40 years and I'm still here

gamedeveloper.com:

To my amazement, this month - September 2023 - marks my 40th year in game development. I’m not sure how I’ve survived so long in a business that more typically burns people out in... somewhat less, let’s just say. That said, I have some thoughts about survival and an urge to tell the story of how I today find myself one of the most long-lived veterans still actively involved in making games. There may be a few older geezers still working, I guess, but most of you who want to chime in with an arthritic “But I’ve been doing this longer than you” or “You’re a young whipper-snapper next to me” are probably big deals on the business side - C-suite types. If you’ve worked more than 40 years and are still actually working with teams to make games, let me know. We can hang out and talk about our lumbago.

But now I’m just bragging.

So, I want to share my story. And I want to talk about how things have changed and about how they haven’t. Don’t expect any deep design or creative leadership insights here. I’m going full selfish on you and talking about myself. (Hey, if Cliffy B and John Romero can write their - fascinating - autobiographies, a blog post from me can't hurt.) Maybe you’ll find what I have to say interesting, maybe not. One of the joys of aging is that you kind of stop caring what other people think, so I’m just going to ramble on. You can join me if you want. Or go read someone else's blog. I won't be offended.

I discovered Dungeons & Dragons back in 1978, just four years after the game made its debut. I bought the white box edition - the one that required players to make up half the rules, a bit of design genius if there ever was one. I mean, once you'd made up a bunch of rules and made the game your own, who was going