So this isn't really about my time as a motorcyclist or anything. If only, right? The look on your faces if I was. Sorry, but in this post I will talk about my short time in the industry with WePlay.Media. This is a continuation of the 1/28/16 post. Warning, it's a bit long. tl;dr at the bottom.
Just to throw this out there before I begin, I just want to say that all of this is from my own experience. If I end up disclosing something I shouldn't have, it's because I never ended up signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and was never informed of what I should or should not say. I will use my own personal discretion when explaining the details and try to avoid some sensitive information. With that being said, I will try to be as glass door (and salt free) as possible. Let's dive in.
I started interning for WePlay about a month before I graduated college. I met the COO of the company at a game dev mixer/office opening party. This was my first experience meeting someone at this capacity and landing some sort of position essentially because of a funny anecdote I had that had to do with backyard surgery (pm me for the story if you'd like to hear it). Anyway, I got myself an interview, and because I am so awesome I got the internship. The position was for a generic game designer. I didn't get any specific duties until I started. I had high hopes...at the time.
I linked up with the lead designer of the company, and he essentially gave me all the work that needed to be done from here on out. My first and only job for a while was modifying the documentation on the company wiki where all of the decisions were being made. Oh, and the game I was helping to make was MotoGP: Championship Quest. A mobile motorcycle racing game. It was tedious, but it felt nice being a part of something. After a while, I became the UI/UX mock-up designer for the game. I became THE guy when people needed something added or when people had questions about the mock-up. I did this for three whole months straight in addition to other small jobs I had there. Forgive me for the super long post, guys. We are getting to the juicy bits.
After about two months, I started to lose steam. My bosses were not treating me very well. I mostly got complaints instead of constructive criticisms such as telling me to do better, instead of telling me how I can do handle the project better. That combined with obtaining no pay was very discouraging and made it hard for me to go in a lot of the days. Don't get me started when they replaced the water bottles with Monster(small stuff). Anyway, it was rough. The only thing I looked forward to were my two friends (one of them being the talented Amie Lynn). After a while of thinking back, I started to learn and understand why everyone (upper management, not my friends) there acted the way they did. Everyone was stressed. They felt they had a clear cut goal, and they never seemed to make it work. Everyone had something they needed, but it was just out of grasp. I can understand that.
I got to meet (and chose not to meet) some interesting people...like Sonny Barger. Some of you may know him on Sons of Anarchy...a lot more of you know him as the founder of the Hell's Angels. I'll be honest, I didn't approve. As a person who considered a career in law enforcement, it really didn't fit, and I didn't feel safe. I don't think my fellow employees felt safe either. My employers felt like everything was on the up and up so they continued to work with them. I support violent video games, and other stuff, but working on a game where a notorious ex-con was the poster-guy was out of my comfort zone. In a meeting with his director, I learned to not call motorcycle gangs a "gang". Really, don't do it. I also met some people from Zynga, and Steve Harvey's publicist. Now she was weird. Due to the adult nature of the publicist story, I can not share it here (but you can pm me and I'll be more than happy to share).
At this point, you may be asking "If things were decent, why did you leave?" I'll be honest. I was fed up and couldn't handle it. I was angry and felt as though I earned no respect. They wanted me to stay, but I couldn't. For four months I took verbal abuse, harsh criticism, and (what I felt) an unsafe work environment for basically nothing but experience. I felt as though I earned some compensation, maybe some gas money.I came in not knowing much, to contributing my own thoughts on the project. One day I approached the COO about my work performance, and possibly having me signing something so I (and another friend working there) could get credit. He said I was fantastic, and that I should stay on for the whole project. In return, I asked about payment...he went silent. At the time, I figured it would happen. He paid artists virtually pennies, and he outsourced his work to the Philippines. Really, I felt as though I had no hope in getting paid, but I had to try. But yeah, he said there was no way. Defeated, I felt I had to put in my two weeks. It was costing me money to get there at this point. I loved to do the work, but it was difficult to pay the bills and student loans. For the rest of the week, I thought about staying. Seriously. But the next week was the final straw. A new intern walked in. After some of the other interns who were paid asked him if he got paid, he replied "Yeah...Why?" I was done (still a little raw about that).
But now, about six months later, I feel as though I can look back on it with some clarity. I learned a lot about the industry and what I am capable of. Four months, that's all it took. It was short, but I swear I got a lot more wiser. Though, at the time I was there, if you asked how I felt about the experience, I'd be upset. More livid than anything. But, I met friends, I got interesting stories, and experience. So I definitely got what I was looking for. However, if you were to ask me if I were to go back, or if I could change things would I have left? No. I would have done the same thing. I believe nothing is worth doing if it truly kills you to do it. People who knew me at the time saw me stressed, angry, the whole nine. I just wasn't happy. If there was some serious pay-off, maybe, but to me at the time there wasn't. I had to take what I could, and leave. I will say, having credit on a shipped title is nice, though. As you can see, it hasn't discouraged me from making games. If anything, it has made me more valuable as a designer, and I feel as a person. The experience really taught me to try and take the positive from a very negative experience. I pass this on to you. Even though you go may go through tough times, it's important to take the good from the bad. Or at least try to. Trust me, you'll feel better for it. Thanks for reading this long post and sticking around.
tl;dr
- Interned for WePlay.Media
- Did cool stuff
- A lot of personal bad stuff happened
- Felt I had to leave
- I learned to take the good from the really bad, and I feel better about my experience.
Expect MotoGP: Championship Edition in February 2016!...I hope, seriously. It's been delayed 1,000 times. Look for my name in the credits! :D
I started interning for WePlay about a month before I graduated college. I met the COO of the company at a game dev mixer/office opening party. This was my first experience meeting someone at this capacity and landing some sort of position essentially because of a funny anecdote I had that had to do with backyard surgery (pm me for the story if you'd like to hear it). Anyway, I got myself an interview, and because I am so awesome I got the internship. The position was for a generic game designer. I didn't get any specific duties until I started. I had high hopes...at the time.
I linked up with the lead designer of the company, and he essentially gave me all the work that needed to be done from here on out. My first and only job for a while was modifying the documentation on the company wiki where all of the decisions were being made. Oh, and the game I was helping to make was MotoGP: Championship Quest. A mobile motorcycle racing game. It was tedious, but it felt nice being a part of something. After a while, I became the UI/UX mock-up designer for the game. I became THE guy when people needed something added or when people had questions about the mock-up. I did this for three whole months straight in addition to other small jobs I had there. Forgive me for the super long post, guys. We are getting to the juicy bits.
After about two months, I started to lose steam. My bosses were not treating me very well. I mostly got complaints instead of constructive criticisms such as telling me to do better, instead of telling me how I can do handle the project better. That combined with obtaining no pay was very discouraging and made it hard for me to go in a lot of the days. Don't get me started when they replaced the water bottles with Monster(small stuff). Anyway, it was rough. The only thing I looked forward to were my two friends (one of them being the talented Amie Lynn). After a while of thinking back, I started to learn and understand why everyone (upper management, not my friends) there acted the way they did. Everyone was stressed. They felt they had a clear cut goal, and they never seemed to make it work. Everyone had something they needed, but it was just out of grasp. I can understand that.
I got to meet (and chose not to meet) some interesting people...like Sonny Barger. Some of you may know him on Sons of Anarchy...a lot more of you know him as the founder of the Hell's Angels. I'll be honest, I didn't approve. As a person who considered a career in law enforcement, it really didn't fit, and I didn't feel safe. I don't think my fellow employees felt safe either. My employers felt like everything was on the up and up so they continued to work with them. I support violent video games, and other stuff, but working on a game where a notorious ex-con was the poster-guy was out of my comfort zone. In a meeting with his director, I learned to not call motorcycle gangs a "gang". Really, don't do it. I also met some people from Zynga, and Steve Harvey's publicist. Now she was weird. Due to the adult nature of the publicist story, I can not share it here (but you can pm me and I'll be more than happy to share).
At this point, you may be asking "If things were decent, why did you leave?" I'll be honest. I was fed up and couldn't handle it. I was angry and felt as though I earned no respect. They wanted me to stay, but I couldn't. For four months I took verbal abuse, harsh criticism, and (what I felt) an unsafe work environment for basically nothing but experience. I felt as though I earned some compensation, maybe some gas money.I came in not knowing much, to contributing my own thoughts on the project. One day I approached the COO about my work performance, and possibly having me signing something so I (and another friend working there) could get credit. He said I was fantastic, and that I should stay on for the whole project. In return, I asked about payment...he went silent. At the time, I figured it would happen. He paid artists virtually pennies, and he outsourced his work to the Philippines. Really, I felt as though I had no hope in getting paid, but I had to try. But yeah, he said there was no way. Defeated, I felt I had to put in my two weeks. It was costing me money to get there at this point. I loved to do the work, but it was difficult to pay the bills and student loans. For the rest of the week, I thought about staying. Seriously. But the next week was the final straw. A new intern walked in. After some of the other interns who were paid asked him if he got paid, he replied "Yeah...Why?" I was done (still a little raw about that).
But now, about six months later, I feel as though I can look back on it with some clarity. I learned a lot about the industry and what I am capable of. Four months, that's all it took. It was short, but I swear I got a lot more wiser. Though, at the time I was there, if you asked how I felt about the experience, I'd be upset. More livid than anything. But, I met friends, I got interesting stories, and experience. So I definitely got what I was looking for. However, if you were to ask me if I were to go back, or if I could change things would I have left? No. I would have done the same thing. I believe nothing is worth doing if it truly kills you to do it. People who knew me at the time saw me stressed, angry, the whole nine. I just wasn't happy. If there was some serious pay-off, maybe, but to me at the time there wasn't. I had to take what I could, and leave. I will say, having credit on a shipped title is nice, though. As you can see, it hasn't discouraged me from making games. If anything, it has made me more valuable as a designer, and I feel as a person. The experience really taught me to try and take the positive from a very negative experience. I pass this on to you. Even though you go may go through tough times, it's important to take the good from the bad. Or at least try to. Trust me, you'll feel better for it. Thanks for reading this long post and sticking around.
tl;dr
- Interned for WePlay.Media
- Did cool stuff
- A lot of personal bad stuff happened
- Felt I had to leave
- I learned to take the good from the really bad, and I feel better about my experience.
Expect MotoGP: Championship Edition in February 2016!...I hope, seriously. It's been delayed 1,000 times. Look for my name in the credits! :D