I’m a new kid on the block here: I’m writing this one week after leaving Double Fine Productions. I feel lucky to have a strong platform from which to make the big leap, so here are the conditions that convinced me I wouldn’t get a better shot:

• Existing freelance business. My wife is already the sole proprietor of Animal Ocean Design, and has more work than she can handle. Her clients are asking for more and more technical work. This provides me with a huge boost in business development, and there’s already a backlog of paying work for me to start on. And of course, she’s already dealt with a lot of freelancer headaches, and can spot a number of mistakes before I make them.
• In-house (literally) artist and web designer. In addition to my contract work, I’m developing my own game 2-3 days a week. My wife can not only handle the visuals, but also the game’s site design, search engine optimization, and more. We’ve worked well together before, and now both of our businesses will rarely need to contract out for additional expertise.
• Low costs (for San Francisco). The mortgage is a bit of a beast. On the other hand, health insurance costs will never be lower for me. I have no kids. I neither have nor need a car. With some restraint, my non-mortgage costs have become very low. (Next item to tackle: all those recurring phone, TV, Tivo, DSL costs: there has to be a way to bring those way down!)
• Between projects. We finished up Psychonauts, learned our lessons, and kicked off the next project. It’s cranking along smoothly. Now’s the best time to leave Double Fine without leaving anyone in the lurch.
• Incredibly helpful people. I don’t know if this is different from other industries, but people in the game industry have been unbelievably friendly and forthcoming. Thanks to everyone who’s contacted me to offer help or congratulations (and I promise I’m working on this networking thing, so that I’ll tag you first next time!). The amount of support out there is a huge confidence builder. Special thanks, of course, to Brian Hook for putting this site together and letting me hang my shingle.
• Got the itch. Intuitively, it just felt like it was time to take the plunge. When I thought about what I wanted to be doing with my days, going independent was the clear winner. Spencer’s and Brian’s introductions sum up a lot of the allure it’s held for me over the past 6 months or so: chiefly, variety and self-determination.

So, there’s my starting point. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be splitting my time between web development, game-related contracting, and independent game development. I’m really excited about all of it, and I’m dedicated to making it work.

First thanks to Brian for pulling this site together, I’m impressed by the speed with which this went from notion to concept to fully functional site. A site that I believe will fulfill a need that’s been out there for a while: a place where freelancers can compare notes and improve strategies.

Freelancing is getting to be a bigger part of game dev every day, and we freelancers stand to benefit from sharing information. Even those of us in competition with each other! Rising tide raises all boats, yaddah yaddah yeddah…

I guess the first thing to establish is why freelance? Why take the hard road of fluctuating finances, contract negotiations, quarterly taxes, and lower profile games when there are perfectly good cubicles sitting empty in perfectly relaxed work environments offering perfectly enticing enticements such as good salaries, free Cokes, and free M&Ms in exchange for our talent, skills and dedication?

Here’s my reasons for freelancing:

• Going freelance feels like growing up: After a while, to me, being an employee started to feel like being a kid. The deal is: we’ll give you these enticements, and all you have to give up is self-determination. The longer I did it the worse the deal seemed. When it got to the point I was craving the risks and even the tedium of doing business - the very same stuff you’re comfortably insulated from as an employee - I knew I had to go freelance.
• Self-direction: I like to chart my own course. I prefer a sandbox game like GTA over linear games that lead me from one scripted event to another, with the same, unvarying tasks strung between. Same goes for my work life.
• Being an employee changed: When I started out in game dev the job seemed more like being on a team of like-minded individuals all clawing toward the same goal. We had challenging deadlines to meet, but we were given a lot of flexibility in how we accomplished that job. As a non-management grunt, I kept the hours I wanted, but like everyone else on the team I just went ahead and worked my butt off night and day because that’s what the game needed. Somewhere along the line someone started taking that kind of organically occurring enthusiasm for granted, and scheduling with crazy hours in mind. The deadlines got no less challenging, but the sacrifice was no longer voluntary. When strictly regimented mandatory Saturdays and nights came along, that feeling of being a self-determined adult eroded even further.
• Monotony: Even with the downsides of employment, I’ve liked every company I’ve worked at and never left one on bad terms. Still, no matter where I worked, monotony would creep in. Inevitably, the same commute to the same office, to the same cube, every day of the week got old. A year or two in, and I was going stir crazy. I don’t know how you people do it!
• Self-scheduling: Having a big looming deadline and figuring out how to arrange my days so that I make that deadline is way more appealing than keeping regular business hours (see: Monotony). Bonus: if I’m all caught up on my work, and if a beautiful day should present itself, I’m not above giving myself leave to go play hooky. That’s a luxury that outstrips any perk any real job has ever offered. You can keep the soda and the M&Ms.
• Freelance seems like the way artist do business. I went to school for painting, thinking I’d eventually be an artist or illustrator. I prefer CG, and I prefer games, but I’d rather do business like a traditional artist. They get by one sale or one freelance job at a time. Plus, that’s how Han Solo works. It just seems way cooler than a real job.
• Variety: At any given time I’m working on a two or three different projects, and I never know what opportunity will present itself around the corner (see: Han Solo). Beats looking at the same game for one or two years at a stretch.
• Portland, Oregon. I want to live here, but there are no game companies. Even if I wanted to give up freelancing, there’s not much available. Keeps me honest.
• Home office: pleasant wood-paneled upstairs with windows that open (!) onto a quiet tree-lined street. Best work environment ever.
• Everywhere else office: Just like with companies, I can get tired of my home office. Solution: I work on a powerful laptop, so I can move around. Coffee shops, clients’ offices, front porch, back yard. The plum tree out back provides enough shade that I can work en plein air and still see the screen. Nice for when the AC-less upstairs gets broiling. Also, I’m one of those East-coast refugees who left their family 3000 miles away. When I go back, I like to be able to take my time visiting, so I take my laptop and work while I’m there. Same goes for far-flung friends willing to take me in for a week or two. Let us give thanks for wifi.
• Indies and entrepreneurs: I’m a huge fan of indies and entrepreneurs, and being freelance gives me a chance to work with them (without necessarily hitching my horse to their wagon). I like working with the Davids taking on the Goliaths. It doesn’t hurt that they’re more likely to hire me to make interesting, core artwork than do big companies (who tend to hire freelancers only for grunt work, or who simply go to art houses that pay freelancers cut rates). And with indies I get to try work I might otherwise never do, like concept art. As a freelancer I can put professional experience and high-end skills at the disposal of rugged individualists, and help them make their out-of-left-field games competitive with the big guys’.

Downsides to freelancing? There are a few. Income is always on my mind. I won’t be bragging about my home office for long if I can’t make the mortgage. Also, as much as I like working on my own, I miss being in the middle of a team. Still, even when I was working at real jobs, I tended to fall into the role of one-man factory, which could be surprisingly isolating. With the small teams I work with, even remotely, I have more chance for collaboration an input than I did back in the office.

Basically, succeeding or failing on my own terms is way more invigorating than taking a paycheck could ever be.

So, yeah, I’m sold on freelancing. My goal in life is to never have a real job again . If this means working my butt off, so be it.

A lot of people have asked me about why I left BioWare and what it was like working there. I had originally written this article for another site, but never got around to sending it in. So, in the spirit of not wasting a few hours of typing and to give some context to my choice to become a contractor as opposed to working in-house here it is.

After nearly 6 years and 6 projects I decided it was time for a change of venue. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my time spent at BioWare it’s just that it’s difficult to sustain a workload that triple A titles require for such a long period with long hours and not experience some burnout. Which is precisely what I felt coming down the road for me. So, I decided to venture out on my own. I am still quite involved with game audio and intend to keep it that way. It’s a passion of mine and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

I finished Neverwinter Nights, a project that I am very proud of. A lot of people had to come together to make a project as large as Neverwinter happen. As is the case for a lot of companies we had to outsource sound effects because there wasn’t enough time and enough staff to get it done on time with the quality people have come to expect from a BioWare project. To that end Alan Miranda (the Audio Producer on NWN) brought Creative Sound Design and Duff Studios on to help out. Creative worked on spells and ambient sounds, while Duff worked on creatures and things like doors and chests. We at BioWare were responsible for the rest of the sounds such as combat, interface, footsteps, bodyfalls and additional sounds that got missed on the first passes and didn’t get passed on to the contractors. Hopefully, I’ll be able to go into more detail in the future about the challenges of making different types of sounds including how my dog getting ill made for some cool creature sounds.

The good and bad part of Neverwinter was that it seemed to never have a definite end. I was kind of sad when the project shipped. That is until I heard that there was going to continue to be additional content being added on as time and resources permitted. The extra creatures and modules that were being turned out gave me a chance to hone my skills in an editor and environment that I had grown to love and sometimes hate.

Close to the end of Neverwinter I finally had an additional person in the audio department to help out. Having an other person turned out to be a good thing because the number of products in various stages on the go had increased from 2 to 3. At one point the audio department was working on Neverwinter Nights, Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark, Knights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire (which is the game I couldn’t mention in my original article). That’s not to say that all projects were demanding full time audio resources. They were all in various stages of production and therefore each project had different needs.

When the demands from NWN and the first expansion died down I jumped straight into KotOR. It was the first time I was put in the position of Audio Producer, in an official sense anyway. I had been performing audio production tasks all along to varying degrees over the years. It’s not uncommon for companies to expect audio folk to be “jack of all trades” type of people. In fact a few people at BioWare over the years gave me odd looks when I told them I wasn’t a musician. I dabble in music, but have always felt more comfortable on the side of the recording console with all the flashing lights and buttons.

Putting sound into a game is done differently at every company. At BioWare the sound department was responsible for everything sound except programming. With programming we worked together with coders to put in the functions we needed to make sure the game sounded as good as possible on both platforms with as little extra work down the road as possible. All these diverse tasks require a lot of juggling and the ability to shift from a production mindset to a creative frame of mind and on to technical thinking as the tasks present themselves.

KotOR was an intimidating project to say the least. Not only did I feel the pressure to live up to the expectations of Star Wars fans, but also the quality bar set by the awesome audio staff at Lucas Arts. Fortunately we had a secret weapon and that was Bay Area Sound. It’s a company made up of former Lucas Arts employees, so they knew the drill when it came to Star Wars. The amount of dialog in that game is staggering. I think the unique dialog line count was around 12,000 lines. That doesn’t include the combat sounds and all of the alien dialog. I tip my hat to Lucas Arts sound department for all the work they did.

If you have played KotOR and notice how cool the Selkath sound then you are noticing Duff Studio’s outstanding work. In my opinion, they do some of the best VO processing in the business in my opinion and were called in to help out with KotOR. Unfortunately the audio department at BioWare had stayed at 2 people (it had briefly been bumped up to 3, but it didn’t quite work out). It was to expand to 3, but as many in the industry know, it’s difficult to find game audio people that are good at technical and creative tasks and don’t have a problem with coming to live in the upper, upper tundra known as Edmonton. So, it was up to Steve Sim and I to get to the finish line with Hordes and Jade Empire nipping at our heels.

The shear amount of files for a game like KotOR can be overwhelming. In film work you have production sound if you want to use it. If someone walks down a hallway, opens a door and starts talking to a person it just happens. Not saying that sound effects aren’t added after the fact in motion pictures, but there is always production sound to use as a base or as a complete audio track. In videogames, and animation as well, you are dealing with a completely artificial world. Everything that should make noise has to be placed by someone. In fact, it’s often the case that people don’t even notice the sound unless it’s left out. Footsteps are a perfect example. If characters don’t make footstep sounds people will notice something is wrong even if they can’t put their finger on what it is.

The ultimate irony with KotOR was when most reviewers talked about the sound they assumed that it was all stock from the Skywalker libraries. Now don’t get me wrong, to have someone mistake something I did for something out of Skywalker Sound is a compliment of the highest order. Still, it’s a bit disheartening to that people automatically assumed all the sound effects were just copied from a library. When, in actuality, a lot of people had put many months into making a unique slice of the Star Wars universe. All said there was actually very little content from the movies in KotOR, but it sure fooled a lot of people.

In the end we were able to put together a soundscape that seemed to make most people happy and got reviewed well. You never know how people are going to react to work that you’ve done. When you have spent 2 years on a project you can lose your objectivity. You can no longer tell if it the best work you have ever done or the worst. So, when the game goes gold, hits the shelves and comes back with good reviews the most you can do is smile and think that it all worked out in the end.

It seemed like the ink hadn’t even dried on the Xbox DVDs when we were right back at it with Hordes of the Underdark. Since it was kind of a Swan Song for NWN we really wanted it to be the best. Steve Sim and I were alone on the project and had to do everything from the ground up. The short version of audio production goes something like this:

1. Read the story and look at the art for the game.
2. Make lists of all the things you know will need sound effects.
3. Solicit information from designers and artists about what they want for sounds.
4. Capture animations from creatures, spells, etc onto video to be used in a sound editor for the creation and synching of sound effects.
5. Start creating content, usually, on an as-needed basis. For instance you might want to make the sound for all the creatures that are fully modeled, textured and animated first so they can be put into the game and tested as soon as possible.
6. Implement sounds. Sometimes this involves placing sounds in the toolset and other times it means filling out tediously long text configuration files.
7. Make a few more passes to see what might have been missed or added without your knowledge (yes, this happens all the time).
8. Take the remaining time you have, which is usually about half of what you’d like, and do a final polishing.

Fortunately we were able to leverage our knowledge of the NWN toolset to make things go a little smoother than the first time out when we were still creating the toolset as we were using it.

With Hordes we also took on an additional task. We decided to do all the voice over locally instead of going out of the country. This added additional work to the audio schedule, but it was something we really wanted to do. We brought in a person to round up the talent and help run auditions. It was a good thing that we did because she ended up also doing a great deal of the voice directing due to the tight schedule. Once again, a risk taken seemed to pay off and the reviews were quite positive.

You guessed it right if you thought I might say we had to start right away on the next game. Jade Empire was now public knowledge and there was planning, demos and real game content to do. It was at this point that I started to feel the “burn” as it were. People ask me why I quit working for a company with a stellar reputation like BioWare’s. Well, it’s kind of like being on a roller coaster where the track is constantly changing and that the only way to get a break is to get completely off the ride. That’s what I did. I handed in my all access amusement park pass and headed out for lands unknown.

Addendum: It’s been a couple years since I wrote that piece and the only thing that has really changed is my perspective. Being a contractor isn’t any less stressful than working in-house. In fact in some ways it’s more stressful, but you do have a lot more control over what you choose to do and there is a direct correlation between the work you do and what you get out if it both in the monetary sense and the sense of accomplishment. I do miss the day to day atmosphere of an office, but there is something exciting about not knowing what lies down the road for the next year or two. Well, exciting and a little scary.

I’m tring to make it a habit for new Game Mercenaries to post a little about themselves. This has a couple benefits, the first of which is that it introduces a bit about each of us in more depth than what an author profile might provide, and it gives us at least one blog post to our name so that we have archives — which in turn gives us a visible author profile.

So on that note, a quick backgrounder. I’m a programmer and game designer by trade, having worked on software development professionally for about 11 years now. I’ve worked on game design either indirectly as an engineer, or directly as one half of a two-person shop with Pyrogon. I originally got my start at 3Dfx Interactive — remember them? — working on software for 3D graphics accelerators, and there I made my name by being the original architect of Glide, a very popular 3D graphics API of the mid to late 90s. From there I’ve served varying stints at places like Silicon Graphics (freelance work on Cosmo OpenGL, a software based OpenGL for Windows); id software (where I worked on Quake 2 and Quake 3); and Verant/Sony On-line Entertainment, where I was briefly involved (compared to the final life of the project…) with Everquest 2.

After that I decided to try my hand at the downloadable games thing with my company, Pyrogon, but unfortunately the market became exceptionally glutted and we closed down before the big casual games crash occurred. Since then I’ve worked on side projects and the occasional contract job.

I’ve lectured at the Game Developers Conference, and I’ve also written two books on computer programming, the latest of which, Write Portable Code, is about cross-platform software development. I have a strong background working across multiple platforms — Windows, OS X, Linux, handheld, and embedded.
My major skills are programming in the C/C++ and Python languages. I prefer Python for tools and rapid prototyping these days and leave C/C++ for the low-level work or when I need to generate native binaries. I also do Web development using Flex/Flash, PHP, MySQL, Python (via TurboGears), and Joomla! I’m far more competent with XHTML and CSS than I ever expected to be, but when a client needs tools that run in a browser that’s one of those skills you have to pick up. I’ve also worked with off-shore developers, subcontracting work to them in an effort to save my clients money.

Currently I’m located in the northwest suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia — specifically, I’m in Acworth/Powder Springs, right on the fringes of Cobb County. This has made my life particularly challenging, since there are almost no game development studios in Atlanta or, to be more precise, within about a 1000 miles of this city. While there are a decent amount of schools — Georgia Tech, Georgia State, University of Georgia, Emory, Oglethorpe, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Berry — along with quite a few high tech companies (mostly telcom and Internet), gaming companies haven’t been able to take root as they have in other college/high-tech areas such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, and southern California.

This brings me to one of the key reasons I’m a contractor — I don’t have to relocate. I’ve had plenty of job offers at very interesting companies, but I have too much extended family in the Atlanta area to relocate at this point. This adds to the challenge, since remote work is much more difficult to find than on-site work, but it’s a worthwhile trade off. But there are other reasons I’ve chosen to be a contractor:

• I can choose what projects I wish to be involved with. The days of suffering through something hideous and boring (like, say, Java programming) have come to an end for me.
• No conflict of interest with personal side projects. I can pursue other opportunities — in fact, to avoid IRS scrutiny I practically have to — so I don’t have to invest completely in a single company. This keeps me sane.
• Projects with known lengths and duration. This means that I’m not necessarily signing up for something with no end in sight. This also means that I can be exposed to a lot of interesting projects, people, and companies instead of locking myself under one roof for years at a time.
• No death march without pay. We’ve all heard the nightmares of unpaid crunch for months on end when working for the Big Game Companies, but as an hourly contractor I’m insulated from that.

All these reasons resonate for me, and while it’s not a perfect existence — pitching to clients, dealing with non-payment, health insurance costs, the isolation from coworkers — it’s a happy one. I can spend time with my family, my hours are flexible, and I can still make a living “being my own boss”.