Background
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to work in the games industry. In particular, I wanted to be a game programmer.
I started gaming in the mid-late 80s on my family’s Tandy 1000 SL. I was particularly fond of the early graphic adventure games from Sierra On-Line. King’s Quest IV was the first game that really consumed me. The world felt so alive and I spent countless hours exploring (and dying in) the land of Tamir.
Shortly after, I discovered the complex and engaging world of SSI and their Gold Box and Silver Box AD&D RPGs–Curse of the Azure Bonds was my absolute favorite, despite it’s unforgiving nature. These games were my only real gateway to the worlds created by TSR. I would have loved to play table-top AD&D, but resources and real-life party members were in short supply in my small hometown in Western Montana.
Once I got into high school, I became friends with a few other students who were just as into gaming as I was. Through these friends (and our physics teacher, Mr. Blake) I was introduced to classics such as Heroes of Might and Magic II, Warcraft II, and StarCraft. Mr. Blake would let us use his computer lab to play games during our lunch period, provided that we removed the games each day when we were finished. I installed my copy of StarCraft so many times that I still have the CD key memorized to this day.
A major turning point for me was when one of my friends showed me his copy of Ultima Online. I just couldn’t believe that it was possible to play online with thousands of other gamers from around the world. Needless to say, I was chomping to set out for adventure in this exciting new frontier. I saved my money from my job at the local supermarket and bought a new computer (a Compaq Presario) and a copy of Ultima Online: The Second Age. The problem was that we didn’t have internet at my house yet. I spent hours every day reading and re-reading the Ultima Online manual in preparation for when I would eventually be able to set foot in Britannia. I eventually convinced my parents that we needed internet service because it would “help with my school work”.
This is the point where I felt the real all-consuming grip of online gaming. I spent every spare hour (when I wasn’t at work or in school) adventuring and exploring on the Catskills Shard. I joined a guild and worked my way up to a mid-level officer rank–which I thought was a pretty big deal for a 17 year old kid in small town Montana.
Ultima Online is also what cemented in my mind that I had to be a games programmer. I knew that I had to be a part of creating these awesome worlds that I was so obsessed with. I found out that most games were (at the time) written in C/C++ so I picked up a copy of Teach Yourself Visual C++ in 24 Hours at Software Etc. and proposed learning a programming language as my senior project. It turns out that I didn’t know very much at all about programming, but it was definitely more than my project advisor or anyone at my school.
Late in my senior year of high school, a recruiter from Westwood College of Technology came and pitched us on the degrees offered by their school. At the time, they were offering an Associates of Applied Science in Computer Programming and Software Technology. I was sold–this was my opportunity to really learn how to program and get a job as a game programmer!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as serious as I should have been about my education. I ended up barely scraping by and was, honestly, nowhere near prepared for a job developing games. I decided to join the Marine Corps to buy myself a bit of time and get the GI Bill to pay for more school once I was out.
Fresh out of the Marine Corps, I ended up getting a job working for a home theater company. I did pre-wire installation for a couple of years and ended up with a role as a home automation programmer. It wasn’t game development, but it was somewhat related, I reasoned.
After working as a home automation programmer for several years, I was becoming dissatisfied with my lack of progress towards my ultimate goal. I knew I had to get back to put my GI Bill to work and get back to school. At the urging of my then-girlfriend (now my wife) I enrolled in a half load at a local community college and started classes in the evenings, after my regular job. In an odd twist of fate, I was laid off near the end of my first semester. This was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, really. I filed for unemployment and enrolled in full-time course load for the next semester and was actually making more money than I was when I was working!
I was determined to make the most of my education this time and poured everything into my studies. Over the course of my college career, I ended up marrying my wife and, together, we welcomed our first child, a daughter! I also founded a game development company–which was really (at the time) just a way for my friends and I to gain access to E3 since they hadn’t opened it to the public at that time.
I graduated with a degree in Computer Science from California State University, San Marcos with a GPA of 3.49 and set about applying for jobs in the gaming industry.