Alea iacta est!

"The die has been cast," Julius Caesar exclaimed, according to Plutarch, before crossing the Rubicon and plunging Rome into a civil war that would shape Western civilisation. And, in a move with exponentially less significance, it is also what I say now, as I have finally decided to lay down arms and hand in my resignation. After a long decade of working in video games development, the majority of which in Japan, I have found that reaching my full potential, the dreams I pursue, to create amazing art through hard work, dedication and study, to work on great games that bring many people joy, to work in a professional, streamlined working environment...are all pretty much impossible here, for a variety of reasons.

Some of these reasons point the finger of blame squarely at myself, of this I have no doubt. I don't for one moment believe I am the "misunderstood genius whom nobody listened to". I certainly could have done more to better my situation, but I gave up. Other reasons, though, are very much to do with the state of video game development in general, especially in Japan. These reasons I will mull over at length in an upcoming series of posts dedicated to the subject. But the end result is: I throw in the towel. I simply cannot ever do any good (enough) work as a wage slave in a Japanese company. I'm out.

To say I feel liberated is possibly somewhat of an understatement. In fact, this decision was made a while back but due to circumstances out of my hands I had to bide my time. One can imagine having this particular carrot dangled in front of me for months on end was a very rough and emotionally turbulent trek.

So what's next for me? Sadly, unlike the West, in Japan one usually works out their notice period to the last second. Having already had my reserves of motivation depleted it'll be a difficult last month, dragging myself to work. But after that, I've been looking into the possibility of doing some freelance work, indie projects, some other business ideas, doing some art for art's sake. I need to realign my spine and coax some life back into my joints by exercising, possibly swimming in one of the tiny local pools usually clogged by ancient women doing aquarobics. Learn to knit. Study something, possibly another language. Work through my backlog of unplayed games. Do a bit of traveling to see friends and family. But mostly, and foremost, I will have a sleep for a month orso.

Japanmanship will continue for as long as I have things to write about and spurious opinions to proclaim. Aside from the series of in-depth post-mortems I have planned I'll now be able to look a little more closer at typical Japanese games that usually don't make it to the West, as well as the many trial and tribulations of the freelancer or indie developer. Theoretically, aside from the post-mortems, the tone of the blog should take a turn for the optimistic, or, if things don't go well, the self-loathing, as I'll have noone to blame but myself.