It's been a tough week.
On Tuesday, I lost my job. Wow... it really hits home when you see it on your blog.
We had an all-hands meeting and were informed that the entire studio was shutting down and all 93 of us, including the Execs were out of a job. As hard as it was to hear (and it was hard because I really really liked this job), I have to hand it to my bosses because they handled the entire day with class and professionalism, it was the best of a bad situation. Humanature was truly a great place to work from October 6th till January 27th and I'm thankful for that much too brief experience.
Now, you might think that it's easy to find new work since Vancouver is a Video Game Mecca but all is not as it seems. Vancouver's Gaming Industry is getting "gangraped" and people are losing their jobs left, right and center. Studios are cutting back, killing projects or closing their doors altogether and before you know it, there are over 400 people all going for the same handful of available jobs. Times are tough and they are only going to get tougher.
But the crazy thing is that Video Games are actually doing well despite the economy. Sales on consoles and games are still strong but I think my buddy Anakin (another brother who lost his job) summed it up best: "I'd like to say that this whole situation is brought about by fear. There is nothing wrong with the video game industry. The sales figures for the last fiscal quarter were higher than they were for the same quarter a year ago. Let me repeat that. The video game industry made more money when the economy was in trouble than when it doing well. It's all fear. Well, fear and the fact that marketing in certain companies can't forecast sales worth a damn. So, when they don't make their unrealistic sales numbers, or push out yet another mediocre title that doesn't sell well, they blame the state of the economy." Ha... awesome, this doesn't apply to all studios (including mine) but it does to a lot of them out there and other businesses as I'm sure you know.
Now, I can sit back and turtle like a Swedish Right Winger caught in the clutches of a fourth-line goon, or I can bounce back and find a great job. I choose the latter. After a big scotch and a moment of "oh my god, what am I gonna do"... I dusted off the old resume, updated the info and started hitting the information superhighway, looking for positions, calling in favors and hooking up some connections. So far so good as I have a bunch of irons in the fire and hopefully one of them will pan out.
These are dark days my friends, pretty dark for Cosiworld right now especially and I know it can always get darker but I have a flashlight and a plan and a supportive wife whose behind me 110% all the way.
Here's to the next big adventure... the jobhunt of 2009!
