People have told me that a dream career is one where you get to do your hobby as your career.  So what if some of my favourite hobbies involve videogames?  Does that mean I should pursue my passion for gaming as a career?  Or is it merely a hobby?  Where does a person draw the line between favourite hobby and dream career?

From my understanding of myself, I am enthusiastic about computer graphics, storytelling in movies, visual art and design, listening and playing music, and of course playing videogames.  After many years of enjoying each separately and individually, I’ve come to realize that all these exciting elements can be found in a single career path.

With a strong background in software engineering, the broad range of career choices makes choosing a career path both exciting and daunting.  This certainly means I have the capacity to do videogame programming and development.  In addition, my understanding of the industry and the games produced provide me with a good sense of videogame design.   Now, the question is this:  will someone who has a passion for playing games and has relevant software development skills enjoy making videogames as much as playing them?

It’s a question I’ve been pondering on throughout university.  Knowing many friends who are passionate about playing and making games definitely provides great moral support in believing that this career path is not just a solo experience or a path that is highly-exclusive.  Videogames are very complex software and to attain high quality and entertaining games, just as with any software, requires a team of talented and skilled people to make that magic happen.  This is why teamwork experience and skills are so crucial in the industry.

With that in mind, this leads us to the essence of this discussion.   As a recent university graduate, it is time to open up and to reach out.  It is time to achieve something grand and ambitious and to combine all the different elements that I enjoy into a career.  It is time to launch an exciting new path, live the dream, and make it a reality.   Challenges will be faced but it will be faced with positive energy, a can-do attitude, integrity and confidence through extensive hands-on experience.  Independent game developers, I salute you.

I’m planning to make various projects in XNA game studios, UnrealEd, and hopefully projects with the iPhone SDK, which I need to look into further.  Along with potentially other projects or digital artwork, I would like to host these items under a development umbrella, Surreality Studios (coming soon, but the name might change).  The site will start off focusing on Xbox360 community games.  I’m also hoping to find some extra help to allow for larger scale projects, though for now it will be a solo endeavour.

Can one man really do great design, art, sound, programming and testing?  I’m going to find out soon enough.

I’m a movie enthusiast and cannot wait until the summer big blockbusters arrive, but year after year they seem to  progressively move up in the calendar.  In May alone, we have the new X-Men spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1), the new Star Trek (May 8), and Terminator: Salvation (May 21).

What makes this overly exciting is that I’m a dedicated fan of each of these series, particular Terminator.   I also religiously follow the new TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles since its first airing (Summer Glau is amazing).  For the Terminator series, it has been long hiatus after long hiatus between movies in the series (1984, 1991, 2003, and 2009), but each one is a spectacular and worthy entry.

I’m not a big fan of Wolverine, but I’m glad to finally see Gambit in an X-Men movie because he’s my favourite character.  He’s suave, charismatic and kicks butt.  What is there not to like?

Star Trek is one of my favourite TV series of all time, right up their with the X-Files, although my preference is to the brilliant TNG series (The Next Generation).  I haven’t had the chance to fully appreciate the original series but now I can.

Happy 4th Birthday, Guild Wars!

It has been a long and successful four years for the NCSoft developed Guild Wars (Prophecies), the popular MMO-based game franchise launched on April 28, 2005.   By offering free online play, the franchise has become a great and popular alternative to the infamous World of Warcraft.  Since its release, the Guild Wars series has produced two new campaigns (Factions, Nightfall) and one new expansion (Eye of the North).

NCSoft is ready to celebrate Guild Wars’ 4th Anniversary, with a plethora of new updates and features.   There’s an expanded storage system, Hall of Monuments upgrades, and even a way to edit or totally redesign your character (for a fee).  Clearly, these are just small treats to keep us interested and tide us over until Guild Wars 2 is complete.  Check it out online and in-game.

courtesy of guildwars.com

Personally, I own all three campaigns and the expansion.  I don’t play the game much anymore, due to an increasingly busy schedule and several countless hours already logged into the game.  I believe I’ve put in about 1,000+ hours into the game, which sounds ridiculous for just one videogame, however this is peanuts compared to World of Warcraft aficionados with God knows how many hours.

Anyhow, to celebrate Guild Wars, I have posted up profiles of all of my RP characters HERE.  Enjoy.