New Year Resolutions

Another year has come and gone, and well, good riddance 2008! Not only was 2008 a horrible year the world across, it was also a horrible year for me personally. But that is water under the bridge now, so it’s time to refocus, learn from the past, and get moving on the bright future.

Here are my 2009 resolutions; I doubt they are much of a surprise.

(1) Eliminate 99% of my debt

(2) Help develop and restructure the programming department at my day job to become a more efficient and exciting place to work.

(3) Relocate to Cancun by next Fall.

(4) Release my first indie game by next Christmas (submitting to the IGF would be a nice bonus).

Numbers 1 and 3 are well on their respective ways. Number 2 is pretty daunting; this is my first shot at  managing a department and I’m both nervous and excited. I can say that I’ll give it everything that I have to offer, so here’s to hoping that pans out. Number 4 is realistic and I have a renewed vigor of late. Although Number 2 is a higher priority than Number 4 until I relocate, I am confident it can be achieved.

Hope your new year has started out with a bang.

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.