Why Leave NY

I’ve been asked why I would want to leave New York on a number of occasions. I’d like to talk a little bit about the issues I have. Before I begin though, I wanted to mention that New York City will always have a special place in my heart. From the city itself to the friends and family I am leaving behind, there are a lot of things about this place that I am going to miss dearly. I hope to be back as often as I can so that I don’t die from missing the place so much.

Now that the sentimental crap is out of the way, let’s talk about some of the reasons why I found a new home, all of these are game development related as you might guess. When I first came to New York, I was intrigued by the Indie scene. I thought I would enjoy being another developer who’s just trying to make cool games. What I learned, though, is that at this point in my life, I don’t actually want to be Indie. I’m still young and have a hell of a lot to learn before I can effectively do that.

So, since New York is mostly an Indie scene, we have the other issue of this place feeling really small. There are a lot of people in New York just trying to break into the industry. It’s great but also depressing at the same time. I seldom meet people who actually work in the industry. I’m happy to talk to aspiring developers who do Indie stuff at home and want help breaking in, but there comes a point where you ask, “Why are there so many of you and so few of us?” Well the answer is obvious. These are people who started on the east coast, and the tiny industry in New York can’t afford to hire them, so they sit in limbo hoping for a job. I was one of them for six months and believe me it sucks.

I don’t mean to seem snobby, saying that I’d rather be around people with game developer jobs and not just people hoping to get into the industry. There is just something to meeting people who have fifteen years of experience and have stories and tales of how they solved that one ridiculous problem that no one ever even thought about. Like I said, I love meeting the new people busting their hump trying to get into the industry, they are a group of people who inspire me to do things on my own outside of work, so if I could have both worlds that would be fantastic. Unfortunately, those worlds are split by three thousand miles of land.

Along the lines of the size of the game industry in New York, you will notice that there really aren’t a lot of game development houses that make anything sizeable. Now, I’m not talking about wanting New York to be the AAA game development scene. Actually, I would hate that. That’s not what New York is about, and it will never be what New York is about. What I mean is the games that are interesting and do well on marketplaces like Steam and Xbox Live and not just Facebook or whatever flash service the company decided to create, like most New York companies do.

New York is a great place to live and meet people and hang out with friends and family, but it’s just not what I’m looking for in terms of game development. I will be back as often as I can and welcome everyone to come visit me. You will always have a place to stay.