Montgomery Markland

This isn't really the appropriate place to discuss this, but if anyone wants to ask me questions about anything at all, feel free to add me on Facebook: Montgomery Lee Markland

Mixing business and art is a feat rarely accomplished, but it is not an impossibility as many great novels and films attest. The game industry is still in its nascent stages. For most of the early days of "movies," the "art form" consisted of nickel arcades showing nudie flicks. One of the first great "works of art" in the film industry was the unabashedly prejudicial The Birth of a Nation. Movies had been around in various forms, primarily exploitative, for the better part of two decades when D.W. Griffith's epic hit the screens. As for equating Obsidian to McDonald's, the analogy is so absurd as to not warrant challenge.

Since when are you "any reasonable person"? Haha, fair enough.

I am leaving Obsidian. It is by choice; but that is not a reflection on Obsidian -- I simply have an opportunity any reasonable person would pursue. Obsidian is a great studio. I would love to work with all of the owners again in the future. I'll miss working with many of the game creators at the company; but I intend to see them all socially as I am not leaving Southern California. As for "company loyalty" and that other nonsense... The average time spent at a single company is dropping across all industries. This isn't the 1950s; I'm not going to sexual harass the secretary and I'm not going to hold onto some vestige of feudal fealty in the form of "corporate loyalty." Business is business.

1) Start a mod team for a game such as Half Life, Unreal, Call of Duty, Crysis, Fallout, etc. Keep the scope of your mod small (one single awesome playable level) and add one unique, compelling gameplay feature to the game. When you have that finished, polish it for months, work on the audio, the visuals, everything. Create the most awesome section of game for whatever modding platform you have chosen and then use that as your demo reel. You'll get interviews if you execute well and the rest is up to you and your interviewing skills. (This route has the con that you are not making connections inside of the industry while you are working on your reel). 2) Get a job doing QA for a studio and in your spare time learn the tech that the studio uses and create the exact same thing I described above in your spare time. Do a competent job as a QA guy at the same time. Use your creations as your internal job application. This approach probably has a higher success rate, but it chains your ability to advance to the studio you work in some regards (ie you might not ever be able to show what you make to anyone outside the studio, limiting your portfolio's utility unless you go make something with some publicly accessible tools). Basically, make an awesome level for a game and you will get a job unless you are scum (and if your level is awesome enough you can probably get away with being scum too -- I'm sort of scummy sometimes and I have a job).

Ancient evil comes back to wipe everyone out is one of the oldest stories the human race tells. So, it's not really fair to say anyone ripped it off when they are telling a variation of the old myth. There is nothing new under the sun.

All the Phillip Marlowe books - 'The Big Sleep,' 'The Long Goodbye,' 'The High Window' - were set in LA. Are you thinking of Ernest Fontana's "Chivalry and Modernity in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep." ? The Long Goodbye is so good

Too soon.

Alternating between Mass Effect and Dead Space for single player and CoD5 and L4D for multiplayer.

It's nearing the top of my list of things to do (getting the new guys on the purgatorio team some support from my end) -- it's been an insanely busy 6 months.

This strikes me as a counter-productive tactic

These would all be awesome: 1. Bladerunner 2. Altered Carbon 3. The Call of Cthulhu 4. Terminator (Post-Nuclear Holocaust) 5. Warhammer 40,000 6. Mad Max 7. Rifts 8. Shadowrun 9. Neuromancer 10. Firefly

Individuals obtain mastery over written expression through practice. So... write a ****load of stuff. Write everyday. You are a writer if you are writing. If you don't write, you are not a writer. Write short stories. Write plays. Write screenplays. Write game narrative content for a mod team. Write non-fiction. Write journalistic pieces. Write speeches for politicians or corporate figures. Write for the college newspaper. Write for pay if you can and for free if you can't. Write forum posts. Experiment with different styles. Learn all of the rules so that you can break the rules when appropriate. Consider your degree options in terms of utility. Most degrees provide little real-world value unless you obtain a degree that establishes some low-level form of credentials or credibility. Seeking a degree in liberal arts disciplines such as English or history will compel you to become more familiar with the associated subject matters; however, you can compel yourself to obtain the same degree of familiarity without external pressure. A computer science degree will provide the most utility when it comes time for you to apply for game development jobs. Try to get published. Start with small market literary publications. Search the web for potential markets. Find websites like this: Short Story markets and submit your material to the various places. You'll get probably 1000 rejections for every acceptance, even if you are competent. Ignore that because it's irrelevant, all you are trying to do is build momentum at this point. Definitely write or design something for a mod team, preferably one that actually releases something. Combine released mod work with published written work with a comp sci degree and you will turn yourself into a saleable entity. Add in some experience doing QA and you will be in really good shape.