I feel like we've seen an incredible surge of ambitious and interesting narrative games over the last few years and my only real regret is knowing that, realistically, I'm past the point in my career where I could feasibly work on that stuff anymore. Tiny poverty teams can't afford to hire an animator with 13 years of experience and why bother when they could scoop up a college grad and be just fine
The thing about being an animator rather than a 3d generalist in small indie spaces (sub-20 people) is you kind of go in knowing you are and always will be a luxury unless you are willing to work for sub-minimum wage equivalents. It's a specialized role at a company that might otherwise have only one artist at all. Most of my career has been spent contracting for companies that could barely afford me, and that was back BEFORE massive hyperinflation hit vancouver. Idk, I've been thinking on this for awhile because I have no idea where my career's going the next time i need to look for work, lol
