I had the great fortune to work with Amy on a game project and she’s really one of the hardest working people and greatest managers in the industry. I hadn’t come across this talk she gave back in 2017 until today. Anyone who wants some understanding of managing game projects will get a lot out of this.
This bit got me, part of the great cycle of loving and hating working in video games:
I was like “fuck it, this is terrible. This is absolutely the most painful project I’ve ever been on. I’m gonna leave games, I’m gonna move to Portland, and that’s going to be the end of my life in games.” And something really interesting happens. A lot of you will know this, if you ever try to leave games, it’s like the mafia. You never really are able to leave, it sucks you back in. And I think one of the reasons for that is when you work in the games industry for any length of time, it kind of perverts your brain in a very specific way, such that when you try to live like a normal person, that just feels very weird and boring.