was still a possibility. Of course, since you already read the #2 footnote, you know that overnight millionaires is a fallacy (you did read the footnote, right?) But that had been my dream (and the dream of countless other game developers around the world) and when the swimming pool of gold coins failed to materialize, I left the game development world.

Episode 4, Subway, AGENT:SHOOTER

The thing about the enterprise world is that the work is usually not challenging for long, and after two years my mind was looking for creative outlets. Fast-forward to the summer of 2015, when on a vacation in Chincoteague Island VA³, my friend Keith Garry (who will grace us on this blog) said, "We should make a game together." Everything that happened from then on will be the source of future posts.



1 Enterprise is a term, used in the tech world, to describe "line of business" software, usually tools such as Customer Relationship Managers (CRM), Inventory Tracking, Invoicing, etc...

2 The idea of an "overnight" millionaire has always been a complete fallacy. Few people will ever win the lottery, in almost every case of a successful person is the compounding momentum of a lifetime (see also "Karma.")

3 Chincoteague VA was an amazingly refreshing experience, devoid of the party town atmosphere, and instead was a quiet place where we could all find ourselves, again.