a lot of very sweet people new to games were exploited for their passion and most of the rest of us left. whatever that game is, it's built atop trauma and worker abuse. it is a husk and they didn't deserve a sob story game press article about how very hard it was to rebuild.
I continued working in games but it took me years to feel any emotion besides fear about working on them after that. I thought I was just a bystander to what happened but a lot of stuff has come up inside/outside therapy about the four years i worked there.
Still recovering from that time in my life, physically and emotionally 🙃
I ultimately managed to make something out of the disaster, but 4 years of getting called at 3am by your boss to be yelled at for a task you were never given, only for him to literally forget by that days 10am SCRUM can REALLY take it's toll lol
Shortly after my time there is when I got healthcare for the first time in my life and the doc said I was exhibiting early signs of chronic fatigue/narcolepsy. Had to drastically change how I went around things, and this job is the one that broke the camel's back. I had to take PT twice and I'm still not recovered!!!
This is the job, after working dayjobs since I was fuckin 13 and suffering thru so much for over a decade, was the one that made me re-assess the freelancer idea of "any work is good work"
But the worst part? Knowing so many of these truly amazing queers being completely bully'd and burnt out of games before even hitting 30. So many amazingly creative people not just doing there jobs in shit situations, but doing them with style and still making it work, only to be so hurt and done with it all that they leave the industry all together
So many great voices and influences gone, just like that
