I've been offered a job...

I was rather flattered and honoured to be offered a job as a lecturer at a university in another European country. It involved lectures on interactive narrative and the like and as a full time post would mean moving to the country in question.

I must admit to being very tempted by this exciting offer, particularly as I think that education is an important issue for all of us. However, I felt that taking up a full time teaching post would likely lead to more than a little frustration on my part as my hands on creativity would be cut to a minimum and all of the ideas and projects that I want to work on will not materialise.

I'm hoping that I have more to contribute by continuing to develop games in various capacities. While I have lots of ideas about interactive narrative and such, I'd rather put them into practice in games than to theorise about them in the classroom.

Credit

One of the things you rely upon as a freelance creative (in whatever field) is credit for the work you have done. Without it, whatever you put on your website or on your CV will be undermined and could lead any interested parties to believe that you are exaggerating at best or lying at worst.

Imagine my annoyance when, not once but twice recently, my writing and design work on Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon was overlooked/downplayed in such a way that it would seem I didn't make the contribution I did and that it was all down to one or two others in the team.

A single occurrence I might have seen as an oversight or a badly worded phrase, but when it happens again in a small period of time I can't help but feel that there's a trend developing. Maybe I'm paranoid...

Writing other stuff

You may not believe it's possible, but there are writers working on stuff that has no connection with games. There's a whole world out there that's filled with writers doing other stuff.

Last night I went to a meeting of York Writers and thoroughly enjoyed mixing with people writing in other fields. While I read books and connect with others online, it made a refreshing change to interact directly with writers who knew little or nothing about games. Sometimes I think that I focus too tightly on games and having the chance to listen to others read their work and then to comment on it supported that feeling.

Although I won't be able to read any of my game work (NDA issues) I may write a couple of short stories so that I'm able to contribute in the future. One thing I do enjoy about these kinds of meetings is the variety in both styles and ages of the writers. It's also much more laid back than the frantic deadlines I've been used to for so long. :)

Press release for the book has gone out

A&C Black, the publisher of Writing for Video Games, put together a rather smart press release which went out to the gaming press on Friday. Sorry I've been a lax putting up the news here, but I've been having problems getting Blogger to post this.

I'm sure that I've already thanked Tony Warriner for the excellent foreword he wrote, but I'd just like to say again how much I appreciate him doing this for me. Without his help and support, as well as that of many others, I don't think the book would have seen the light of day.

Thanks.

E3: Invite Only - some thoughts

MCV fell through the letterbox today and I spent a few minutes skimming it before returning to the heady task of writing dialogue. It wasn't until lunchtime that I read a little more as I chewed on my scrambled eggs. Sometimes MCV scares me because it highlights the wealth of material that's out there that I don't have a hope in hell of keeping up with. It wasn't this that prompted me to write, though, but a small piece on the front page (if you ignore the advertisement that is the wraparound cover). The piece is also on their website here.

Now I knew that E3 was going to be a much smaller event next year, but I wasn't aware, until now, that it was going to be invite only. Even that didn't really give me any thoughts about posting something to the blog until I came across the following statement by Doug Lowenstein: "We don't want people wandering around that aren't the people companies want to meet."

Now is it me, or does this come across as incredibly snooty? Does it mean that the only people who get invites are going to be those that the big publishers know will say nice things about them? Is there a danger that journalists who are fortunate enough to attend will feel pressured into writing positively to ensure that they get invites in future years?

Although many may well argue that E3 became too large, is this not going too far in the opposite direction and may well not cover the true diversity and range of gaming across all platforms?

One good thing that I think will come from the shrinking of E3 is that many of the people who felt they ought to attend in the past because it was the "done thing" will be saved the time and the money of doing so.

It's publishing, but not as we know it...

A&C Black, the publishers of my book (Writing for Video Games, for those not keeping up at the back), have updated their website so that the book is listed at last. :)

Even though I have held copies of the book and people have told me they bought it, it seems a little unreal if the publisher hasn't listed it on their website. Clearly, book publishing is a very different affair to the kind of publishing we're all used to in the games industry. They must have heaps of patience to put up with all of my e-mails and requests - the kind of thing that we all do on a regular basis ten times a day.

Thanks to Katie and Suzi in particular for being very gracious in all of their replies.