Leaving The Comfort Zone

Originally Posted March 11, 2014

So for a long while I’ve been examining what direction I want to go, both personally and professionally, into the future.

It’s certainly been a crazy ride these past five years, with the success of Dear Esther providing ample resources to allow me to continue on with indie development if I so desired, but during that time I’ve been also battling an increasing feeling of isolation, both personally and professionally; For the past five years, 90% of my days have been spent working alone in my rather pokey (although originally affordable) 1-bed apartment. My conversations with people existing mostly through Skype or via email, and with most of my close friends moving on or away from my sleepy home town, I’m left wondering what the hell I’m still doing here…

Initially I thought I could distract myself with another project, the rationale being that if I had something new to work on, some kind of focus or long-term goal, that this feeling would be less distracting. However, in facing such a task, I’ve also found myself also facing the prospect of again working alone for another 5 years…

So I’ve decided I need a break from the solitary life I’ve been living these past years. I think I need to be around people for a while; A lot of my energy and enthusiasm comes from being in the presence of people, sharing different ideas, methods and techniques, different views, outlooks and inspirations, and mostly by just being out of my comfort zone (which I have very much slipped into).

Over the past 11 months I’ve been in the process of applying for a US work visa, which was successfully approved a couple of months ago, and consequently, as of March 20th,I will taking a break from indie development and moving to Seattle to spend some time working on cool stuff with a company I’ve long since admired: Valve Software.

So what does this mean for DE Unity? The bulk of the port is done, with just some backend and scripting stuff remaining, so I should be easily able to finish things off in my spare time, plus I have the team of talented people at TCR to help me along the way if needed. So things will very much carry on as normal with that.

As for my indie endeavours? I still have things I want to do in the future, both independently and with TCR, so I know I’ll come back to it again someday, and have no doubt I will be still tinkering with stuff on the side for some time… but for now I think I just need a change… to make hats… cuz that’s what Valve do these days right?