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I'm not convinced that this wasn't the second biggest mistake of my life
- baud147258 8y agoI took the title the author used on a thread, since I think the title of the album is not explicit.
- baud147258 8y agoWell, the mods updated the title to the one of the album. The previous title was "I started making a video game because the CIA was ruining my life"
- stallmanite 8y agoNot to make light of a serious situation but if this is some kind of viral marketing I’m actually impressed. It’s captivating.
- larkeith 8y agoI mean the author even says: > Is this an advertisement for the video game I'm working on? Well, honestly, yeah, it kind of is. I'm more than okay with seeing this sort of thing, whether or not it's an advertisement, as long as it provides value to read. I hope someone sends in that FoI request and posts it later (I might do so myself once I have access to a computer), as the context sounds fascinating. Interestingly, this is also much more effective than traditional advertising, at least for me - I'll be keeping an eye on this game when it goes to early access, whereas I actively avoid the majority of products I recognize from advertisements.
- andruby 8y agoI'd say it's a great example of Simon Sinek's advice "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it". https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...
- Niksko 8y agoThank you, that's a really wonderful and interesting video. It all seems a little too easy and too sensible to be the cause of such radically outlying success. But it certainly presents an interesting narrative that I'm going to try and use in presentations and in convincing others in the future.
- api 8y agoIt's a commentary on our age that your first thought is that it might be a lie.
- dmix 8y agoIt's one side of a story, where all the details of that side (let alone the opposing side) are classified. I'd take it as a rule of thumb not to trust it. Most likely its a) probably far more interesting to the participants than a public audience and b) could easily just be your typical government/big corp managerial politics issues, as it's rarely the talent who float to the top of administrative (and risk-oriented agencies like the CIA are super administrative). Those stories are typically built on type of a ton of tiny small insignificant interpersonal issues that snowball into bigger problems until they start affecting real work. The type of problems that could easily have been dealt with far earlier on in the process had reasonable adults been in charge.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoWas there an age when people blindly trusted everything they read? Healthy skepticism can be a very good thing.
- MarsAscendant 8y agoIt's taking things to an extreme – like automatically mistrusting the source because it seems to attempt playing the reader's heartstrings – that's a defining characteristic of the Internet era. Not everyone makes up their stories, and not nearly everyone is lying – but there are people who will abuse the natural trust people exhibit, and take the profits into their pockets, as opposed to helping their fictional cause. It's so prominent because there's a whole lot of people who do that. Similar to the "vocal minority" phenomenon, people start assuming that everyone in the same group is <something>, regardless of how valid the assumption is, because of the exposure towards a certain kind of the group's members.
- baddash 8y agoIt definitely is. This kind of advertising is pretty commonplace, you can see it all over reddit. This guy just happened to explicitly say it was.
- xellisx 8y agoWas hoping for this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend)
- Asooka 8y agoOh, that was in my local arcade when I was a kid. They closed it down a couple of years ago sadly.
- tfandango 8y agoI hope it's a blockbuster. But this line bothered me: "This ends here. Anything you write from here on out, we have to approve. If you write a tell-all book without our permission, you go to prison. Any questions?" I hope that does not apply to software.
- irrational 8y agoI expect there to be a follow-up that OP died in a tragic "accident".
- bigiain 8y agoEqual parts cynicism and pragmatism. I'll buy you a drink if you're ever in Sydney...
- alasdair_ 8y agoThat would imply competence.
- toyg 8y agoWith all due respect to him, it’s probably not worth the hassle.
- MarsAscendant 8y agoHe did say "CIA", not "FSB".
- rasz 8y agoyou are right, a suicide then.
- kxyvr 8y agoSort of. Depending on the clearance issued, there are a number of requirements that endure even beyond the duration of clearance. Most of the time, this just applies to work related material. However, certain clearance levels require that all published material, regardless if it's work related or not, be reviewed. Truth be told, I don't know the exact details of these stipulations, but I know it to be a burden for those who engage in a certain kind of work. Here's an older editorial that talk about some of these details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-governments-prepublication-review-process-is-broken/2015/12/25/edd943a8-a349-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-governments-prep...
- angel_j 8y ago"I can take some fictional people, make everyone betray them for all their own petty and cowardly reasons, and our protagonists will just have to deal with it." Birth of a genre.
- smacktoward 8y agoToo late. George R. R. Martin beat him to it :-)
- magpi3 8y agoSounds like a fairly accurate description of Charlie Brown to be honest. The wiki link for non-Americans who are unfamiliar with the character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown
- thescriptkiddie 8y ago> Anyone interested in an infuriating tale of mismanagement, fraud, incompetence, duplicity, backstabbing, turf wars, and tyranny of petty authority, I encourage to send a Freedom of Information Act request to NSA. Ask for the post "Beyond Mere Malice" from the Parting Thoughts blog, November 2016. Anyone going to do this?
- platz 8y agosounds like an issue with management, why?
- uniformlyrandom 8y agoDo you want to get your name on a list? Because that is how you get your name on a list.
- bigiain 8y agoI think you mean "another list"... Surely one more list wont make any difference, right? :sigh:
- joelhoffman 8y agoEventually you may end up on the list of people who are on a lot of lists? Seems suspicious.
- jessaustin 8y agoAnyone interested in an infuriating tale of mismanagement, fraud, incompetence, duplicity, backstabbing, turf wars, and tyranny of petty authority, I encourage to send a Freedom of Information Act request to NSA. Haven't we gotten the distinct impression that the unsupervised services are rife with such experiences, even more than other federal government bureaucracies? When it's illegal to go the press, very few people do so.
- ENOTTY 8y agoCounterpoint: Michael O'Church
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoWhat does he have to do with unsupervised intelligence services?
- baud147258 8y agoI think the comment was on the wrong parent, most likely intended for the video game part of the conversation.
- jonnybgood 8y agoIt sounds like big organization problems and office politics that you can find anywhere. Academia is a good example. Nothing unique here or surprising.
- jessaustin 8y agoWow that's dystopian. I've worked in large organizations enough to know that they aren't my cup of tea, but I've never seen things sink to these levels. Why would humans voluntarily join such organizations? (Yeah, I know, to make a living... but TFA seems to indicate that there are other options.) When work situations get really intolerable, the civil courts are always an option. Except, for the unsupervised services they aren't. I'm sure that makes a difference.
- karmakaze 8y agoSuffering makes for great art. And this looks like some truly creative shit. Sorry, and thanks.
- vanderZwan 8y agoI'm going to go off on a tangent here, and I want to make it clear that I am not railing against karmakaze or suggesting they implied things they didn't say. It is just that in a more general sense I wish this notion of "suffering for art" would die, and this is just me venting my frustration with this meme (in the original sense of the word). Because I think it applies to the tech industry just as much. Hannah Gadsby's put it into words better than I can in "Nanette", but sadly I can't link to a 1-hour Netflix special so my own angry take on this will have to do. Yes, some art, specifically art about suffering, benefits from people who experienced suffering. Otto Dix is brilliant because he shows us the horrors of war he experienced[0][1]. And there is such a thing as posttraumatic growth[2], so sure, overcoming "suffering" can have benefits in general. Emphasis overcoming, though! Other than that it's romantic nonsense that has been debunked by psychology time and time again. And it's dangerous nonsense too, because it leads to movies like Whiplash. Don't get me wrong: it's a brilliant film, but because it's so dazzling I don't think people criticize the issues it has enough. Think about it: two of the most privileged white dudes in the world complain that Jazz is dying, and our main antagonist spends the entire film bullying, tormenting, sometimes flat-out gaslighting his students because he somehow believes that traumatizing them will make them as good as some of the worlds greatest musicians. Of course, he is being completely ignorant of the context that the latter lived in, of their personal histories. Suffering in itself does not inspire greatness, dammit. Perhaps Whiplash's underlying thesis is that this is not true, nor justifyiable, but if so it's just like anti-war movies that end up glorifying war. Because it ends with giving Terence Fletcher a moment to tell "his side" of the story. He shows no regret for bullying one of his students into suicide, "because a real Charlie Parker would have been able to take [my abuse]." Holy freaking self-serving cherry picking survivor bias, Batman! First of all, we don't know if Charlie Parker would have been any less brilliant if he had had proper therapy for his inner demons. Perhaps he would have been more brilliant, ever considered that? Young John Coltrane suffered from heroine and alcohol addictions, but he wrote "A Love Supreme" after he had a religious experience and overcame those addictions. Not to mention the fact that we are ignoring countless of brilliant artist who are not suffering, which you don't hear about because it's not a juicy story. So at the end of the movie the main characters are just as horrible, misguided and unaware of their own institutional whiteness and privileges as before, and haven't really learned anything. Then they give a dazzling performance that seems to suggest to us that yes, all of this was justified to give us this. It's ignorant, insulting and wrong. Believing that suffering for art is necessary is a misguided, romantic and outdated and dangerous view of genius and I can't wait for it to die. No matter what field we are talking about. [0] https://www.ottodix.org https://www.ottodix.org [1] The appreciation of "ugly" art is actually a very interesting topic, I recommend Talk about a Painting: A Cognitive Developmental Analysis as a nice starting point. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_growth
- systemizer 8y agoGiven the post's lack of detail relating to the experience of creating the game itself, I fear OP is treating his craft as a means to an end; instead of loving his craft for what it is. I fell into a similar trap when, after leaving my job to pursue my "passion," I became my own slavemaster, treating myself as resource for production, and eventually learned to hate my once cherished activities. I hope OP's game succeeds; regardless, I would not recommend, to anyone, to pursue a personal hobby, dwelling, or passion as a means to reaching some external reward.
- rv-de 8y ago> I would not recommend, to anyone, to pursue a personal hobby, dwelling, or passion as a means to reaching some external reward. Why not?
- systemizer 8y agoA passion is something that is personal and internal. It's your direct experience with a craft that is becomes a natural extension of you. When you change your relationship to that craft such that you require some external means, it no longer becomes purely internal. In today's culture, which (I believe) overvalues monetization and productivity, it is easy to be swept into external desires for accomplishment. And, even if you do achieve your goals, it is very difficult to go back to re-experience the original internal, personal relationship you enjoyed with that craft
- rv-de 8y agoThat means you have the choice between: a) Working without passion and having almost no time for what you are passionate for. b) Working with reduced passion. And if you are a bit lucky even lots of passion. I think (b) is preferable.
- tarsinge 8y agoAnd don't see why in a) you couldn't manage to have time for your passions, i.e. leave at 5. For me it meant lowering my ambitions and not trying to be fulfilled only by me work, but instead make time for unproductive activities (hobbies/friends/family). Even if I have less money in the end I feel way better.
- rudiv 8y agoI wish OP well, but as a person from South Asia, it's very hard to not have a bitter taste left in my mouth when you mention you used to be an CIA officer in South Asia and then moved on to work for the NSA, no less.
- Ar-Curunir 8y agoI understand that the CIA have been villains in many different countries, but I didn't know about their involvement in South Asia. Could you elaborate a bit?
- jmknoll 8y agoHere is a (very) incomplete list of recent CIA activities in South Asia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Pakistan Going back to the 80's, you have Operation Cyclone, which was the CIA operation to arm and finance the mujahadeen against the USSR, which led to the creation of the Taliban, 10 years of brutal theocratic rule and ethnic cleansing in Afghanistan, and ultimately to the September 11th attacks on the United States, and to the (still ongoing) NATO occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone I don't know much about India, but it looks like the CIA may be implicated in the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and bombed a plane in the 50's in an attempt to kill Zhou Enlai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_India I think GP is pretty justified in saying that the presence of a CIA/NSA operative in South Asia would leave a bad taste in his mouth.
- jonnybgood 8y ago> which was the CIA operation to arm and finance the mujahadeen against the USSR, which led to the creation of the Taliban That is actually not what happened. The mujahadeen are not precursors of the Taliban. Matter of fact, the mujahadeen and Taliban fought each other. Many members of the mujahadeen left to join the Taliban but they are not the same. The Taliban was started by students.
- ivan_gammel 8y agoWasn’t it some external contractor doing sentiment analysis for media publications for ISAF? The contract was cancelled by DoD after publication of an article in Stars and Stripes about censorship and denying access to battlefield for some journalists based on that reports. What was the role of the author in that?
- nindalf 8y agoI wish the author had posted this after it was available on Steam. I’ve read his story and I’d like to support him but I can’t. By the time it’s possible to buy this game I would likely have forgotten about it. Still, kudos to him for persevering and getting his project to completion.
- kennyadam 8y ago"It's going to be a lot longer than that before I'm finished. But it's time for me to start moving along, and I'm releasing the game as an Early Access title on Steam next month. I don't know how well the game is going to sell. I've started looking for my next grownup job after this" Am I understanding this correctly? He's dumping the game on 'Early Access' but isn't going to finish it? Hardly early access and more duping people, if I'm not mistaken?
- xg15 8y agoMaybe he plans to continue developing the game as a hobby/side thing though and wants to see how much community interest there is for it. With some luck, it could become an ongoing thing like a webcomic.
- imarg 8y agoI took it as it will be longer than 8 hours. If you include the previous sentence in you excerpt it becomes: "It's playable now, through about 8 hours of content. It's going to be a lot longer than that before I'm finished."
- jeffrallen 8y agoExcellent marketing, at least!
- madshiva 8y agoYour wife blame you, does your wife not working or what? Follow and continue your dream. Never surrender, and put your wife at work damn.
- tobyhinloopen 8y agoI'm not convinced that this wasn't a sob story to advertise his game. Well done, because it seems to work.
- HiroshiSan 8y agoHe says it is at the beginning. See comments above.
- zerogvt 8y agoFunny enough I had a related talk with a friend just yesterday. Say that there is a hard contest with cruel winning odds which -if you succeed- you get a permanent position in a public sector body (say ECB) with very good salary for life. Also say that the situation in private sector (job market) goes to hell and shows no signs of reverting any time soon. Then say you succeed and get that lifer position where no one can fire you from but yourself. Then imagine you get a boss or an environment that it is so damned toxic that is unbearable. But still no one can fire you. No one but you. But now the dilemma is huge. Do you quit a permanent position and jump back to hell (even less well equipped since the time you left it) or do you just hang on in there hoping for a wind change? The stakes are much higher than if you were in yet another private job where you'd be just refreshing your CV and interviewing. Dunno - I guess there are cases where you need to be careful what you wish for.
- vitorbaptistaa 8y agoThis sounds like the tale of many Brazilian civil servants. Civil servants in Brazil are either indicated by someone ("comissionados"), which means your job is tied to the current administration, or you've passed in a selection and have your job stability for life ("concursado"). These selections usually have tens or hundreds of thousands of people competing for a handful of vacancies, so people spend years studying and doing many of these (they're called "concurseiros"). Once you're in, you're set for life. Adding to this, the public sector pays much more than the private sector (often 50% ~ 100% more). Have job stability, generous vacations and other benefits. Depending on where you are (federal, state or municipal government levels), you also have a special retirement plan that gives you 100% of your salary when you retire (the private policies are capped at around 4.5 minimum wages, for comparison a good dev in the bigger cities can get about 10~15 minimum wages). And so we have many "lifers" in the public sector, and this kind of job is the dream for many people (which is terrible IMHO).
- zerogvt 8y agoTo a large extent a job is what you make of it. I understand why being a lifer might seem terrible to one and a dream to another. There are no constants here - it's all relevant. Someone gets a permanent position and is dragging his feet and dying out of boredom. Someone else sees that as an extra degree of freedom (not having to worry about his job security) and he is branching out say to explore/contribute to a tech stack that is not popular with employers.
- anjc 8y agoThis petty, begging article might be the third biggest mistake
- aritmo 8y agoSome may not like the article, but now he is standing out of the thousands game developers. He got the attention.
- tomerbd 8y agowhat are the expertise needed to create such a game? it always looks magical to me how those games are created?
- vectorEQ 8y agoif it made you happier, it was a good choice. if it makes you sadder, it was a good lesson, and that should make you happy :D
- davidscolgan 8y agoI can't speak much to the military things in this post, but I will just add that as someone who also tried to make money from video games for quite some time in the recent past, it's _such_ a hard way to make money. Web development has not been nearly as "fun", but it's been so much more lucrative. If you want to make video games as a business, I'd say make your money first with "boring" work and then making a video game can be fun since you don't have to have the financial pressure overhanging it. You hear the indie darling success stories like Undertale, Stardew Valley, etc. But I imagine that the common case is: "Spend lots of time, then nothing happens."
- tvararu 8y agoCurrently saving up a retirement nest egg to work on video games full time. Your advice matches with my own research.