2021: Pondering the Future

I went along to a Slimming World recruitment event today, partly out of curiosity and partly because on reflection I had been feeling that it was a possible career direction for me. I say “career”; I can barely call the procession of jobs I’ve had since leaving university a “career” in good conscience, really, but what I saw today gave me pause, and a feeling that this might actually be something I want to do and that I’m interested in exploring.

Becoming a Slimming World consultant involves going into business for yourself — including forking over a not-insubstantial amount of money as a franchise fee — and having to put in a fair amount of work for promotion and whatnot. The prospect of running a business that is more complicated than I Do Stuff, You Pay Me has always been pretty daunting to me, but looking over the information today and thinking about it made me realise that it’s perhaps not quite as scary as what I’ve been imagining, and that it might well be something that could work well for me.

I make no secret of the fact that I’ve struggled with what I’d refer to as “conventional employment” over the years. Classroom teaching nearly drove me to suicide on several occasions — though thankfully I didn’t come close to even attempting it — while working retail frustrated me at the lack of progression after a certain point if I didn’t want to become a manager. Working an office job, meanwhile, was so tedious I was literally bored to tears on an increasingly frequent basis as my time with the company progressed — and, of course, I was ultimately bullied out of the place by people who don’t understand depression and anxiety as mental health issues. And freelance writing work, the work with which I’ve had the most success over the years, lacks the stability I need to feel truly comfortable that I’m “surviving” as best I can.

The prospect of running my own Slimming World business, then, although scary, is appealing. And the main reason for that is that it gets around one of my key problems with full-time positions I’ve held in the past: the fact that they monopolise all of your time, and that even when companies have explicit policies in place to supposedly maintain a “work-life balance”, you still find yourself doing little more in the week than going out at some ungodly hour in the morning, going somewhere you hate to work with people you despise, then coming home in the evening to do little more than the bare minimum required to keep yourself awake and vaguely entertained until the sun sets and it’s an acceptable time to go to bed, at which point the whole hideous cycle repeats itself over and over again.

Err, where was I? Oh, yes, the reason running my own business is an appealing prospect. Yes, with all the above in mind, the fact that running a Slimming World business, once you’re established and you get your metaphorical “machine” up, running and well-oiled, only takes up a relatively small proportion of the week means that I can pursue all the other things that I might want to do. I can support my income from Slimming World with the irregular freelance work I’ve been doing. I can continue teaching piano lessons. I can work on the magazine I’m working on with Matt at Digitally Downloaded. In short, I can balance my life, do a variety of things and hopefully not drive myself into the pit of despair that the aforementioned “conventional employment” has ground me down into more than once in my life.

I don’t know if I’m the right person for the Slimming World job in the eyes of the recruitment team. I don’t know if they’ll even interview me, so I haven’t got my hopes up or anything. But if the opportunity presents itself, I’m going to give it very serious consideration indeed. It’s a job that I think I’d be good at; it’s a job I think I’d enjoy; it’s a job that I actually feel strongly about and believe in; it’s a job that actually uses the skills I’ve built up and been trained in over the years.

There’s just the prospect of that initial start-up fee that’s a bit scary. You have to spend money to make money, or so they say, and every new business is faced with start-up costs. I’ve never had to confront them myself, though, and it’s this part that’s making me hesitate more than anything else; everything else, I feel, is something that I can handle — perhaps with some training in some areas — but all that means nothing if I can’t clear the initial hurdle.

I have thinking to do, and a decision to reach relatively quickly. Perhaps, anyway; it may be that I’m rejected outright, which will suck, of course, but at least it will let me know that I need to pursue other avenues instead. We shall see; I feel I’m on the boundary of something important here, but it remains to be seen if I’m able to make it through onto the other side or not.

1242: Sod Off, LinkedIn

I have a LinkedIn account. It is one of those things that people recommend you have. And yet I don’t think I have ever used it. Not for finding a job, not for “professional networking” and certainly not for socialising. In fact, I find the whole thing massively irritating.

The thing that irks me so much about LinkedIn is that the people who do actually use it are inevitably the sort of greasy smarmballs who refer to themselves as “entrepreneurs” and “gurus” (neither of those are jobs; sorry to burst your bubble) and run “startups”. They communicate exclusively in that particularly annoying brand of business-speak that gave us such awful additions to the English language as “monetise” and “leverage” used as a verb.

That’s not all, though. LinkedIn itself perpetually bombards you with emails about what’s “hot” on their network each week, and again, the articles linked to are almost certainly written by people who woke up one day, decided they were an expert on “business” and promptly started vomiting their thoughts all over the Internet.

This sort of thing occasionally spills over onto other social networks, particularly Google+, which appears to harbour a healthy number of LinkedIn refugees. You can spot one of these people’s posts a mile off — they’re inevitably an image post featuring some sort of “inspirational” image, and the accompanying text usually makes the person posting the image sound like they’re a 50-year old discovering Imgur for the first time.

But I digress.

No, I find LinkedIn utterly useless because no-one I have come into contact with on there appears to use it for… well, anything at all, really. I have a “professional network” that is, apparently, 236 “connections” strong, and yet I have never spoken to any of them on LinkedIn. Many of them I speak to daily on Twitter and Facebook, which leaves LinkedIn rather — if you’ll pardon the employment-related pun — redundant. The people I have as connections on LinkedIn who I don’t speak to daily on Twitter and Facebook are generally people whose mobile apps I might have reviewed once in the past, and this apparently makes me a “professional connection”, even if I slated their app for being shit. (I did that a fair bit; there’s a lot of shit out there.)

I find myself wondering why I keep an account open at that God-forsaken website, but everyone I mention it to seems to think that you “must” have a LinkedIn account these days, otherwise you’re some sort of unemployable nobody. I guess if nothing else it provides a reasonably convenient means of creating an electronic CV that can be easily shared with employers. The Recommendations thing is a good idea in theory, too — though the fact that they don’t show up on your “public” profile, only to people who have actually added you as a connection is irritating — but these appear to have been superseded by “endorsements” whereby people who remember to log in to LinkedIn every so often click through a few automatic prompts to confirm that yes, I do indeed have skills in “Facebook” and “iOS”, without even thinking about it.

Basically, LinkedIn represents all that is wrong with the social Web. It’s full of self-important imbeciles who believe they are the ones who know how the world works, and that everyone else is wrong. It’s utterly vapid and useless to 95% of the population, and the other 5% you probably wouldn’t want to speak to anyway.

So yeah. Fuck LinkedIn.

#oneaday Day 931: Pure Profit

The more doublespeak I hear from industry analysts and company executives on earnings calls, the more and more glad I am that companies such as Atlus, Carpe Fulgur, Xseed et al exist. (Though Atlus should really pull their finger out and open a European office. I’ll happily run it. Single-handedly. Gladly. Just bring fucking Trauma Team out over here and we’ll be cool, Atlus. Why you gotta be that way?)

Why? Because these are companies whose primary motivation is not profit, it’s pleasing their customers. They accept that they are catering to niche interests and accept that they are not going to create games that sell millions of copies.

Here’s an actual quote from Aram Jabbari of Index Digital Media, Atlus USA’s parent company:

“With the launch of the strategy RPG Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time, an iteration in the popular franchise never before released in North America, Atlus demonstrates the continuation of its proud heritage of supporting niche titles aimed at the core gamer. We are not intimidated by the challenges of servicing a smaller audience or pursuing more modest success with a given project. Our fans are excited for a new Growlanser title and we are excited to be able to bring one to them.”

What a great attitude to take. A bold, proud statement that Atlus specifically isn’t going after the quick buck, but is instead aiming to build long-term loyalty with its customers by giving them the things that they have been asking for.

Note: this is not the same as pandering to the whims of crybabies. It is a case of listening to your customers and providing them with things that they will appreciate, which in turn builds up a strong and significant base of loyalty which can be drawn upon in the future. I know plenty of people who will happily pick up anything that has the Atlus stamp on it purely because of the goodwill the company has built up over the years (goodwill which they’re at risk of losing with the whole Persona 4 Arena region-lock business, but that’s another matter entirely).

It’s the same with Carpe Fulgur, whose dedication to their craft shines through in every one of their three releases so far. While Recettear, Chantelise and Fortune Summoners may not be the most technologically-stunning or even best games in the world, they feature a top-quality localisation job the likes of which we haven’t seen since the days of Victor Ireland and Working Designs on the PS1. They work on niche titles that players might not have heard of, but built up a solid foundation of brand loyalty with Recettear and have continued to provide memorable experiences since.

Then there’s Xseed Games, whom I have to admit I’m not as familiar with, but who are noteworthy for bringing excellent PSP action-RPGs Ys Origin and Ys: The Oath in Felghana to PC, and are also handling the North American release of the fantastic The Last Story. (C’mon, guys, pick up Pandora’s Tower, too — your fans will thank you.)

And then there’s the even smaller niche developers and publishers like Mojang, Gaslamp Games, Zeboyd Games — too many to mention. Not one of these companies is responsible to shareholders and investors, which means they can take a much more “human” approach to business. Their team members can speak as individuals and freely give their opinions rather than stock, robotic “we do not comment on rumours and speculation” responses that frustrate journalists and public alike so. They can enthuse about their products in human terms rather than spouting bollocks like this actual quote from Ryotaro Shima, senior vice president the EML business department at GREE Inc and CEO of GREE UK Limited:

“The formation of a UK studio is strategically significant on many levels. Primarily it will allow us to focus on Western content, keyed to local social trends, as well as tailoring content for global propositions. It also reinforces GREE’s commitment to growth within European markets.”

Besides the fact that these smaller companies tend to have job titles that are less of a mouthful, there’s a clear disparity in the language used. Let’s take a look at another quote that is more roughly equivalent to the one from Jabbari I posted at the beginning of this piece — this one’s from Paul Nicholls, sales and marketing director at Koch Media, annoucing Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing & Dance (yes, that is a game that is actually coming out, and you bet it’s a game being made primarily as something that will sell rather than a great creative work):

“This is a fabulous signing for us. Andrew Lloyd Webber and his creations are a British institution that have been enjoyed by generations across the world. The chance to bring this product to market for the Nintendo Wii is both an honour and hugely exciting.”

Note the difference in the language used. Jabbari refers to “our fans”; Nicholls talks of “bringing this product to market”. Jabbari speaks of “servicing a smaller audience”, “pursuing more modest success” and emphasises what Atlus is doing for its fans; Nicholls speaks of what a “fabulous signing for us” the Andrew Lloyd Webber license is — no mention of customers at all.

Obviously those two aren’t exact equivalents — one is a rather niche PSP release while the other is a Wii game based on the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. But the point stands — personally speaking, I’m much more inclined to respect companies that have a “human” face; companies who make it clear that their first priority is not shifting as many copies as possible, but pleasing, surprising and delighting their fans.

Obviously it would be nice if the niche titles were multimillion-sellers, but that would somewhat diminish their “niche” status. What the continued existence of smaller outfits like Atlus, Xseed and the like proves, however, is that you don’t have to be focused on big business and the bottom line to be successful — it is possible to please your customers and have a company that performs well.

It’s also, I’d argue, a sign that going public is a terrible, terrible idea for a company supposedly based around creative ideas. As soon as “what would be cool?” becomes “what would sell?” or “what will make the investors happy?” I, for one, am no longer interested, because I’m being treated as a bag of money rather than a human being. For all I know, Atlus et al may be laughing all the way to the bank, but because they put such a human, consumer-friendly face on the way they do business, I’m more than happy for them to take all of my monies while I consistently give companies like EA, THQ and Activision the finger until they start speaking English.

#oneaday Day 548: Capcommotion

I’m a bit surprised by the way Capcom have been acting recently. I always used to figure them for a company that had their collective heads screwed on pretty well, and with their Capcom Unity (geddit?) site showing a much greater effort than many publishers to engage with fans, it looked like they were getting 21st century marketing right.

Then came the Mega Man Legends 3 project, where the community would be able to play an active role in the making of the game. The Capcom Dev Room page allowed users to submit ideas — many of which would end up in the final game — as well as see how the development of a game progressed from start to finish, complete with all the trials and tribulations it faced along the way.

The other day, the project got cancelled on the grounds that its transparency was proving to be “quite concerning” for the rest of the company. This, to me, is somewhat worrying, and suggests that Capcom has something to hide. It could be something as simple as the fact that they actually haven’t done any real work on Mega Man Legends 3 since Keiji Inafune left last year, or it could be something altogether more sinister along the lines of the Team Bondi fiasco.

This isn’t the only mis-step Capcom have made recently, either. The Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D save game issue stank from start to finish. To say that it’s “not possible” to erase a save file on a 3DS game card is absolute nonsense — erasing a file involves writing to the card, and in order for the save to be on there in the first place the card must be written to. So there is absolutely no way that it would not be possible to reset the save data, yet Capcom persisted in perpetuating a lie to the community.

And today we learn that there’s an “Ultimate” edition of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the way, featuring 12 new characters, 8 new stages and a spectator mode. But existing DLC characters aren’t included in the package, naturally. And the “Ultimate” edition is a standalone retail product for $40, not a DLC expansion, which it really should be. I should be excited by the fact that Capcom have finally added Phoenix Wright to the game after a considerable amount of fan requesting, but instead I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth due to them re-releasing a slightly-enhanced version of a game which only came out in February.

Sadly, this practice is becoming more and more common with this generation of consoles. And while I perhaps wouldn’t go quite as far as my friend Mr Peter Skerritt in saying that this generation “sucks” — there’s a lot to like, after all — I do believe that the obnoxious business practices that more and more publishers are starting to adopt are going to come back and bite both game companies and consumers in the ass at some point in the very near future.

I mentioned something along these lines on Twitter the other day in reference to Rockstar’s comments that L.A. Noire still isn’t finished despite having released its “final” piece of DLC. The response I got was surprising; the practice was defended on the grounds of it making good business sense. If we’re at this stage already where blatant money-grabbing and the cutting of content from games in order to hold it back for subsequent DLC or new retail editions is defended by the community because it makes good business sense, it’s a sad situation indeed. We gamers are supposed to be giving money to the software companies we want to support because we like their products, not bending over and asking in what ways they can violate us next. I’m quite happy to buy a game and never resort to piracy, but with more and more early adopters being punished by having to pay full whack for a product and then being stung for DLC down the line, it’s understandable if people feel disillusioned by the whole thing.

That said, not all hope is lost — since picking up a gaming PC I’ve been using the consoles far less. And while there is DLC for PC titles, many PC gamers are a lot less patient with this sort of bullshit — largely because there’s an enormous and active modding community out there more than willing to provide content of a higher quality than Activision’s $15 map packs for free. And there aren’t many PC games I’ve played recently where there’s a big hole for some DLC — I intend on going back through Mass Effect 2 at some point, so I may feel differently after that, though.

The most frustrating thing I find is that people don’t seem to realise or care that they are being taken advantage of. We can complain all we like about Capcom releasing the same game twice in the space of nine months, but we all know that there are enough people out there who will happily part with their cash and give Capcom the sales figures they need to justify rolling out this obnoxious business practice again and again. We can bitch all we like about paying $15 for Call of Duty map packs, but people pay it, again showing Activision that it’s Okay to Do This. And we can point our fingers and say L.A. Noire’s add-on cases should have been in the game in the first place, but I bet most players picked them all up just out of curiosity if anything, giving Rockstar the green light to do more in the future.

It’s refreshing to see that not all of the industry is operating in this way, though. Indie developers are flourishing — and the community is taking to them. Indie RPGs Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World along with awesome roguelike Dungeons of Dredmor topped the Steam sales charts on their day of release, and in less than a week on sale BoD/CStW has equalled its sales from a year and a half on Xbox Live Indie Games. Minecraft continues to go from strength to strength. And Frozen Synapse proves more popular than its developers could have ever dreamed.

Right now, I’m thankful that the indies exist, because with every day that passes, each new “teaser reveal”, each new embargo, I’m losing more and more respect for the big publishers.