Long time no blog…

It’s funny, I have a dedicated web site and blog that I really don’t use. I mostly post to Google+ or Facebook though even there it’s sort of rare.

Just for purposes of recording some history, let’s talk a bit about what I’ve been up to in the last eight months or so.

First, after leaving Capcom, I went straight into trying to get a new startup off the ground called Kontested. Its focus was on skill-based gaming (that is, the wagering of real money on the outcome of a game of skill, as opposed to a game of chance).

The objectives of the company were clear, but for me, the attraction was threefold:

1. A complex set of problems (legal, technical, social) that haven’t been solved broadly.

2. Keeping two people working with me that I respect greatly and enjoyed working with (Travis Williams and Zack Karlsson).

3. The potential rewards for solving the above problems could be considerable.

Now, unfortunately finding funding for such things is tricky and the funding process, which we hoped would have been completed early in the process, dragged on. We did as much work on the product and the plan as we could on spec until we needed more people (programmers and the like) and needed to cut checks for outside partners (backend, operations, content partners, etc.).

Eventually, Travis and Zack had to find other gigs to keep paying the rents, which takes away from attraction #2 and impairs the ability to solve problems in attraction #1.

I too started to look around at other opportunities in February, around the Dice Summit. In the mean time, I’ve been doing some consulting work for a development studio in Warsaw, Poland called Q-loc. We used them on about a dozen projects at Capcom during my time there and they’ve always delivered so I had no issue vouching for them. I’m also starting some consulting work with a high-end, well known VFX studio in LA who is trying to get more into games.

As it stands right now, I’m sitting on a couple offers for really amazing opportunities and I believe there will be a few more coming in the next couple weeks. After which time, I’ll wind down my consulting projects and jump in full time somewhere or another.

Whether I actually wait another year to write something here about it, remains to be seen. In the mean time, keep me friended/circled on Facebook and Google+. 🙂