The List Draft 1

Fortunately, I’m a notoriously light packer. It doesn’t matter if I’m gone for 2 days or 2 weeks, I always take one small or medium sized bag and make due. And yeah, I travel around a good bit!

This is the list of what I intend to bring with me to Cancun. At least, this is the first iteration of the list; I imagine as time goes by it will change a lot.

-Passport and US driver’s license

-FM3 (still deciding if I should apply at the consulate here in the US or wait til I arrive in Cancun.)

-Bank card and credit card

-Cell phone( I’ve been in contact with my service provider, T-Mobile, and it seems like I will be able to get a quad-band phone and upgrade to an international service plan for a reasonable price.)

-Asus Eee laptop and any software required for work

-Digital Camera

-Shoes: one pair of sneakers, one pair of formal shoes, and sandals

-Pants: one pair of nice denim, 2 pairs of khakis, and 6 sets of shorts

-Shirts: two nice shirts, and 6-8 casual shirts

-Undergarments: 6 pairs of socks, and 6 pairs of boxers

-Binoculars

-Flashlight

-and most importantly: enthusiasm, optimism, and common sense!!

Some obvious things missing are personal hygiene items, but those are such a pain to get through the airport with and are so cheap, I’ll just buy new when I get there. Heavy and cumbersome things like furniture etc. won’t be making the trip. I live a pretty minimalistic lifestyle anyway, and the thought of trying to bring down furnishings strikes me as painful.

After looking over the list it looks like I’m good to go as hoped: one duffel bag and one backpack. Just the way I like it!

The Reasons Pt. 2

With the ‘superficial’ reasons out of the way, it’s time to tackle the factors that have really driven me to leave the U.S. and head south.

A lifestyle of woe

The vast majority of the citizens in the U.S. fall under the category “middle class”, myself included. This means that each month after the bills are paid they have disposable income. This income is used to buy gadgets and gizmos, pedicures and massages, and other niceties. At least, this used to be the description of middle class in the U.S. I think a major and dramatic socioeconomic rift is opening that will redefine class definitions. It’s known that the rich-poor divide is widening, and while I believe that trend can do nothing but continue under quasi-laissez faire capitalism, I think there is a more prominent pattern to be examined.

Here are my ‘new’ definitions of the U.S. class structure as I see the trends:

Poor: Unable to obtain debt, and therefore often lacking basic amenities as well as luxuries like a car.

Middle: Capable of securing a comfortable lifestyle by assuming debt that is carried for a lifetime.

Rich: Capable of securing an extravagant lifestyle by assuming and correcting debt.

The result of this is that the ‘American Dream’ can only be fulfilled by living under constant debt, or being independently wealthy. The American Dream is no longer what it once was. I think there are several reasons for this, but I don’t want to pollute this blog with my neo-socialist policies. Suffice it to say: I disagree with pure capitalism and believe that the U.S. (and many other developed nations) has a foundation built on sand. 

While I believe the U.S. will eventually correct out of this pattern, it is unbelievably depressing to wake up every day and see person after person followed by the Angel of Debt, living on borrowed time. So many families and individuals are so overwhelmed with debt, or the mere lack of money that living  is like an unaffordable past time – an archaic relic of a bygone time. That is sad. And scary. 

I would much rather live and be poor, then merely go through the motions of living with a nice car and a big house and plenty of presents under the Christmas tree. Of course, I could live like a pauper in the U.S. just as easily as Mexico… but I couldn’t live the same. I doubt this makes any sense now, so I’ll move on!

Indie Business

It’s probably clear by now that I want to run an indie game shop. Over the last decade, and noticeably in the last 5 years, digital distribution has started to gain a serious foothold in terms of revenue. Games are one of the mediums that have been pretty successful with digital distribution and the result of this is that small independent game developers are able to thrive. Digital distribution opened a mass-market and reduced overhead to virtually nothing. Until recently, digitally distributed games were predominately PC/Mac only. However, the latest iterations of consoles have all introduced digital download services, and new platforms like the iPhone have opened up even more opportunity. 

The PC scene is easiest for new developers to get into: there are no licensing restrictions, expensive dev-kits, or mandatory certification processes. It is also fairly challenging to gain a foothold in this market, although there are numerous success stories. The PC scene is currently divided between what are considered ‘casual’ and ‘core’ games. Casual games are a bit of a recent phenomena that have proven to be a multi-billion dollar market. Casual games typically have simple and intuitive mechanics, lack violence, and feature family friendly themes. Core games typically cater to more provocative game genres, and/or more complex and involved game types. For example: Cake Mania is a casual game, while Grand Theft Auto 4 is a core game.

Casual games have been tearing up sales charts for quite a few years now and have even gone from digitally distributed exclusives to gaining retail shelf space, as well as appearing on some consoles (Cake Mania was ported to the Nintendo DS). Casual games are often appetite-whetting for new studios, because they present a large market with disposable cash and often short development cycles. 

I’m one of the very fortunate game programmers out there who has a talented and dedicated artist partner. Together, we are a game development team. I program, do some design, and pretend to know about the business side of things while David makes everything pretty, as well as doing design, music, web maintenance and whatever else I throw at him. We’ve been working together for almost two years now…and have yet to finish a game and get it to market! The worst part: it’s all my fault!

Since I have to maintain a regular 9 -5 (yeah right, more like 9 – infinite) job, our indie work has precipitously fallen apart. Thankfully, David has had the patience to wait me out, knowing or at least having faith that one day I’d be in a position to dedicate 100% of my time to our cause. That’s what it really boils down to: working as a game programmer during the day (and many nights) for a professional company is murder on personal projects. I love the company that I work for and I’ll be loyal to them to the very end of my employment, but I know that I have to take flight on my own eventually. David has waited long enough and I’m ready, so now it’s go time.

Of course, this presents a dilemma: if I don’t have a full time job, how am I going to be able to get by? The first thing is to eliminate debt, which I’ve started to do and will continue to do over the next 6-8 months. The second thing is generate capital. There are pretty much three ways to go about this: (1) Get outside investor capital (2) Get internal capital (3) Use your own capital.

Investor capital is a dicey game. I’ve looked into SBA loans, angel investors, and venture capitalist funds. All three are non-trivial to get and all three conflict with the first goal of going full time indie, which is eliminating debt (which as an indie, is nothing less than overhead.) You are also giving up some control over the direction of your company to people who are motivated by making money. No thanks.

Getting internal capital means you ask family, friends, acquaintances, one-night stands, hell, everyone you know to give you money to start a company. There are several companies which have used this method of securing seed capital that have prospered. However, this method rubs me wrong as well: (1) it’s debt again (2) it’s mixing business and friendships (3) I hate borrowing money from anyone, ever. So again, no thanks.

That leaves us with using your own capital. Unfortunately for me (and most people), there exists no trust fund in my name which I can simply tap into and begin experimenting with entrepreneurialism. That said, this will be the capital which I personally save up. The problem here is limited funds: in order to go indie on my anticipated time line, it is hard to imagine generating enough savings to be able to sustain myself for a year in the U.S. without working. But! I can save enough to live in Mexico for 2, maybe 3 years going full time indie…

Starting to make sense now?

The Reasons Pt. 1

There are numerous reasons that have led me to choose to leave the USA and relocate to Mexico. I imagine some of them will be easily to relate with, while others will be a bit perplexing. This first set of reasons are what I call the ‘superficial’ reasons. And by superficial, I’m not implying meaningless. Although I don’t consider myself terribly superficial, I’d be lying to say that I don’t find value in a few things that are only skin deep. Without further ado:

Climate

I hate vengefully despise the cold.  Winter makes me want to crawl into a hole and hibernate. A lot of people in the midwest love the 4 seasons. Not me. I love one of them, can tolerate 2 of them, and despise the fourth. The windchill in Springfield is currently 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Not exactly what I would call pleasant weather.

I love the heat! The sun and I are quite good friends and summer is my favorite season. I also love the water: the creeks, the lake, and the ocean. Being out on the water or at the beach is unbelievably relaxing for me. Swimming: check. Fishing: check. Diving: check. Randomly walking the sand and looking for shells: check.

Of course, the U.S. has a few locales that offer great access to the ocean as well as perpetually warm climates; most of Florida, Hawaii, and Southern California all fit this description. Unfortunately, these are some of the most expensive places in the USA to live and one of my goals is to find an affordable lifestyle in the kind of climate that I love. My opinion has always been that if you are going to be alive, you might as well live where you want and how you want. 

Qunitana Roo has a terrific climate, and if you look in the right places and live life a certain way, it can be very affordable. There is one downside to Quintana Roo regarding the weather: hurricanes. Living in the midwest, I’ve never had to personally experience the devastating effects of a hurricane but anyone living post-Katrina is well aware of their sheer power. Fortunately, Cancun does not have a history of torrential hurricane beatings. One of the only severe direct impacts occurred in 2005, when Wilma made landfall on the Yucatan peninsula. Although there was serious damage in the hotel zone (which is now largely rebuilt even better), inland damage and causalities were much lower than what one would expect. It turns out that Cancun has a lot of advantages when it comes to dealing with hurricanes:

http://hurricanecancun.com/2008/08/28/cancun-has-natural-advantages-during-hurricanes/

Cost of Living

This is arguably superficial, but I think it fits better here, so here is where it will live. Cost of living is one of the most important factors for me, in terms of the next stage of my life. I have set out a pretty ambitious set of goals, and to increase my chances of success it is vital that I can live a lifestyle with very low overhead. The cost of living in Mexico is considerably less than most places in the US. In Cancun, the Hotel Zone is anything but cheap, but living a more traditional Mexican lifestyle is quite affordable. I’ve been researching apartments in Cancun for a while now (if you are doing this, Spanish sites are going to be where you find the real information) and nice 1-2 bedroom apartments can be had downtown for USD $275 – $350 a month. Try finding this kind of price in a major metro area in the US, let alone 10 minutes from the ocean…good luck.

Living in the city also helps keep costs down. In Cancun, there is a good public transportation system that is incredibly cheap and the city is dense so there will be no need for me to have a car. In the US, there are very few cities where you can easily get by without a car, and in those that you can, you are going to find high costs of living. Living in the city also presents a wealth of affordable shops, markets, and restaurants. 

The climate in Cancun also nixes the need for heat during the winter, and although air conditioning may make for comfortable living, it is something that I plan to go without. This factor keeps the utility bill low, although water service seems to be a bit more expensive in Cancun. The water is not potable either, so you have to factor in the cost of bottled water for drinking, which fortunately, is much cheaper than in the US.

I’m not much of a TV watcher (haven’t had cable in years), so that is a non-factor, but I was extremely concerned about internet prices. Having a broadband connection is essential for my plans, but after some research, broadband access is widely available in Cancun and the prices are similar to those in the US.

So Cancun has wonderful weather, the amenities I need, and is affordable to those willing to live a certain lifestyle. That’s a very good start, but there are still other reasons that have influenced my decision.

Mexico? That’s a big place…

Before I get to the reasons for my relocation, I think it is important to clarify where in Mexico I plan to relocate, as it’s a rather large nation.

Location, location, location

From the beginning, there have really only been two choices in my mind: Baja California and Quintana Roo. I’ve done considerable research on both places and have decided that Quintana Roo has more to offer me, and that my [predicted] lifestyle is better suited for this part of the country.

Baja California has a lot of pros but some of the cons are overwhelming. The largest negative factor for B.C. is increasing crime that is either a direct or indirect result of the proximal drug routes. Mexico is notorious for organized crime and drug cartels. Tijuana is one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico and the primary north-south passages through B.C. have been plagued with increasingly brazen attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/world/americas/25baja.html

While I’m not exactly a stranger to living in a dangerous area, this kind of violence and the fact that it is increasing in B.C. is not welcoming. I only expect it to get worse as well, as Mexico’s top administration is attempting to crack down on the drug cartels in the northern states.

In contrast, Quintana Roo is regarded as one of the safer areas in Mexico. Of course, crime still persists here; there are large cities and like all large cities they will suffer from crimes of opportunity and desperation. It also has moderate numbers of tourist related crimes like pick-pocketing, but the violent crime rate here is fairly low. 

A lot of people associate Mexico with crime, corruption, and danger. While Mexico continues to struggle with corruption at various levels of administration, the USA actually has a much higher crime rate and anyone who thinks the government of the USA is not susceptible to corruption is only fooling themselves. For many Americans, it will be hard to believe that the crime rate per capita in the USA is one of the worst in the world: 

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

These statistics show that the USA is ranked 8th in terms of crime per capita, while Mexico weighs in at 39th. To be fair, the murder rate in Mexico is higher than that of the USA.

Fortunately, Quintana Roo sees relatively few of these violent crimes. Its location as the most eastern state of Mexico located on the Yucatan peninsula places it far out of drug smuggling routes and the tourism revenue that this area generates has prompted large spending on infrastructure. The result is a relatively safe and stable state in Mexico.

Between Baja California and Quintana Roo, the crime rates are easily the deciding factor. But Quintana Roo is still a pretty large place, so the question still remains: where will I be relocating?

Quintana Roo

Located on the Yucatan Peninsula, Quintana Roo is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, the state of Yucatan to the northwest, and the state of Campeche to the west. It is perpetually summer here, with average high temperatures in the 80s year round. There are several Mayan sites of archaeological importance here and amazing vistas are in every direction. 

From the beginning, moving to Quintana Roo meant living on the Caribbean side to me. There aren’t many places I’d rather be than near the beach, and the warm waters and vibrant marine life of the Caribbean are simply too irresistible. Living on the beach is great, but I’d be more than satisfied with living within a 15 minute bike or bus ride.

On the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo, there are three locations that I am familiar with; probably because they are major tourist destinations. These are: Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Cozumel. I’ve spent months researching each area trying to determine which one is the most feasible for my relocation. Of course, there are countless other towns and cities that I could look into, but these 3 places offer some form of ‘security’. That is, if things get really bad and I must find employment, at least in these places I have a slim chance of landing a job in the tourist zones as a bilingual. This is not easy for a non-native, but it is my relatively pathetic emergency backup plan.  They also offer proximity to airports with the cheapest US fares, and as I plan on doing a bit of hopping back and forth, this is very important.

Playa del Carmen

Located 42 miles south of Cancun, Playa del Carmen is a city of 100,000 that hugs an amazing coast line. It is a popular tourist destination, although it is home to more boutique hotels and features few of the monolithic hotels that one will find in Cancun’s Hotel Zone. Playa del Carmen is instantly enchanting and enticing for relocation. Unfortunately, I am leary about moving to a small city such as this; it invariably means less opportunity if/when I find myself in need of regular employment and persistent research has yet to reveal affordable housing. The boutique nature of this resort town lends itself to higher prices and this conflicts with one of my goals (as you will come to find out!) 

Playa del Carmen is tempting, and although I haven’t totally ruled it out, it is not my current choice for relocating to Quintana Roo.

Cozumel

Situated 12 miles directly off of the coast of Playa del Carmen, Cozumel is a lush island with a permanent population of around 70,000. It too is a popular tourist destination, but caters to the active and adventurous types with world renowned diving and snorkeling. The principal city on the island is San Miguel, located on the western side of the island. The island is approximately 180 square miles.

Despite the amazing outdoor opportunities in Cozumel, it was easy for me to see that this would be a poor choice for relocation. The reason? It would mean making two large adjustments; not only would I have to adjust to and integrate with Mexican culture, I’d also have to adjust to the culture of island living. I would love to live on an island someday, but to tackle both of these major cultural adjustments at the same time seems like nothing less than a recipe for disaster. 

Cancun

And finally, Cancun. Home to some of the most lavish hotels in all of Mexico, heaped with international tourist praise, and tropical coastal paradises. Many people fall in love with Cancun, decide to move there, and ultimately end up…unhappy, with a quick exodus back to the homeland. I think there are several reasons for this, and I want to explain why they are not relevant to my situation. But first, understanding a little about Cancun is essential.

Cancun is a city of about 600,000 residents which started out as a government financed tourist development in Mexico’s plan to [rightfully] capitalize on its natural splendor. Cancun is actually geographically divided into two distinct sections, although it seems like many tourists never realize this.

The part that tourists frequent is called the Hotel Zone. It is a long and narrow island that is shaped roughly like a 7 . The eastern and northern coasts are jam packed with mega-hotels and resorts, shopping centers, restaurants and clubs. This island is only separated from the mainland by a few hundred feet of water of the Lagoon Nichupte, and the pedestrian friendly causeways connect at the north end of the Hotel Zone to El Centro, or downtown. The actual ‘city’ of Cancun is located on the mainland and this is where the vast majority of Cancun’s permanent residents live. 

Most of the people who visit Cancun, fall in love, and decide to move there never venture into the ‘real’ Cancun. They fall in love with the Hotel Zone which is understandably easy to do. However, living in the Hotel Zone is only for the wealthy and job opportunities for non-natives are extremely limited.  Obtaining a Mexican work visa (an FM3, the counterpart to a Green Card in the US) for an ‘unskilled’ position (such as a bartender) is seriously non-trivial. In the end, this results in a lot of disillusioned immigrants who don’t last very long and are more like ‘extended stay tourists’.

But I am well aware that the Hotel Zone is not for me. Sure, the extravagant night life and up-scale resorts are terrific for a vacation but hold little long-term opportunity for people such as myself. I’m sure I’ll spend a good amount of time there; walking the beaches, enjoying the sunsets, and even the occasional night out on the town, but I will be doing so as a commuter from El Centro, a mere 15 minutes away.

If it’s not apparent yet, Cancun is my destination! And El Centro is my more specific target. There are several sources on the net to find extremely affordable and decent housing in the center of the city, and there are several amenities that can be found near downtown. Cancun is also home to a moderately sized group of expatriates – legal residents from Canada, the US, and Britain as well as many other countries. A lot of my insight into Cancun has come from the excellent resource www.cancunassist.com – a webpage dedicated to helping those who relocate to Cancun, administered by a Canadian expatriate who has been living in Cancun for 8 years.

Of course, pinpointing the location of relocating is a very small part in the battle; there are numerous preparations to be made and I’m excited to make every one of them!

 

North End of the Hotel Zone

Market in El Centro of Cancun

Welcome – Bienvenidos

Welcome to the first post of an indie game programmer’s adventures in Mexico. My name is Coby, and over the next 8 months I will be preparing to relocate to Mexico from the U.S.A. in hopes of finding adventure, peace of mind, and getting my little indie game company off the ground.

I’ll be detailing everything it takes to become a legal resident of Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, my reasons for leaving the U.S., and with some luck, the adventures I encounter south of the border.

I’m not sure who will read this blog (if anyone ever does), but its purpose is to help me keep things on track, stay organized, and put my mental notes into digital reality. I’m also writing it to help others who find themselves in a similar situation as myself, and probably most importantly, to help my family and friends see that I am only partially crazy. 

It’s getting ready to ice here in the Midwest; I can’t wait to feel the warm ocean breezes on some scenic playa en Mexico…