"Now that we're here, it's so far away, all the struggle we thought was in vain..."
I'm not actually sure when it all started... I guess it must've been with the first encounter with video games. I can't explain it why, I just knew - these things weren't just for playing, they were also for making. And I wanted to know how.
Then came the 90s, and I consumed video games more than anyone I knew in my peer group. Magazines started to appear. I realized these things can be sold in shops, and the new dream became clear: One day, I want to go to a store, pick a box for a game I made off the shelf, and buy it. At the time my fascination was about FIFA, so of course I wanted to work for EA Vancouver - the whole EA Spouse blog later put a considerable damper on that when I realized development wasn't like how I thought it was; I lived in this fantasy thinking all development teams are these close-knit groups who all enjoy games and have a mutual camaraderie. I very quickly found out that that wasn't always the case - but I was undeterred with my ambition, even if no-one really understood.
Knowing that to make games, I need a CS degree, I went to university. Very quickly, it became apparent that no-one knew or cared about video games beyond playing them, and I was once again somewhat isolated with my view of the world. There was a mental disconnect between people who played games and people who were interested in making them - I suppose being in Hungary and having really only one or two major studios around growing up, it just didn't make sense as a career choice.
The demoscene changed that considerably, and of course that became a whole another story in itself - it was somehow capable of getting me close to my ambition without actually having to sacrifice the fun of creative programming and artistic exercise without being a job, without having it turn into an actual job where I had to adhere someone else's standards - it's still a great sandbox for that, but of course I'm more aware of my limitations now and I treat it differently, there's a different focus involved.
And of course, if nothing else, it provided me with the fateful moment when BoyC pinged me about a game project he needed an audio coder for.
Perpetuum, in many ways, was a dream project. I was able to work with my best friends, I was able to work from home (for a time being), we were indie, we were running on "our own" money, we had no pressure, we could build whatever we wanted, and I had authority on things even though I was only like 23. And that weighed a lot in the end result: We did things because we didn't know we weren't supposed to be able to do so, we just did it because that's how we thought things were supposed to be done, we didn't know that we were bordering on the impossible building a gigantic MMO (a term that didn't even really exist back then) with 4 coders. Looking back, what we did was insane and should never have been attempted - when you watch a music documentary, and the bands say "we were young and stupid" and they talk about their coke binges and crashing fast cars and dying, this is what they mean: the recklessness not because you know and you don't care, but because you literally don't know better, except in our case it wasn't substance abuse and bodily harm, but working ourselves sick and hungry and tired and angry. And of course, being an indie online game, I had to tone down my whole "box-off-the-shelf" dream, but I was willing to do that provided that enough people knew and appreciated the game.
Money ran out more times I could remember, sometimes I didn't eat, sometimes I had to do odd jobs to pay rent, sometimes I couldn't afford bus tickets. At one point we almost got picked up by a big MMO publisher, at another we almost got sued, at another we got DDOS'd, we had people come and leave, we had hype come and go, and yet we somehow put it together, despite the fact that no-one ever believed in us - friends and family alike, calling the entire project implausible and ridiculous and ill-fated, and urging us to get "real" jobs as soon as we can. But we couldn't stop, it was what we always wanted to do, so we kept doing it, because we believed in it, and we saw that we might be able to make it with this.
Then it came out, and it did okay. Maybe even well. For a while. But like Sisyphus, we never managed to push it over the hill. It was just wasn't possible, not because we couldn't - as technology goes, we were able to do as much as we humanly could - but because games like ours were based on money, and the little we made, we spent on sustenance. Once the game came out on Steam and it just wasn't what we hoped it would be, and we've done a few excruciating rounds of pandering to random experts who ultimately just turned out to be wastes of money, I think we collectively understood that this was over. Perpetuum was in palliative care.
Most games are ephemeral. You make them, you release them, you update them for a finite period of time and then you move on to the next project. MMOs aren't necessarily like that: the juggernauts of the genre have been there for decades, if you do it right you can sustain everything indefinitely, whereas with other games, you HAVE to start on your next project as soon as the previous one stops making you a living. I had no problems working on Perpetuum as my only game, but once the fuel ran out and the plane went into gliding, it felt like I was wasting away, even though I would never admit to it.
See, I was in denial because working on Perpetuum, despite the thin income, was convenient. I was able to work with people I liked, in times I liked, in an environment I liked, and I had authority. I guess in a way, it soothed an arrogant ego who didn't want to work with others or listen to others. Giving up that sort of convenience just didn't seem appealing as long as I was able to subcontract with random stuff to make the actual living even if my official income didn't cover my expenses. In my admittedly lazy viewpoint, it was worth it, even if deep down I knew that I needed to change because of who I was.
See, Perpetuum was our child. We built it from the ground up. But it wasn't going to live, and we went in denial. Even as the ECG was beeping less and less we refused to move from the bedside, and everyone suggesting us to "move on" and that there are other children to be made was a heartless traitor for even suggesting such things, and was promptly ignored, because we heard the same things before it was born, that it would never live, so of course we could keep it alive and fix it and make it successful, right? But we didn't realize giving birth and keeping it alive were different things, and we went in denial.
And then, 2016.
A week before Function, Vincenzo came up to me and told me they're looking for an audio coder. I had no idea where he's working, so he told me it's a place called Slightly Mad Studios. Never heard of it. He let me know some of the terms, none of which sounded particularly appealing at the time, so I brushed him off, mostly because I was busy with demo coding. I suggested he ask a few people in the scene who are better audio coders than I am.
That weekend he accosted me at Function, and told me in no uncertain terms that he wants me to take that job, because they don't have any audio coders and it's making their life impossible as sound designers. Told me they're working on Project CARS 2 - a franchise I only heard of when a drunk Finn on YouTube used it as an example (with many others) for everything that's wrong with car games, in comparison to his own game where you could pee in the radiator after you set your car on fire while drunk. Vincenzo at this point was a bit more talkative, and mentioned that I wouldn't need to move out of Hungary because everyone works from home - this caught my ear. I promised him to get my CV together after the party.
What then happened at the party (which I won't go into detail here) changed my view on life. I began to realize that this may be the shot I need to take. That time was precious and good things happen if you just dare seek them out. After the party I wrapped up a fairly rudimentary CV and sent it over.
After a bit of back and forth, I found myself preparing for the first interview - and honestly, I wasn't into it. Sure, I sent the CV, but I just couldn't get excited about it. I usually have a gut feeling when I am on the right path, but for some reason it just wasn't there, and I'm not sure why - I think my mind was still stuck with a bunch of different projects that I was working on, and this whole game thing just felt like a nuisance. I had no intention to get to know a bunch of new people and work on something that I didn't care about - a racing sim? I can't even drive.
The first interview went well, I suppose - it was mostly technical, and I had 10 years of audio experience both with Perpetuum and the Conspiracy 64k synth, so I was able to convince them that I at least remotely knew what I was talking about, or at the very least that I was able and willing to learn relatively quickly. Aside from a bit of conversation about Perpetuum, there was very little that could've given me a sense of how the company is like, aside from the odd appeal of everyone being at home and using text chat instead of voice calls.
A few days later HR sent me a mail about a second interview, this time with the CTO. Once I sat down, he hit me with the big question.
"So why do you want to work at SMS?"
Fuck. I genuinely didn't know. I didn't know if I wanted to in the first place.
But then it hit me.
"Because that's all I know. Because I love video games, and I don't wanna do anything else. Because I could've worked on banking software or websites or random silly projects for random people, but I don't want to, because that'd make me unhappy. I want to make video games. With Perpetuum, I can no longer do that, and that makes me unhappy too. I want to be happy, and I have nothing left to lose. I want to make at least one game I can take off the shelf and call at least partially mine."
Is this the answer people normally give? I don't know. It doesn't sound like something most interviewers would want to hear. But I figured, if I make a jump, I want to make sure where I jump to is a place I can be comfortable in. So I was blunt and honest, and figured if they don't like what I said, we can quickly stop wasting each others time.
But that's not what happened.
He responded, "you'll fit right in."
Instantly, I felt comfortable, enthusiastic, ready to jump. The more we talked, the more apparent it became, that unlike the companies I feared, SMS was a company where everything was driven by the love of it. That it would be able to replace Perpetuum as the passion project, even if it's not a singular project.
About an hour-and-a-half later, he offered me a job. I asked for 24 hours to decide, but really, I already decided.
What followed was about three months of insanity and constant wondering what the fuck am I doing, and the utter chaos of stepping up to the speed of professional game development that I only vaguely thought I had experience in, but didn't really. I was out of my element, I was panicking, I wasn't sure if I fit, it sometimes felt like they made a mistake, and that it was only a matter of time they'll find out. And yeah, I know, there's a syndrome for that as well, but you try spending two hours finding out what the hell "manifold pressure" is and how that relates to how a car sounds, and then tell me about it. All the while, everyone was incredibly patient and exceedingly welcoming, and I just felt like the guy who doesn't deserve any of it.
At the end of the three months, going into the probation review, I was 50-50 about where they'll let me stay or they sadly show me the door.
And then they just told me that they wish they hired me earlier.
My new family was just fine. More than fine. By today, they've become people I look forward to communicating on a day-to-day basis, people who I have tremendous respect for for their achievements, and yet they treat me as a partner and an equal, even when I'm just the weird kid from the East of Hungary. They have no reason to do so, but they do, because there's a resonance between the personalities where the bottom line is just making good games. And as long as you wanna do that, they'll be there for you - and I couldn't be more grateful and thankful for that.
Today, about 7 months later, I walked into a store, picked a game off the shelf, and purchased it. Somewhere on those disks, my name is on the product. I didn't spend as much time on it as most of the team - most of the people spent almost two years - but I still feel I did what I could and the very least I did what was expected of me.
Is it a game that I always wanted to make? Yes and no. I, obviously, suck at sim racing. It's not in my top 10 genres, although I'm not unfamiliar to it, and I stand out like a sore thumb in the collective of developers who can recognize a car or track just by the silhouette. But just like when you meet your new stepchild, the best you can do is to find common ground, and I think I'm able to look at Project CARS 2, and in a strange way, feel a kinship to it. There's a white-knuckle spirit to PC2, the underdog's wicked smile as it prepares to pull a move that no-one really expected in the face of lesser odds, and that appeals to me endlessly. Just like the rest of the team, I feel this game is "mine", even if they know it inside out and I still have no clue what a slipcurve is.
And yet, holding the box, it feels surreal. Even after spending the first month at the company and going nuts over the amount of data I had to squeeze in my brain, I had no idea how big the game was, or how good the job was that we were doing, or what our potential was with it. But then I saw E3. And then I saw Gamescom. And then on review embargo day, I saw 9.2 from IGN and 89% from PC Gamer. And then, as a coup de grace, I saw the game being nominated for a Golden Joystick Award for Best Audio.
...Best Audio! The thing I worked on!
I stumble off a dead MMO, headfirst into a project that has no reason to have me around, and then suddenly... this?
This makes no sense to me, but I'll take it.
I suppose posts like this should have some sort of moral at the end, but I don't think there is one. I didn't follow my dreams, in fact they followed me around and kinda snuck in the moment I wasn't paying attention. I also never finished university, so I can't even say you should. I never listened to my parents when I was spending too much time in front of my computer, and yet somehow that ended up being a good thing. So no, I don't think there's a moral to it. I made a series of stupid decisions, and like a sleepwalker in a cartoon crossing a construction site, somehow that ended up being the best thing I could've done.
Today, I went to a store, picked the game I made off the shelf, and bought it.
And it felt as good as I hoped.