Jeff Husges

There is no such plan for player-created characters.

Stick figure art by Annie Carlson, not MCA. >_

Yes, that *would* be fun...

Armed with a degree in English Literature, I was getting prepped for law school until I decided I was sick of school and wanted out. After having nearly failed a class thanks to Fallout, I looked up Interplay's employment section late one night and saw that they were hiring game testers. I never imagined such a position existed, so I went for it, was hired, and joyously tested Baldur's Gate 1 for exactly one hour, after which I was promptly unhired. Thanks to a miscommunication, the QA department wasn't supposed to be hiring any more people at the time, and I was cast from Paradise. What I'd lost didn't hit me until I started a mundane office job the very next week. It was pretty much straight out of Office Space. Lost a bit of my soul in that place. Fast forward one year. Interplay owed me one, so I once again ended up in QA. I didn't mind the puny paycheck - I was back in the video game industry, and to hell with everything else. Being the oblivious, unambitious type, it never occurred to me to even try to get a position in development. I was actually pretty happy in QA - good friends, fun job, shared misery, etc. The time wasn't a complete waste, though - my team ended up being the primary team for several Black Isle projects, and as a result I got to know the devs, and when someone finally prodded me to take a shot at a junior designer position, being a known quantity undoubtedly helped me get the position. Networking at its finest. So, there I was at Black Isle for nine months. I was on Baldur's Gate 3 until it was canceled, and then on Fallout 3 until it was canceled and Interplay told most of Black Isle to go home and never come back. At least I got all my vacation pay. Several odd jobs and a year and a half later, I landed at Obsidian and resumed my designing career. Three years later, I'm still here with two actual shipped titles to my name. I must be having fun, because there are sure as hell much more stable ways to make a living.