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The Happiest Bloke On The Tram

About 8:30 this morning I got on the tram, as I do every morning, but today I made the heinous error of leaving my iPod at home attached to the charger. It dawned on me that I would have to endure the horror of the mobile sardine can without the luxury of being able to zone out with a bit of Delays. So, as you do on public transport, I spent the next ten minutes trying to avoid eye contact with anyone, lest they think I’m some sort of mugger, murderer or heaven forbid looking to make conversation. This isn’t all that easy to do when overcrowding leaves you nose to nose with total strangers. Looking around I noticed that without fail every one of my fellow passengers looked absolutely miserable! It was early, people were still waking up, I’ll give them that much, but these days I’m finding it hard to stop myself smiling all the time! Why? Because I have one of the best jobs in the world! I get up every morning and don’t feel obliged to slam my alarm clock against the wall in scorn because I look forward to going into work! Essentially I spend my day talking about a video game that has fascinated me for 12 months. Of course there’s a bit more to it than that; I work hard and when I get home at the end of the day I’m absolutely knackered, but all of the work I do (with the exception of QA ;) ) is a lot of fun for me! As I’ve always maintained, I’m still a fan of Football Superstars, so I channel that fandom and think about what I’d like to see and what I would enjoy and then I get to work on putting it together for you! There's a fair bit of stuff in the works that you’ll be seeing shortly and I’ll be gauging its success by whether you enjoy experiencing it as much as I enjoy organising it! I’m sure a lot of you reading this blog will have aspirations of getting into a job like mine, and having spent a couple of months working for CyberSports I can only encourage you to hold on to those aspirations as I’m having the time of my life here. The big question that everyone has is “How do I get into the gaming industry?” Well, I guess you could say I was ushered in through the back door, having been an enthusiastic fan of the game posting on the forums who the devs took a shine to. However, I don’t feel that my employment was a complete accident and I’ve spent a lot of time over the years reading the tips people have offered about how to get involved – in fact I still read them now! As much as I love being Community Lead, I have even greater aspirations: one day I’d love to be working on a game based on my own concept, and my ultimate goal, given the prerequisite financial clout, is to establish my own studio and emulate a hero of mine, Gabe Newell founder of Valve, by making a habit of recruiting from within our own communities. Dreams of a utopian industry aside, the most important piece of advice that I’ve acquired and that I pass on to you is to write every idea down. If you’re a creative sort then you could be coming up with ideas for features, projects, or even totally new games every day. At the time they might not seem like much and they get forgotten, but keep a file on your desktop just for you to drop in all of these little ideas – you never know when a fresh thought could come along and revitalise an old idea you might have otherwise abandoned forever. Sooner or later you’ll stumble upon something really exciting, and there are people out there who will be happy to listen to your ideas. I’ve been very fortunate to find people like that, and that’s why I’m the happiest bloke on the tram.