I have decided to get my ass off the couch and write a computer game

 

You know how when you reach a certain age you start to contemplate the direction of your life and your goals?  Whether you just turned 18, or 21, or 30, or 40 or, now for me, the big 5-0.

I'm turning 50 in a few months and this past weekend, while driving a total of over 15 hours in my car, I had a lot of time thinking about these questions.

One my big questions is what do I want to be doing five or ten years from now?  Professionally, I am currently doing pretty much the same thing I have always been doing for the past 30 years.  I sit at a computer, think of stuff in my head, and then develop software that solves problems for people.

For a while in my career I was self-employed.  I had some major successes but, in the end, I found the stress of being self-employed (uncertainty about where the next check was coming from and having to pay an outrageous amount in additional taxes) too much to handle.  Since then I have primarily worked as an employee for other companies; though I did join a startup called 'Ageia' technologies and was granted a great deal of incentive stock options that, today, I'm sure would service well as some very coarse toilet paper.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love my current job.  I'm extremely happy with the work and my level of compensation.  The question for me, is that what I want to still be doing five or ten years from now?

If I don't do something different then that's exactly what I will be doing; when I'm 60 years old, I will still come into work, sit at a computer, and program it to do cool shit all day.  Why not?  I'm good at it, and it's my key talent.  I can't imagine anytime soon someone willing to have me do something else; like a management position, for the same level of compensation.

So, if I want things to change, I probably need to set a goal to make it happen.

In just the past two years there has been a major, major, shift in the world of software development; games in particular.  The explosion of smart phones, and now tablets, is opening up incredible markets for independent software developers.  These are truly amazing times.

Before this happened, the only major markets for video games were consoles.  And, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo locked those platforms up with an iron fist.  For those of you who aren't aware of this, you can't just go and decide and write a Playstation 3 game, develop and, and then sell it.  There are insane barriers to doing so.  I won't give all of the details unless it's something you are interested in knowing about, but suffice it to say, your average independent developer cannot just write games for those platforms.

Meanwhile, people changed their perception of what a 'phone' is.  Today everyone understands that the phone in your pocket isn't just a phone; it's an incredibly powerful personal computer.  And, more and more, people are buying and playing games on their phones.  Soon, the same phenomenon is going to happen with tablet computers.  Already today, if you take an airplane flight and walk up and down the aisle is seems like every third person has an Ipad sitting in their lap.

Well, here's the rub.  You can develop software for these devices with little barrier to entry.  Apple does require that your application be approved before it can show up in their marketplace, but this hasn't proven to big a big barrier and mostly serves as a form of quality control.

Also, I have recently seen two of my friends write games for these smartphones in their 'spare time' and made an outrageous amount of money doing so.

My friend David Whatley wrote 'GeoDefense' and 'GeoDefense Swarm' two wildly popular IOS tower defense games (David is currently jet-setting around the world for a month).  And, recently, my friend Jared Freedman wrote the amusingly titled 'Weed Farmer' which lets you play a game where you grow your own weed on your smart phone.  I know, it sounds silly but he is reaping incredible (legal) profits from the game he wrote.

So, I'm not jealous of my friends (much).  I can't really be jealous.  They invested their time, money, and creativity to create these products while I, largely, sat on the couch and watched 'American Idol'.

You know something funny?  You don't *have* to watch 'American Idol' or any other TV for that matter.  You can do other things with your time like, oh, I don't know, writing a computer game that sells a few million copies.

So, I've decided I'm going to at least put forth the effort.  I have a particular game I have been wanting to write for over 15 years.  I've always told my wife that 'when I retire' I'm going to write this game.

But..maybe that's a little backwards?  Maybe the way I get to retirement is to write the game now; so when I'm 55, or 60, I don't have to work so hard; maybe I can jet-set around the world for a month then like my friend David.

At any rate, for those of you who follow my blog (which I know I post to infrequently now) check out the development blog I have started for my new game project.

The game is called 'Duatiu' and is going to be a massively mutiplayer online game in the genre of first person shooter strategy (similar to Planetside and Tribes for example).

Let me know what you think.  I am *not* trying to do a little Iphone game.  I'm trying to do an MMO which is a whole different proposition entirely.

Let me know what you think.  The development blog is here.