"And now you've given me, given me Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams" - Johnny Hates Jazz

AAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Where the FUCK have I been for the last month? SHIT. Let me tell you, my fucking anger guage is BEYOND MAXIMUM. I'll tell you where I've been all this time. I've been at work. I've been at work playing a Video Game. I've been at work playing a fucking video game which disgusts me to my core. And all the while, my childhood dreams have been crumbling to dust around me.

Since I was 4 years old I've been playing video games. Since I was 8 years old all I wanted to do when I "grew up" was to make video games. Now I'm 23, I'm that much closer to realising my childhood dreams... but I'm not sure I want them anymore. I feel dirty. I feel my fucking dreams have been raped by the fucking thing which fucks EVERYTHING up to shit and will NEVER BE CONQUERED. I have been fucked by MASS MARKET APPEAL.

Shit, Now I sound like Archon with all those capital letters. but I'm so fucking pissed off I cannot convey my anger adequately.

Lets' go back in time a few years. Back to the early 90's. A small UK company called "Codemasters" releases a series of games for the 8 Bit microcomputers like the Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commadore 64. The games are fun to play, and look nice (considering the limitations of the system). The wonderful thing about the company is that they were formed from 2 brothers who started programming in their bedroom. Codie's games were some of the finest moments of my childhood.

Fast forward to December 2002. I am gobsmacked when I land a job working for Codemasters. OK, so it's only as a QA Technician (That's Games Tester to you guys), but shit! I'm working for the guys I saw as GODS all through my childhood, and I've started on the road to becomming a games designer / programmer. And I get paid to play Video Games all day! How sweet is that. 

Right, so what's my first job. Snooker. OK, not the most wonderful concept, but it's a start right? I've got to be enthusiativc about this else I'll get nowhere. I get cracking and all seems OK. Game should be released End of January and then it's on to something else. If only. My job as games tester is to find bugs - glitches in the system that prevent proper operation. These range in severity from misaligned textures to full on system crashes. When I find a bug, I note it in the database, the programming team fixes it, I double check that it's fixed and then it's sorted, badabing, badaboom. But something's not right. Because for every bug they fix, an extra 5 appear. This was fine at the start og the project, but as projected release date nears, the list isn't getting any shorter. 

So I'm called in to do overtime. Fair enough, we need to stick to deadlines, right? It rapidly becomes clear that there's no way in hell the game will hit projected release date. So it's pushed back a month. And the whole cycle starts over. It's now nearing the end of May, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. So the overtime continues and the free time diminishes.

Normally I wouldn't be bothered by this at all. But I started thinking about this game. It's a video game. A video game simulation of Snooker. It's incredibly realistic. But why oh fucking why is it even being fucking made? Snooker is not prohibitively expensive to play. It is not dangerous or illegal. If you want to play snooker, go to the fucking snooker hall and play snooker for real. It's much more fun than pressing some buttons and staring at your fucking TV.

Why is this game being made, when there already exist TWO snooker games made by the same company, on the same format? Indeed, what is different in this game to the previous games? WHY FUCKING BOTHER? Why? Because the games will sell, apparently. People will buy lots of copies of this boring pointless game and the company will make lots of profit which it doesn't need. Why do people buy it? Because the company makes it. Why does the company make it? Because people buy it. And so on and so forth.

OK, so maybe it's just a money spinner - the company has some other original titles in the works, right? Wrong. The only things in production are sports license update games and fucking sequels. Nothing original WHATSOEVER. it's the same old fucking games as were released last year, with the words "2003" after their titles. And it's the same old fucking story everywhere.

WHY? Nobody is willing to take a chance. Ever since Gaming hit the big time when Playstation was marketed to death, games have got shorter, easier and generally more fucking similar. Oh, sure there's still some great companies making some original games: Capcom, Sega, Nintendo... Wait a second, they're all Japanese. Of course they're all Japanese. The Japanese people are wonderful. They willingly enbrace whatever the future has to offer them. They're not bogged down by tradition, or "rules of conduct". The Japanese are willing to take a chance. 

Here in Great Britain, the only thing driving the majority of the games companies is money. "Let's make a clone of this best selling game. Who gives a shit if it sucks? It looks like [insert popular game], and we can just market it to hell and back". And it fucking works. The shittest games get bought by the truckload because PEOPLE ARE FUCKING STUPID. Sequels are generally boring, dull, uninspired and exist simply because the original sold well. If the general public was sensible, they'd avoid these games and buy something fresh. But people are fucking stupid, so they buy anything with a 2, 3, 4 or whatever after the title. 

If the public is told that a game is great, they'll fully accept that view. Fair enough, if that information is disseminated by an objective reviewer. But they are getting thin on the ground. Why? Because marketing teams usually only offer their games for review by magazines if they can be sure of a good score (and why use "review scores" anyway? they don't telkl you anything). And so the games get reviewed, the people believe the hype, and the entire fucking industry gets dragged down even fucking further.

So here I am. My dreams crubling around me, but I'm not going down without a fight. Give it 5 years, and I'll be making the best fucking games you ever saw. On my own if I have to. Fuckers.

There's so many other things about that company that fuck me off, but I'll likely get sacked if they get wind of this, and I'm pretty sure the managers don't like me anyway (All because I was reading a book during a powercut).

The is one thing that has kept me going. Tsoek Cheung, a friend from work, has a motto that will see anyone through any situation. It works for me and it will work for you. 

3 simple words is all:

"Take no shit."