I realize I haven’t updated my blog in about a week, but I have a pretty good reason.

Last Tuesday, January 27th, the video game studio I work for, Humanature Studios (Nexon Publishing North America), closed down and all employees were let go.

Fortunately, I had known for a few weeks that this was going to happen and I had been mentally and professionally preparing myself. Still — nothing can prepare you to see the faces of 93 other individuals looking shocked, stunned, and heartbroken when the announcement was made.

I have been putting off this post for a long time, because I don’t really know how to write about this.

We had an incredible CEO, Alex Garden. And an incredible team of executives. My boss was amazing; working for him has been a significant turning point in my career. And just about all employees were handpicked from various game studios… making a dream team of video game developers.

So what happened?

Well, as I’ve been saying… no one is safe. The economy affects everyone. Our “parent” company, Nexon, abruptly decided that they no longer wanted to financially fund our North American game studio. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. It’s a real shame. We worked hard and loved our work.

The past week I’ve been helping tear down the studio and sell of the equipment. That was definitely hard to do. The execs managed to put together an incredible full-pay severance package for all of us, so fortunately we will be okay for a few months no matter what happens.

Including the recent Black Box and Propaganda layoffs, this makes just over 700 video game job layoffs in the past 6 months. The market is saturated. It’s hard times for devs looking for jobs right now.

So what do I do?

I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my career. I can either go forward, back, or sideways.

I have been interviewing with several companies over the past few weeks, and will continue to do so over the next two. I was planning on taking a short paid break from working for a while, but I think it will be in my best interests to start working sooner and be double paid for a while.

I’m not sure what direction I want my career to go in at this point. I’m interviewing with a company backed by a huge multinational in Kelowna. And it would be a challenging Global Senior Manager position which would be a step up… but it’s in Kelowna. That poses a problem for being with my significant other, family, and friends. There’s also a position at a software developer in Gastown, that I’m also really excited about… but I need to make sure that there is opportunity for career growth there. There’s also the option of taking a more relaxed easier sales position at a Fortune 500 company I highly respect and have worked for before, but I know that while it may be the best option for me to continue my activity-filled personal life, it won’t help me career-wise.

I want to make the right choice for both my career and my personal life. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds?

I apologize for the lack of updates lately, and for the lack of photos in this post. It just didn’t feel right.

I hope everyone is doing well. I will be updating my blog more frequently now that I’ve been able to get past this difficult post.

I feel so much better today. As many people have been blogging about lately, there’s something about November that makes us feel down and maybe on edge. I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and have had to come to terms (again) with who I am and the people I want to surround myself with. I know that good friends are invaluable and hard to come by, and my plan is to surround myself with people who I love, and people who love me. A couple interesting things that have come across my my path…

First off, for you Vancouver Canucks fans, there’s a film showing this Monday, November 10th at some Cineplex and Landmark theatres (not all, so make sure you check before going) called “Forever Faithful“. It profiles Canucks fans and their passion for the team. The trailer looks really good. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it since I’ll be out of town in Tofino this weekend, but I’m definitely planning on picking up the DVD. You can read the Canucks press release here. Let me know what you think if you go see it!

Also in video game news, THQ is yet the next video game company to have significant layoffs. Their new “strategic” plan is to close down 5 studios, including Paradigm Entertainment (Stuntman, Pilotwings, Spy Hunter), Mass Media (Full Spectrum Warrior), Helixe (De Blob), Locomotive Games (Destroy All Humans!), and Sandblast Games. Wow. Not looking so rosy in both the publishing and development side of games right now. Basically, these cuts are going to eliminate about 250 jobs, which is 17 percent of all studio employees.

I finally managed to go through a few more of my photographs from my work trip to Japan. These ones are from a day trip that my boss and I did out to Kamakura. It’s really beautiful. We saw a number of different Buddhist and Shinto shrines, and climbed many hills and stairs, and walked across a long bridge to an island to climb up even more stairs… but it resulted in an incredible view.

Those aren’t Swastikas, they are religious symbols in Japan. Street signs on the way to Kamakura.

Beautiful pond

There were thousands of these statues everywhere. And the interesting/horrific part… each of these statues means there was an abortion or miscarriage. Japanese women would come here and place one of these statues as an offering or a prayer. The sheer number of statues in the temple made my stomach flip.

Bamboo at Kamakura Temple.

Flowers at the temple.

Praying Statues… very cute. I wonder how old these are. I wonder if “cuteness” is something that existed in Japan long before Hello Kitty and the like

Deep red Japanese umbrella…

Scariest spider ever! These guys were just hanging out everywhere. Made my skin crawl just trying to be close enough to it to take a good photo!

The largest Buddhish statue in Japan.

Flowers on bamboo. It was so neat to see so much bamboo everywhere.

The Bay at Shonan (view from the top). A long hike to get here, but it was worth it. We were also able to see a number of surfers in the bay. I already put up a photo of this in my previous post.

So there are surfers in Japan! My first hint that I wasn’t delusional to go surfing in Japan. These guys were surfing at Shonan, and I was planning on going out to the coast at Ichinomiya, but it was still rad to see all these older guys getting on their motorbikes and heading out to the surf.

And another Japanese surfer! It seems like the motorbikes/motorcycles/scooters are the preferred method of transportation for surfers in this area. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable hitching my precious board to a bike!

Japanese surfing ad… neato!

Fancy eating octopus? These were being sold on sticks everywhere. The vendors would grill them for you

It’s a different way of life out here, than it is in Tokyo or Vancouver even…

Shinto shrine… so serene.

Each of these are prayers.. they are tied to the fence.

I felt like I was at the end of the world..

That’s it for now folks. I’m off to Tofino for the entire (extra long) weekend for some late season cold surfing, so I’ll be back on Tuesday. See you then.