What happened?

o all of a sudden, almost as expected, I stopped blogging. Now and then I logged in to a community site like Facebook or the like to check on things, and I continue to read other peoples' blogs, but I basically have been 'lurking' for a while, so to speak. Why? Because I've been working.

It's funny how as soon as I picked up the job I was searching for, I lost the motivation to write about it. A lot of that is probably due to the fact that I've been party to something of a steep learning curve - and have taken these last few months as time to adjust to my new environment, but I would like to announce officially - though close to 4 months late, that I am now a producer.

Of course, in video gaming.

During the Raku Job fair I mentioned back a few months ago (One or two posts ago), I met with a lot of representatives of a lot of companies. My original plan was to go for a position in an art department - showcase my talent for pixels and let that speak for me. To be honest, I was relatively sure that as a stranger in a strange land, I wouldn't really be taken seriously for the more management-type jobs of game planning, direction or production; still, I had a nice, if brief conversation with the HR head at Japanese mid-sized development and production house, Acquire (Primarily known in the west for Tenchu and Way of the Samurai, as well as the ridiculously long-named "Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman: What did I ever do to Deserve This?"as a developer - and a title recently licensed overseas by Atlus called Class of Heroes).

He mentioned that there might be an opening sometime in the near future (as of that time) in their Sales & Production team for an assistant Producer position. Acquire as of only a few years now has started work as a publisher, on top of their development work, and with a team of only 2 producers, in order to maintain momentum and bolster growth, they needed someone with a mind for business, and an eye for games as an assistant producer. This eventually became me.

However, that eventuality was actually postponed (Perhaps for the best? I'm not sure) by my preconceptions that Foreigners aren't taken seriously in the Japanese game market. As it wasn't an official entry for an open position, I was just asked cordially to send an e-mail with my detailed resume and a self-introduction, and to take it from there. To me (With the mind of a headhunter still strong) I labeled it as an off spec (i.e. sent over without a specific position in mind) entry, and therefore very unlikely to actually stick. I really wanted the position, but I was prioritizing jobs that were urgent to the hirer, like a good little recruiter.

I went ahead and applied to a handful of positions in companies that e-mailed me with entry methods for specific positions, and even went pretty deep with an application to Porn Game maker Front Wing.

However, everything fell through. I was back to square one, and the only card I had left in my hand at the time that seemed at all likely was with Acquire and the vague thought that there might be something open. I bit, sent in my application, and got a reply asking to come in for an interview the next week. I was elated. I researched as much as I could about the company and their games, read up on what a Producer actually does (It's a lot different than you might think - I intend to post about that separately), and went in to meet the two gents who would ultimately become my bosses.

The interview went average-to-well. Ever self-doubting I was kicking myself in the ass for asking one or two stupid questions, including repeating myself because I started saying something, didn't know where I was going with it, so recovered by restating a pretty simple question they'd already answered.

Regardless, they apparently liked what they saw, and asked to see Kuma Story and Red Flagg Redux, and said they'd get back to me in a week.

Fast forward 1 week, still no word, and girlfriend visiting from Korea. I was diligently checking my e-mail while the missus lay on the bed watching some cooking program on TV, when I saw an e-mail from Hyakuzuka-san, the HR gent at Acquire and flipped out. It wasn't the rejection e-mail I expected - it wasn't even the '2nd interview' e-mail I was hoping for, it was an offer of employment. I was dumbstruck, and turned to express what I could to my girlfriend - apparently I looked more shocked than I imagined, since until I told her specifically that I got the job, she was sure from my expression that I had been turned down.

They asked me to start working from May 1st, and that I did. I was there from right after the release of Dungeons & Dam, and am now in full-gear with production of some newly announced titles, Gladiator Begins and the exciting revival of the Wizardry franchise, with "Labyrinth of Lost Souls" (Still a teaser site, as of this writing).

I hope to keep up with the blog again, and maybe someone will find it interesting enough to actually read. I doubt I'll post more than at a weekly pace, but hopefully something will come of it, and I won't leave it stagnant for another 5 months.

Cheers.