#workjob

[nihilnovisubsole]

I'm so sorry to hear about you being laid off from Obsidian- the industry is so tough right now :(

thank you. more than one friend has reached out on tumblr to ask, so i thought i should set aside the time to say something about it. it's been enormously meaningful and humbling to see coworkers, friends, and people i consider mentors praising my writing and advocating for reasons to hire me. reading dozens of tributes to your work and exemplary character gives the impression of watching the slideshow at your own funeral.

i alluded to this in a linkedin (ugh) post: it's hard to lose any job. it's especially hard to lose a job at the studio that i had hoped to write for since i was nineteen years old. the conventional gamedev wisdom is not to get attached to a "dream studio," and to prioritize the people and projects you want to work with instead. but i do love the people. they understood me creatively, they believed i had potential, they gave me community, they got me out of my shell. even when the harsh realities of project stress set in - every game gets chaotic at some point, even the good ones - my desire to do good work and do right by my teammates saw me through.

to their credit, i don't believe anyone in obsidian leadership wanted this to happen. on the contrary: i imagine they fought like hell to prevent it. that does not change the reality that i now live in limbo, looking for another job, hoping to return someday. i have those surreal experiences i imagine all newly-laid-off people have. i should be in a meeting right now. i shouldn't buy that. i still had my job the last time i wore this shirt. i devoted so much effort to my last obsidian project that i have no idea what personal writing i should work on to fill the void. even if i had something, the thought of what it would take to finish it exhausts me, and i would have no idea how to get it published. in some ways, i no longer know who i am.

but my mother did not drag us both out of the mire of homelessness and fight to win me a college scholarship for me to give up now. i owe it to both her and my future to figure all this out. sometimes you're lucky. the rest of the time, you merely have to be unkillable.

[nihilnovisubsole]

I just want you to know the ancient memories parts of Avowed were some of the best parts of the game hands down.

man. thank you! i didn't come up with the idea of their existence or anything. i just wrote most of the stories (emerald stair's was kate dollarhyde, iirc) and helped the art team with briefs for how the illustrations should look. goodname, the art studio we worked with, does amazing stuff. they were inspired by sergio toppi's work, if you like the ancient memory/end slide art style and want more of it.

avowed had a tough job, in that it had to be an action RPG that appealed to fans of the two prose-heavy CRPGs that came before. when the team assigned me the ancient memories, they said they were trying to bridge the gap and bring back some of that storybook narrative writing that CRPG players would miss. i honestly had no idea whether the memories i pitched would hold together in the game itself. you know how it is with a big writing project lol. glad to hear their instincts were right!

[nihilnovisubsole]

Did you witness a cultural gap between the culture of the younger cadre of designers an writers then their gen xer counterpart? (Does gen x nerd culture can co-exist with it's tumblr counterpart?) In your experience does fandom play dominate role in your line of work?

i admit, i'm not really sure i parse what kind of answer you're looking for here, but it's been a while since i got a work-related message, so i'll do my best

is there a cultural gap between younger (i assume you mean game) designers and gen X designers? yeah, probably, but how much of that is normal generational divide? how much of a cultural difference is there from year to year in gamedev, or from project to project, or studio to studio? people who've done mobile or solo indie projects for their whole career will come to a project with different expectations from people who've only done AAA.

i've met older devs who pine for The Good Old Days. i've met others who said, "yeah, we used to sleep under our desks, thank god we don't crunch like that anymore." everyone's different.

can gen X nerd culture and tumblr nerd culture coexist? sure, if you want them to. i was born too late to experience gen X nerd culture firsthand, but i've never felt bashful about admitting i had a long background in tumblr fandom. i tell coworkers who aren't familiar with it that it was an interesting milieu to grow up in, and i've learned a lot, both good and bad, and all of it has been useful to my writing somehow.

i've never had an experience where an older coworker thought i was weird for making a particular pop culture reference or anything. in fact, i've had times where i was able to put some authority behind an argument with "i've been around shippers for nearly twenty years, i know what they pay money for." the trick, i've found, is to have a sense of humor about it. (not that tumblr invented shipping, obviously, but you get the idea.)

does fandom play dominate role (?) in your line of work? depending on what you're asking, this could go a few different ways:

is RPG game design primarily influenced by what devs believe will most lead to an active fandom culture? not that i've seen, no. fans and devs have a complicated relationship. the "fans are entitled" vs. "devs are jerks" discourse can be a real tar pit. devs do make design choices based on what they think will make a game most engaging, and with sequels, that can involve "what treats do we give returning fans." but it's sort of up to an individual artist or writer to go "i'm making XYZ choice because i think it will be fanfic bait."

do you, as a game writer, make most of your creative decisions based on the kind of fanwork you've enjoyed doing in the past? i imagine on some level i do, but that's just me. i enjoy exploring the same themes in both fan stuff and original work.

do many game writers have a fanfic background? more than there used to be, or at least there are more now who will openly admit to it. again, the "fanfic writer made good" class of author gets... you know... there's discourse, but all the fanfic-brained colleagues i know are amazingly talented. they have great instincts about how writing decisions will land with players emotionally, and they don't feel limited to the same one or two "classic" plot models.

hope some of that was useful!

[nihilnovisubsole]

if you work in any proximity to voice actors (VO director, writer who makes casting decisions, etc.) it's vital that you develop an awareness of Dubious Media. soap operas, direct-to-video adaptations of video games, movies with 63% on rotten tomatoes, TV shows with like eighteen fans, anime dubs you snuck out to watch on adult swim at 1 AM, overly ambitious online indie projects, you get the idea.

because, look, your favorite movie star or blorbo from your hit netflix show is busy modeling gucci sunglasses or something. your studio can't afford them. maybe once in a while they strike gold, like jason isaacs in bg3 or all the heavy hitters in skyrim, but you can't count on it. but that actress who played a space pirate on a canceled syfy series? that intriguing character actor whose highest-profile credit is an ER episode? that guy who does nothing but villains in cheap action flicks and indie horror, but has a spark of talent that somehow always transcends the bad material?

you may be able to get That Guy. and they will be so happy to have the gig, and they'll do an amazing job, and you'll get to say you worked with one of your faves. you can tell them they were in some cartoon that saved your childhood and they'll be thrilled you even remember it. everybody wins, and all you have to do is see a diamond in something kinda weird!

[nihilnovisubsole]

hello! i'm asking on hehalf of a friend who wants to get into narrative design (specifically a position at IOI) but has no clue where to start, how to apply, what to include in his portfolio and CV (as he hasn't worked for someone before in that field) and i was wondering if you had any advice? pointers or what he could include to get potentially under their radar. thank you in advance!

hey! thanks for writing in!

it brings me no pleasure to say this, but if your friend has never had a gamedev job before, i'd tell him not to apply to that IOI opening. spare himself the heartache and save the effort for getting experience elsewhere. believe me, i used to hear the kind of advice i'm relaying now, and it made me furious. i hoped i'd never have to be the one giving it.

it may help to have context. any big-deal studio who posts a narrative job is going to get a minimum of several hundred applicants. if they have a reputation for being good at narrative, it could be as high as a thousand. larian (the bg3 people) probably did numbers like that with their recent opening. they tend to ask for three to five years of relevant gamedev experience, unless it's for a senior job. then it could be seven or more. wherever your friend applies, he'll be competing with hungry aspirants like him, veterans whose game got canceled, veterans who want a change of pace, devs who already live in that country and don't need a work visa, devs who are friends with the team because they worked together eight years ago, and, unfortunately, the way the industry's been these days, people who worked on Mega Unicorn All The Awards and got laid off. gross.

should studios take more chances on promising juniors? yeah, they should, but they often don't, and the reasons can be more complicated than "we're evil for the sake of it." sometimes they ask for a lot of experience because a project has hit the skids, so they need someone who can run in and put out fires with no training. sometimes they would love to promote someone internally, but some corporate who-knows-what is preventing them from doing it. (standard disclaimer that i'm not subtweeting anything. these are stories i've heard tons of times from many different devs.) the court intrigue matters, but it doesn't feel like it on the other side, where a rejection is a rejection and no job is no job. it's a shame.

i'm not saying any of that because i want your friend to give up. i'm saying it because i want him to succeed eventually. if he's really starting from nothing, punching in IOI's weight class could take a while, so i encourage him to dig in and get comfortable. he could start by looking into a narrative mentorship or groups that run workshops. i did a pixelles portfolio workshop, and it was great. it couldn't hurt to learn some tools. twine is the standard rec, though i've heard unreal looks great on a resume because many studios use it and writers who can wrestle with it are rare. but in the end, even if your friend snags a rec on the inside, it'll hinge on that portfolio. that means projects, projects, and more projects, and smaller gigs until something clicks.

i applied to obsidian in 2021, so i can't promise any of my portfolio advice is still relevant. the goalposts move from year to year and studio to studio. samples that are crucial for call of duty would be irrelevant to a dating sim. this is why i'm pointing your friend toward workshops and mentorship: they stay up-to-date on this stuff and can give more tailored help. in the meantime, a good friend of mine made a video about how to make a game writing portfolio if he'd like to check it out.

as a parting shot, i'll also link this bluesky thread where my other friend addresses a lot of the anxieties i've brought up here. she's not afraid to be frank, but remains optimistic that your friend should keep his options open and keep trying. i hope he smashes through that ceiling one day!

[nihilnovisubsole]

just finished avowed and im sending you and the team ten billion kissies. thank you for all the work you put in and for creating yet another stellar entry in the setting of eora! (and yes im also going to be another voice in the chorus of "hey man if you wanna do more of this or a dlcs you WILL have my money)

you're too kind. i have no idea what the DLC situation is - not that i'd be able to say if i did - but messages like these never get old. the good news is, i doubt obsidian will let me sit around and write fanfic and fix dolls all day, so we'll have to see what they let me get up to next!

[nihilnovisubsole]

is there a reason why marius is so…cringey? i love the other three but he’s so uncomfortable to talk to

hey, that's not very nice! i have a soft spot for marius, but i also spent three years hearing his writer talk about him. YMMV.

so, first things first: marius shipped with a really bad bug where a lot of his early-game conversations weren't firing. people remarked that he was weirdly closed-off until the last few regions, and it's because he had all these interactions the game straight up wasn't giving them. his writer has been working with other designers to figure out how to fix it, but i'm not sure whether that fix has gone in yet. in the meantime, you can always write to the comms team and inquire about it. i promise humans read those messages.

from a writing standpoint, i won't spoil anything, but marius has a good reason to be the way he is. there's something in his backstory that makes him treat his own survival, and the survival of his charges, with such extreme seriousness. it's also why he's so anxious and awkward in social situations: he's running from something, and his mind won't even let him remember what.

marius is most rewarding to players who are willing to keep poking through those unconscious walls and encouraging him to be vulnerable. i mean, as i say, i'm biased, but his writing was a labor of love. stick with it!

[nihilnovisubsole]

just wanted to send a big THANK YOU to your team. i finished avowed today (after 104 hours, admittedly a few hours was spent recording footage and taking screenshots so i could scream on discord about them) and it's been a wonderful experience. and also. like if obsidian is putting out feelers on whether people would want a dlc/expansions down the road just know that at least one person (me) would play it 100%. thank you again!!!

are you really playing an RPG if you're not going gremlin mode about it to your friends on discord. you're too kind 🥺 i'll pass on your thanks!