作者：Alexander Brandon

Austin游戏开发社区具有一个强大的核心。在次举办的IGDA分会具有非常高的参与度。而分会会长John Henderson在最近几年里更是努力致力于活跃该社区。所以是时候将这位伟大的功臣推到幕前了。让我们先从一些背景聊起。

JH：自从2008年夏天以来我便一直住在Austin，但在此之前我也曾参加过一些与电子游戏开发相关的活动，主要是通过当地的IGDA分会所组织，同 时也有Austin Community College。我在IGDA-Austin会长的任命是从2009年9月到2013年12月。在这期间，IGDA-Austin便是我在参加 Austin周边各种活动谈话的焦点，从而也导致许多人把我的作用看的过重了。尽管我花了很多时间在参加Richard Garriott的夏日野餐，像Catalyst和Captivate Conference等职业促进活动，以及与KLRU Studio 6A一起组织的The End Of The World座谈小组讨论，或者演讲系列Microtalks等等。但是我并不是为了想要出名或得到重视。相反地，我所做的只是为了与Austin以及网络 上的一些人保持友好的关系。这真的很有趣，但我也需要休息下了。

John Henderson（from gamasutra）

AB：你是否总是参与到游戏开发中？

JH：当1998年我带着新闻学学位从大学毕业时，那可能是你可以买到一台没有调制解调器或网卡的新计算机的最后一年。之后我进入了报刊业，开始作为一名记者生活着，同时扮演着网页设计师与文字编辑，正是在那时候世界上的媒介消费正在发生着根本性的改变，很明显这种改变是从所有权开始的，高级领导甚至不知道他们面对的是什么，大多数人开始为了站稳脚跟而努力奋斗，甚至是伴随着长期存在的区域授权。如果1998年并未决定报纸将成为网页的第二补充物，它们便会遭遇麻烦。

然而我仍会告诉那些想要靠文字谋生的作者们在报刊业找份工作。在此提供免费的劳动力。找到一个能够带给你挑战并不会让你只是满足于自己能做的事的编辑。一旦你开始这么做，你便会想要做得更好。关于这一建议我已经获得一个成功的案例了。

编写游戏内容就好似偶然获得一份友谊，主要是面向没有编辑的全新网络而大胆地组合我所认为有意义的一些观点。我并不是作为玩家而进行编写，但我会与一些非常了解MMOPRG的硬核游戏操作者交朋友，一开始是《网络创世纪》，之后是《魔剑》以及《创世纪世界：在线》（在关闭前是由《创世纪在线2》发展而来）。我参加了两届E3大会（1999年和2000年）以及一些Asutin游戏开发者大会，我也预见了一些愿意花钱雇我为其面向CrossroadsXRG（变成了Warcry）以及Gamasutra等粉丝网站编写内容的人。如此我便能够获得一些额外的编写费用，同时我也正准备着离开报刊行业去谋取更适合的工作，2008年，我收到了一份能让我搬到Asutin并住在这里的全职工作。

那时候，我的生活只是关于保持内容。我有一份能够支付日常生活费用且不需要每周工作超过40个小时（至少大多数情况下是如此）的工作。我的大多数朋友都在Austin，这里也有我喜欢做的许多事。我并不认为自己是一个富有创造性的人，但我却可以与许多具有创造性的人进行交流。在某种程度上，这是我作为记者的时候一直在做的事，即使现在我已经不需要在基于截止期限而写东西了。我的朋友都是那种能够忍受我所提出的及其尖锐问题的人。

AB：Austin为什么这么独特呢？

JH：44年前，一个名为Willie Nelson的人在Nashville成为一名流行歌曲作家后便回到了德克萨斯州。同时，来自Austin Town Lake以南的一些充满进取心的人接管了一个国民兵军械库。他们将其改造成下等的酒馆，并为其命名Armadillo World Headquarters。那是1970年的美国，即公民权利和反文化运动逐渐衰弱之时，但一场不得人心的战争却仍持续着，而能够容下那些富有创造性的人地方便是旧金山，这里的低价也逐渐变得昂贵起来。所以在关于一些德克萨斯州的消息得到证实后，许多人纷纷涌向了Austin—-你来到这里是因为对自己来说其它事情已经不再具有意义，你需要重新寻找目标并换个地方呼吸下不一样的空气。也许在这之后你还会继续搬家。但是就像有人说过的，当所有人都朝地狱涌去时，我会选择前往德克萨斯。

人们总是喜欢抱怨某些人基于某种方式行动，但如果只是着眼于这里的某些人，我们便很难说出他们会出现在这里的原因，除非你与之进行交谈。有许多推动他们选择这里而不是其它地方的原因。回到70年代，除了德克萨斯大学和政府（城市，县，联邦等等），这里就没有什么突出的设施了。而现在，武术产业，艺术，科学和技术等如雨后春笋般涌现了出来。有来自AMD和Freescals和三星的半导体。也有来自Rodriguez，Linklater，Judge以及Malick的电影和电视节目。在Alamo Drafthouse观看它们，或者在城镇里的每个酒吧听音乐看喜剧。我们可以发现所有人在参加了SXSW，Austin City Limits，Fun Fun Fun Fest，Fantastic Fest或RTX等任何活动后都会逃到边缘深呼吸。这是高科技与创造性事业的交叉路口，许多人都希望在此拥有立足之地。尽管这里的租金仍然很便宜，并且人们仍然能够轻松地应对周边的情况，但是一旦人们选择离开时，他们便注定要失去这一切。

人们已经在Austin创造了25年以上的电子游戏。但还有许多我们喜欢待在这里的原因，做着我们想做的事，而不只是关于工作。

如果你因为被解雇，项目失败，或项目发行了而你不再有其他事能做而破产，那你也不会饿死。

虽然并非你在Austin所遇到的所有人都能够带给你直接的帮助，不过他们至少会真诚地对待你。

只有少数的一些地方能够诞生出一些真正专业的游戏开发者。但这并非创造出Austin独特性的唯一元素。

AB：对于这些活动你有何反应？人们是否能够理解它们的益处？

JH：对于这样的问题我并不能做出准确的回答，尽管我想要成为那种能够具有强大号召力的人，但这种情况却并未发生，而在某种程度上我也庆幸并未如此。少数参加了这些活动并觉得很开心的人也这么对我说。我喜欢看到这些活动一起出现，并将用户和参与者聚集在一起。最终，它们便成为了我想要参与的活动。所以如果我参与其中，我便能够理解其好处。

如果你指的是游戏开发者及其对于社区的态度，以及这些活动是如何对他们产生个人与专业影响的话，我想说的是，他们会记得在家和工作之外存在着这么一个世界，这是大多数情况下倍受欢迎的分心元素，特别是当他们能够与做着同样的事但却是基于不同项目的同行进行交流之时。从这一角度来看这里有许多值得学习的内容，你们可以在这些不熟悉的环境下从一些不可预期的交流中获得各种各样的灵感。

但是如果你指的是游戏开发者，那便要知道他们是一群忙碌的人，通常都不愿花时间去做日常行程以外的事。如果你指的是Austin的游戏开发者，他们更是一些需要从我们平常所做的事之外的无数任务中再做出选择的大忙人。

AB：人们是如何知道该做什么以及该去哪里，全是通过Facebook吗？

JH：最有可能的方法便是大多数人将成为对于任何人来说可行的方法，一人以上便能负责消息的传播。社交媒体很廉价，但是做任何事都是要花费时间的。我对只使用Facebook而感到内疚，只因为它是个廉价，多功能，且具有许多用户的平台。IGDA-Austin网页（http://austingamedevs.org/about）能够链接到任何地方。

AB：在2012年至2013年的裁员后，你是否认为Austin中出现了许多冷漠的人？

JH：比较对象是什么？2004年至2005年，当Austin的游戏开发核心遭遇关闭时？当艺电关闭Origin，微软关闭Digital Anvil以及Eidos关闭Ion Storm时，Austin中有一半的游戏制作者失去了工作，

任何记得这些事的人都会知道这是一种周期性事件，这不只是出现于Austin。8年前发生在Austin的事也于2012年出现在温哥华。但在几个月后，我们听说了一些备受瞩目的新员工的出现，一些已建立的小型商店在这场风暴中存活了下来，并且可能在幕后还有一些我们未曾听说过的新员工。2013年是重塑的一年，这意味着几乎没有什么新发展，但一些工作室开始增补员工了（游戏邦注：特别是Wargaming.net，尽管其Austin办公室并不需要创造新游戏）。如果不是关于小规模或独立项目，那么在2013年Austin几乎未诞生什么新内容，除非你计算的是扩展包和DLC。

如果人们太过冷漠，他们可能只需要关心自己正在做什么的新视角及原因。像裁员这样的事都是些能够轻易写下的故事，就像任何人都喜欢在朋友被解雇时在社交媒体上分享这一消息，但是很多人都不知道这么做有什么意义。因为处在专业过度的人们经常不会暴露在公众面前，所以更难分享的消息应该是那些被解雇但却具有人们认可的能力的人在几个月内找到一份新工作，以及大多数想要留下来的人找到了留下来的方法。

这两个故事并不相同。上个月我在一个假日聚会上遇到一位为了一份工作搬离了Austin，然后又回到了这里的朋友。因为他是一位具有良好人际关系的资深设计师，他在Austin接到了2份工作邀请（即当对方公司听说他要回来时）。然而，就在今天，我的朋友Joe Houston发表了一篇有关其家人的身体健康问题以及作为独立开发者但却缺少公司利益而磨损了他关于完成《THE UNWRITTEN PASSAGE》的决心的博文时，我发现他其实并未关注于自己是否能够完成它。

对于我来说这并不是关于冷漠，即缺乏关心。如果有什么区别的话，这缺少的是确定性。但游戏开发是否具有这一元素？我想每个具有创造性的人都会欣赏那些帮自己扫清跑道的人，也会注意那些阻挡前进道路的人。但有时候做到这一点的最佳方法便是，不要让自己阻挡了自己的去路。

AB：你是如何看待Austin的独立开发场景？是否能够提供给那些正在进行独立开发或者想要加入这一行列的人相关建议？

JH：如果你将谈论游戏创造，那也没关系，但你应该保持游戏创造，即使你还不是一名游戏开发者。

我并不是一名游戏开发者。所以我想我的观点可能并不是那么有用。

我想许多人都认为游戏开发领域总是准备好并愿意接收那些没有经验或者没有社交关系和技能的人。我便曾鼓励许多前来Austin寻找机会并且还不清楚自己想在这里做些什么的人。就像一个接受过许多教育的咖啡师在Austin，或者其它租金并不便宜的地方都不会有太糟糕的待遇。而似乎西雅图在较早之前便已经达到了一个标准的最低薪资峰值了。

同时我也担心Austin的“独立精神”未能承担足够的一致愿景以及独立完成大部分工作的能力。这部分还算好的，但是刀刃的另一端是关于独立如何使你无视周边的一切，并丧失与别人互利合作的机会。

AB：对于这个不需要过高生活成本的区域投资情况如何？

JH：据说最近Austin迎来了一些投资基金，但它却不像加利福尼亚那样拥有强大的投机技术和娱乐投资文化。我听过一些致力于独立游戏开发的同行提过，有些投资者希望他们能够为了投资而搬到加利福尼亚，我也观察到一些在Austin建立起运营工作室的公司也曾在加利福尼亚留有投资的足迹，尽管大多数工作是运行于此。当然这不只是关于游戏开发—-AMD在Austin便有许多雇员，并且他们在此的加工厂也更大，但从技术上来看他们却是一家来自硅谷的公司。同时，三星，英特尔和苹果也都提高了在Austin的制造基础。

所以这一区域是具有资金的，但是美术和娱乐领域的人们却不知道如何利用它。其它基于软件的公司便通过自己的方法去获得所需要的资本，但是其中只有少数公司是以游戏作为自己的产品。考虑到硬核程序员在游戏领域的稀缺，你便会觉得创造软件对于他们来说便是一大机遇，即使他们并未制作游戏也能获得较高的报酬便享受周边环境。

我认为当地的资深程序员应该创建自己的工作室，并在有需要的时候接下外包工作。就像在最近几年，Midnight Studios, Steel Penny Games和Bluepoint Games等都致力于备受瞩目的项目中，但除非你对此有所了解，否则你便不会知道这些名字，甚至你可能根本不会知道它们是来自Austin。

Austin最需要的是更多能够运行业务的人，并雇佣所有想要继续住在这里，并扎根于此的创意人才和技术人才。虽然SXSW等活动将一些人带到了这里，但是活动结束后他们却都回到了自己的城市。或者更糟糕的是，有些人虽然留在了这里，但却不能适应这里缺少加利福尼亚般的投资环境，然后在不到一年时间里便打道回府。虽然我想说我们不需要这样的人，但事实上却不是如此—-我们只是需要一些更有耐心并愿意从基础开始做起的人。

AB：你已经提供给那些被解雇的人许多社交机会去推动他们的发展。你是否能够为某些大公司提供你的一些整体建议？

JH：努力赚钱，但不要一味地只知道赚钱。理解Austin在其多样性上的价值。当只有少数工作室会雇佣所有人的时候我们便已经在这里了，不管怎样我们都要报以感激的态度。只有努力赚钱你才能提升自己的生活自量，这样人们才也才会留在这里，并将这种信念带进他们的事业中。

如果有什么区别的话，便是我不认为大公司就应该获得更大的重视。大项目是来自那里，也有一些开发者是真心喜欢致力于大项目中。加之它们很有钱，所以他们经常是提供资源的源头。然而，智能手机的发展以及Steam的出现都证明了大项目将更具风险，并且并不只有大型游戏才是获取成功的关键。那些找到方法去赋予较小的团队权利去致力于小规模的项目的公司明确了自己的市场，并准确地将游戏带向市场—-他们是以较小的单位去衡量自己的成功。

如果Austin的更多公司能够更好地理解现实，我们将不再看到一些大型项目因为抵不住各种靠不住的风险而崩塌的情况。不要因为你只知道如何变大而一心只求大。确保你所创造的项目是在自己的能力范围内，然后为了别人而推动它的发展，并始终牢记自己在哪里，谁在你的前面而谁又在你旁边。

切忌盲目崇拜，如此你便能牢记与别人合作去获取共同利益。而关于之前提到的“独立精神”，如果存在任何方法能够帮助那些想知道存在什么资源并且能与谁合作的人，说实话，这里的活动便是最合适的选择，休闲，轻松，并能够为那些在黑暗中摸索着如何完成工作的人指明方向。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

An Interview with John Henderson

by Alexander Brandon

Interview with John Henderson

The Austin game development community has a strong heart. The IGDA chapter is involved and dedicated. And its chapter secretary, John Henderson, has done more in recent years to keep community alive than anyone I know. It’s time to put him in the spotlight. We’ll start with a little background.

JH) I’ve lived in Austin since the summer of 2008, but had gone to many functions related to video game development in Austin before that, mostly organized through the local IGDA chapter, as well as though Austin Community College. I was secretary for IGDA-Austin from September 2009 to December 2013. During that time, IGDA-Austin was my conversation starter at various events around the greater Austin area, which led a lot of people to think I was a lot more important than I was. While I got a lot of fulfillment out of volunteering my time at summer picnics at Richard Garriott’s property, career building events like Catalyst and Captivate Conference, the (Not) The End Of The World panel discussion show we did with KLRU at historic Studio 6A or my biggest deal, the speaker series Microtalks, I wasn’t pushing for a lot of notoriety or even recognition. As a result, the work I’ve done has just barely managed to stay relevant with a modicum of friendly folks in Austin and a few scattered throughout the Internet. It’s been fun, but I need a break.

AB) Were you always involved in games?

JH) When I graduated from college in 1998 with a journalism degree, that was probably the last year you could buy a new computer without either a modem or a network card. I entered the newspaper business, starting as a reporter and continuing as a page designer and copy editor, right at the start of when the world’s media consumption was fundamentally changing, and it was clear almost from the start that ownership and senior leadership had no idea what they were in for, and most would struggle as they never had before to stay relevant, even with long-lasting regional franchises. If a newspaper hadn’t decided by 1998 that the print product would Real Soon need to be the secondary supplement to the web, rather than the other way around, they were going to be in trouble.

Still, I will continue to tell any writers that want to make a living in words, to get a job at a newspaper. Offer to work for free. Find a real editor who will challenge you and not let you settle for what you can do. Starting out, you’ll want to get better. I’ve got at least one success story out of this advice.

Writing about games came as a result of friendships I made by accident, largely by being brazen and fearless enough to put together points of view I thought made sense, to a new Internet that had no editors. I wasn’t writing as a player myself, but I made friends with a lot of hardcore operators in the genre that would be known as MMORPG, first with Ultima Online and much later, Shadowbane and the ill-fated Ultima Worlds Online: Origin (what Ultima Online 2 became before it was shut down.) I went to two E3′s (1999 and 2000) and several Austin Game Development Conference, and I met a few people willing to pay me to write about them, for fansites such as CrossroadsXRG (which became Warcry) and Gamasutra. In turn, that was enough to get me a few more writing gigs on the side, and right around the time I was about ready to leave newspapers for good, I got an offer of a full-time job that enabled me to move to and live in Austin in 2008.

At this point in my life, it’s just about staying content. I have a job that pays my bills that doesn’t require me to be there more than 40 hours a week, at least not most of the time. I don’t have a family so I have time to spend on other things. Austin is where most of my friends are, and quite a lot of the things I like doing. I don’t consider myself a creative sort, but I can talk to lots of those who are. In a way, it’s the kind of thing I used to do all the time as a reporter, even though I’m not writing on a deadline anymore. My friends tend to be the sort that can put up with me asking them pointed questions long enough to realize I mean them no ill.

AB) What makes Austin unique?

JH) Forty-four years ago, a guy named Willie Nelson moved back to Texas after having made it big as a songwriter in Nashville. Around the same time, some enterprising folk south of Town Lake in Austin took over a National Guard armory built hogan-style, a kind of big cylinder cut in half and set on its flat end, with a rounded top. They turned it into a honky-tonk and called it the Armadillo World Headquarters. That was 1970, at that awkward time in America when the civil rights and counter-culture movements were clearly on the wane, but an unpopular war was still going on, and great places for creative people to live like Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco were starting to get pricey. So, as it turned out, a lot of them were moving to Austin, following a trend that had been true about Texas for more than a century before that — you go there when nothing else makes sense, you need to refocus and you want to take a breath. Maybe you’ll move on after that. But sometimes you want to say, you may all go to hell, I will go to Texas.

And as the story goes, the cowboys started growin’ their hair long, and the hippies started wearin’ hats and boots, and pretty soon they’d all be at an Armadillo show and you couldn’t tell ‘em apart.

It’s still like that in Austin. People like to grouse about certain folks acting one way or another, but just by looking at anyone here, it’s hard to tell why they’re here, unless you talk to them. There are lots more reasons to be here than there ever were. Back in the 70s, there really wasn’t much going on beyond the University of Texas and government (city, county, state, federal, etc.) Now there’s a load of industry, art and science and tech and more tech. Semiconductors from AMD and Freescale and Samsung. Movies and TV shows from Rodriguez and Linklater and Judge and Malick. Going to watch them at the Alamo Drafthouse, or music and comedy shows at every bar in town with a stage, which is pretty much all of them. Checking out all the people who pack the city for SXSW or Austin City Limits or Fun Fun Fun Fest or Fantastic Fest or RTX or any of the other events going on all the time, then escaping to the fringes so you have room to breathe again. This is a crossroads where high technology and creative enterprise intersect, and lots of people want a piece. The rent is still pretty cheap, too, and it could be a lot easier to get around, but people put up with a lot and miss it when they go away.

And people have been making video games in Austin for more than 25 years. But there are reasons to like being here, to do what you want to do most, that aren’t just about your job.

And if you’re broke and on your ass because you got laid off or your project got canned or your project shipped and there isn’t something else they need you to do, you might not starve.

And while not everyone you meet in Austin is going to be able to help you directly, they’ll at least care enough to treat you like a person.

There are few places where it has been possible to be a professional game developer, where all those things are true. It’s not just one thing that makes Austin unique. It’s all the things.

AB) What kind of response have you had to these events? Do people understand their benefit?

JH) I hem and haw about questions like this, and while I’d love to be at the forefront of shows that bring in people by the hundreds, sell tickets by the trainload and have my every word be followed, that hasn’t happened, and in a way I’m glad it hasn’t been that notorious. The few who have been to the shows and enjoyed themselves have told me so. I’ve enjoyed seeing the shows come together, and the audiences and participants come together as a result. Ultimately, they’re the sort of shows I want to see. So if I get to take part, that’s the benefit I understand. Everything else is cake frosting.

If you’re talking about game developers and their attitude about community and how it affects them personally and professionally, then yeah, I’d say most understand that anything that reminds them that there’s a world outside of home and work, and a distraction is welcome most of the time, especially if it connects them to peers that do the same kind of work but on different projects. There’s a lot to be learned from perspective, which unlike knowledge is not universal, and a lot of inspiration that can come from the unexpected and unplanned connections you make outside your little bubble of comfort and familiarity.

But if you’re talking about game developers, you’re talking about busy people, who are often introverted and reluctant to spend time outside of routine. And if you’re talking about game developers in Austin, you’re talking about busy people who have to choose from any number of a thousand other things they could be doing besides anything I’m doing.

AB) How do people find out about what to do and where to go, is it all Facebook?

JH) The best possible method to get the largest number of people would be all the methods available to everyone, and more than one person responsible for spreading the word. Social media is cheap, but everything takes time. I’ve been guilty of using Facebook solely because it’s cheap and versatile and lots of people use it. The IGDA-Austin web page (http://austingamedevs.org/about) has good links to everything. I regret making the Facebook group secret, because now it can’t be changed back.

AB) Would you say there’s a lot of apathy in Austin after the layoffs in 2012-2013?

JH) Compared to what? 2004-5, when Austin game dev got its heart got cut out? Something like half the people making games in Austin got laid off when Origin got shut down by EA, Acclaim went Chapter 7, Microsoft shuttered Digital Anvil and Eidos shuttered Ion Storm.

Anyone with any memory knows this is a cyclical thing, and it’s not just about Austin. What happened to Austin 8 years ago, happened to Vancouver in 2012. But some months later, we’re hearing about new high-profile stuff coming from there, a few established smaller-scale shops riding out the storm and there’s probably a bunch of new stuff in the wings we haven’t heard about yet. 2013 was a rebuilding year for Austin, which meant almost nothing shipped, but a few studios were staffing up (Wargaming.net in particular, though not necessarily to produce games in their entirety out of their Austin office.) If it hadn’t been for small-scale and indie projects, there would be nothing on the board coming from Austin in 2013, unless you count expansion packs and DLC.

(How many people know most of the group that worked with Davey Wreden on THE STANLEY PARABLE live here, including him? If they did, would they be less apathetic?)

If people are apathetic, they probably just need new perspective on what they’re doing, and why. Thing about layoffs, they’re easy stories to tell, and everyone loves to hand-wring on social media when their friends get laid off, but not many know what to do about it. What’s harder to report on, because people in professional transition usually don’t open themselves up to interviews, is that pretty much everyone with any proven ability who got laid off, found new work within a few months, and most of the ones who really wanted to stay, have found a way to stay.

No two stories are the same. I was at a holiday party last month with a mutual friend who had moved out of the country to take a contract gig, then moved back to Austin and told his Facebook wall about it. Because he was an experienced designer with good connections, he got two invites to apply for work in Austin, just because people knew he was coming back. And yet, just today my friend Joe Houston made a blog post about how his family’s health issues and lack of company benefits associated with being an independent developer have worn down his resolve for completing THE UNWRITTEN PASSAGE, to the point where he could barely focus on whether he was going to finish it.

That to me isn’t about apathy, which is a lack of caring. If anything, it’s a lack of certainty. But when have game devs ever had that? I think every creative person appreciates having help clearing the runways and taking care of the stuff that stands in their way. But sometimes the best way to provide that is to not get in the way, yourself.

AB) What’s your personal view of the indie scene in Austin? Any recommendations for those either involved now or interested in diving in?

JH) Make games. If you’re going to talk about making games, that’s OK, but you should still be making games, or you’re not a game developer.

I’m not a game developer. So I don’t think my point of view is all that useful.

I am concerned for the many who seem to think game development is ready and willing to take in people with no experience and/or no connections or social skills. I’ve encountered quite a number who have come to Austin to seek their fortune, straight out of “game schools” with little if any notion about what they were going to do when they got here. As above, the situation of being an overeducated barista isn’t so bad in somewhere like Austin as opposed to, say, some other cities where rent isn’t so cheap. Then again, it looks as though Seattle’s getting a standard minimum wage hike earlier than we are.

I’m also concerned about Austin’s “independent spirit” being borne less of coherent vision and the ability to do most of the work by yourself. That part’s OK, but the other edge to the blade is how independence can make you blind to what’s going on around you, and deprive you of the opportunity to work with others in a mutually beneficial sense. (Then again, “collaboration” is too often used as a synonym for taking credit for someone else’s work, and contributing the choice of color for the bike shed.)

AB) What about investment in an area with a lower cost of living?

JH) I’ve heard it said recently that investment money exists in Austin, but it definitely doesn’t have the culture of investment in speculative technology and entertainment than California does. I’ve heard more than a few colleagues trying their hand at indie game development relate stories of investors wanting them to move to California just for the sake of investment, and I’ve long observed companies with established operations in Austin have a footprint in California for that purpose, even though most of the work is done here. It’s not just game dev, of course — AMD has a lot more employees here in Austin and their fabrication plants are bigger, but they’re technically a Silicon Valley company. Meanwhile, Samsung, Intel and Apple are all increasing their manufacturing bases in Austin.

So the money’s here, but arts and entertainment folks don’t know how to get to it. Somehow, other software-based companies are finding their way to get the capital they need, but not enough of them have games as a product. Given how much at a premium hardcore programmers are in the game space, you’d think that the opportunity for them to make software, get paid well and enjoy the environment even if they aren’t making games, would be considered more of a critical issue.

I think that problem is being addressed locally by experienced programmers forming their own boutique shops and hiring themselves out as needed. Midnight Studios, Steel Penny Games, Bluepoint Games and so on — they’ve all worked on fairly high profile projects in recent years, but you wouldn’t know their names unless you did your research, but then you’d probably never know they were based in Austin.

The most critical need for Austin is more people who can run a business and employ all the creative and technically proficient people who want to continue to live here, choosing to put down roots here, themselves. The old saw is that SXSW and other events draw people like that here, but then they go back home. Or worse, they stay and don’t get used to the lack of a California-like investment climate, then go back home after less than a year, discouraged and full of bad omens. I’d like to be a snob and say we don’t need people like that in Austin, but we really do — we just need a little more patience and a willingness to get in on the ground floor.

AB) You’ve done a lot for people who have been laid off with events to assist with networking as well as social get togethers to honor their work. Without resorting to finger pointing, purely post mortem advice here, are there any overall observations for large companies that you can impart?

JH) Make money, but be less partisan. Understand that Austin’s value is in its diversity. We’ve been in the place where just a handful of studios employ everyone, and we should all be thankful that isn’t how things are, anymore. Make money, so you can give some away to mutual efforts to improve the quality of life for all, so talent will want to stay here, and they can have more seamless transitions in their careers.

If anything, I don’t think big companies get appreciated enough. Big projects come from them, and there are some devs who really like working on big projects. Plus, they have the biggest piles of money, so they’re most often solicited whenever resources are needed. However, smart phones and Steam and the years following their advent have proven that big projects are just as risky as they’ve ever been, and that it’s no longer absolutely necessary for games to be big, to be successful. Those finding ways to empower smaller teams working on smaller scale projects, identify their market, make sure it ships and bring it to market, are doing remarkably well, measuring their success in tens of thousands of units sold rather than millions.

If more companies in Austin understood that reality better, we’d have fewer big projects collapsing under their own weight, or teetering under untenable and uncertain risk. Don’t be big just because big is all you know how to be. Be as big as you have to be, and then pay it forward for everyone else, and remember where you are, who came before you and who your neighbors are.

Be less partisan, so you don’t forget how to work with others for mutual goals. To riff on the “independent spirit” business above, if there was a way to make it easier for everyone who wants to work to know what resources exist and who to work with, honestly, the events we have could be more casual and less desperate as people fumble around in the dark (figuratively) for what they need to get their job done.(source:gamasutra)