Movin' on up, nothing can stop me

Ah, nothing brightens up a dreary Monday morning quite like the dulcet mid-90's tones of Heather Small.

The news hot off the press is that i'm leaving Anonymous Surrey Based Microsoft Subsidiary (ASBMS from here on in). I got a great job offer from another company just down the road, and i leave at the end of this week.

It was a sad thing to do but made so much easier by the recent round of redundancies. I reckon about 80% of my friends went in that - i sure know how to pick them. However that still didn't make it particularly easy. Probably the hardest bit was breaking the news to my boss Gary. He had known about my potential plans a good month ago but things had gone quiet for one reason or another, and after that point as far as we were both concerned I was staying.

Things soon hotted up again, the deal was back on and things moved fairly quickly. I grabbed Gary for a "chat" and i think as soon as i said "can we go somewhere private" he pretty much knew what was going on. The conversation went something like this:

[We enter a room. Jonny looks sheepish. Gary twigs]
Gary: So, do i have to punch you?

Gary likes me a lot and i like him (Not like that, he's married and i don't think the age gap would work), but he's sad to see me go. I'm sad to go as well i guess. This was my first job in the games industry and i've learnt a lot, and more importantly made some great friends. However it began to dawn on me over the last few weeks that ASBMS isn't somewhere i really want to be any more. On the contrary, as soon as i saw what the new company was doing i fell in love it and the more i thought about it the more passionate i became. I suppose the end result was inevitable.

The upshot of all of this is that i have a week left at ASBMS and i start at the new place on Wednesday 3rd of May. Exciting stuff :)

Pointless Disruption Of Workflow

Well, it would be a disruption of workflow if i had any work to do. I suppose there are some people, somewhere, whose work was interrupted by us having to move to a new office for two weeks.

Ah, good times.

Essentially we move out to a now vacant office (made possible by the redundancy of 50 people, cheers guys) so our one can be gutted / renovated for another team to move in. And then we have to move again into their old office. I don't know what happens to old/new/current (depending on your point of view) which is then left empty once again.

Now we are owned by Microsoft we clearly have bags of money for this kind of tomfoolery. Where will it end? Hopefully stupid amounts of cash will continue to roll our way and we can have enough toilets, and other ridiculous frivolities like that.

The other side of the coin

Another perspective on the buyout

Good times :)

Buy Buy Buy! Sell Sell Sell!

If you follow the video game press (or any press at all) you may have spotted, tucked away in a corner, that we (Anonymous Surrey Based Game Developer) got bought by Microsoft yesterday.

Yay i guess. To be honest i can't really see any negatives for us, as employees, at this stage at least. Obviously it was hugely positive for the directors as they got a decent bit of cash out of their shares in the company (and no, i don't know the sum we went for, but anything between $50m and $100m seems reasonable). For those at the coal face, life continues as normal.

We had a party last night (ironically it was a leaving party thrown by a bunch of (ex)staffers for the people who were leaving as a result of the consultation) and as such the numbers in the office are somewhat diminished - and for those who are in, it is many people's last day.

There are many tangible benefits from now being a tiny cog in the proverbial clockface of Microsoft productivity (you like that? I just made it up. Bet you couldn't tell, could you?). We get free xbox 360s (woo!) and now we are a first party developer, free copies of all first party games. Also we can get massive discounts at the microsoft store (as one designer put it, in front of many senior MS honchos, he was eager to replace his "questionable" copy of Office), and access to the Microsoft libraries. If you don't know, MS has their own printing company, Microsoft Press, which produces a lot of stuff which isn't seen by the outside world - so this is a definite plus.

Microsoft were firm that they wanted to retain "the culture" of our place of work, which can only be a good thing. However, how much this will remain true a year or so down the line is of course yet to be seen. Somebody asked "will their be permanent Microsoft people on site" and my friend remarked quietly, "Yeah, us".

I suppose it hasn't quite sunk in yet in that respect.

Photo diary of skiing trip part 3:


Took this from the balcony of my apartment, i thought it came out nicely.

A Mile And A Half Up

Here is a photo i took last week in the Alpes - it's from near the top of a mountain called Les Perrons (2620 metres):


The resort i was in is called La Toussuire and is totally ace - The town itself is quite small but the ski area itself is huge (310km). That's not an area though is it. Interesting.

One of the most interesting things about the place is that the French have kept it almost exclusively French. The upshot of this is that we were about the only English people in town (seriously) and everything was decidedly less Anglicised - which was rather refreshing after the occasional excesses of the almost ex-pat outpost nature of places like Val d'Isere, Les Arc and Val Thorens. 

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

I have just got back to Anonymous Surrey Based Game Developer Towers from a lovely holiday in the snow:


I return to work feeling wonderfully refreshed and actually able to get out of bed in the morning, which is a lovely change.

Of course i return to a slightly different work to that which i left - many of the people who were on the cusp of leaving before have now gone, which leaves something of a void in the office. I feel like i've missed out on some monumental exodus.

However, all is not lost. I have spoken to a couple of now sadly ex-colleagues and it seems the mood is now one of cautious optimism. ASBGD have been very supportive throughout the process, organising meetings with recruitment agencies, who in turn have organised presentations by a number of major game developers. Already people are getting interviews; some have already got jobs, which is just fantastic.

Whatever the feeling about ASBGD is in the game playing community (it seems to vary wildly depending on the quality / integrity of the hype surrounding our latest title), within the game development community it seems that having experience here is certainly advantageous; it's almost like we are respected as developers!

In fact, being slightly less cautiously optimistic (more optimistic?) a forced move may even be advantageous to people. Within one company there is a limited choice of career paths, and these may be blocked by default due to senior, long standing, key members of the company holding positions that one would otherwise be interested in. Moving out of that company of course demolishes this so-called glass ceiling, and (i hope) will enable people to get positions they deserve in companies that treat them well.