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?
