A conversation about micro-transaction based social games starts the cast, then it’s on to StarCraft 2. Chris is enjoying it, but he does feel like Blizzard isn’t really bringing too much new to the space marine archetype on the story side of things. Red Dead Redemption is back in the conversation with a bit of talk about the cool day/night cycle video done by the Digital Foundry guys.
Chris recently got into the new SimCity for iPhone, and this leads into a discussion about the whole Sim franchise. There are some good shout-outs for some of the zanier entries in the 90s including SimAnt and SimEarth, and my personal favorite, SimCopter. The crew then moves on to discuss the lack of true steampunk/cyberpunk settings, with the exception of the forthcoming Deus Ex 3. Chris finally remembers to talk about Singular, and the emails section has Steve talking about the lack of innovation in conversation systems.
Some sad news closes the show. The Idle Thumbs Podcast is nearing its end with only a couple more episodes on the way. Chris has accepted a new position on the development side and will be moving East. He doesn’t go into detail, but Irrational might not be a bad guess.
Covered games and topics: Cow Clicker, StarCraft 2, Red Dead Redemption, Toy Story 3, SimCity iPhone, Sim series, steampunk/cyberpunk, Deus Ex 3, cyborgs, Singularity, conversation systems
In this far-flung cyborg future of video game discussion, nobody known where the cast ends and the break begins, when your last shred of humanity gives way to a robot soul, or why you’re full of ants. One thing is for sure, though: you will pay to click a cow.
Runtime – 1:40:07
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Yet another Journalist moves over into the development side. I know it's a logical choice (the industry is pretty much only development, press, and space in between them PR?) considering the knowledge and skillset, but it just always seems weird to me.
Making video games sucks, it's a tiring, often thankless job, over worked, under paid, and not nearly as glamorous as most people think. Unless you go Indie where you can at least have an impact, modern game development team sizes mean that most people are just a cog in a machine. You have to *really* love your work to make it seem worth all the effort.
You'd think people close to the industry (ie. press) would have a better understanding of the process, considering their position.
Admittedly games press can be a pretty grueling and not very lucrative job too, but even they have it easy compared to development. It just seems (to me at least) that if you wanted to work that long and hard, be a doctor or something.
Anyway, goodluck to Chris, hopefully he is one of those that enjoys the process enough to make it worth it, or is in one of the relatively few positions where it isn't so soul crushingly bad. He has a great voice, interesting (and often hillarious) insight and it'd be a shame if his voice were to be silenced (or lost in the crowd)
These are good points, and I think there's a balanced argument for why it's a smart choice to move to the development side, as well. I just wish we knew more about what Chris is doing so we could discuss it specifically, but I completely agree that it'll be unfortunate if we don't get to hear from him again.
I think the best account of a journalist moving to development is Jeff Green. I really recommend listening to the 'Out of the Game' episodes and reading his blog for stories about transitioning to the game development side. If you don't have time for that, pretty much the entire experience is encapsulated in his story about trying to move a box in the sims. It should be pretty easy to find.
His experience is probably different than most given the amount of time he was at CGW, but it's still enlightening.
(Didn't realize there was a wordlimit for our posts, so here is the second piece of my comment)
Also, speaking from my experience as a reporter (I covered corporate bankruptcy, so nothing nearly as fun as gaming, but still intellectually interesting); I eventually got the urge to stop being an observer and wanted to get more involved in the development of something tangible. I think the process of constantly reporting on other people's projects and their progress eventually builds the desire to do something of your own.
At least, that was the case for me, but I kind of messed it up and ended up in PR. So what do I know? Also, the pay was better, and the grass is always greener on the other side.
Anyway, I think we all wish Chris good luck and hope that he finds another outlet to provide some commentary. I accept that Idle Thumbs has to end since they're all separated, but hopefully something new will develop.
Supplemental content (read: required reading):
http://www.captainaugust.com/ftp/pocahontas.jpg