Leaving BioWare… three months later

Three months ago I left BioWare after having worked there for ten years. It was a big decision, probably the biggest I have ever made. In a previous post I talk a bit about why I left.

Since I ‘retired’, BioWare released Dragon Age, a title I had worked on for 5-6 years. I do not know how well it is doing financially but it is maintaining a respectable, if somewhat disapointing (to me) game ranking. It is holding at just about 90%. I would have been happier to see it at 91 or 92. I have noticed that on both the PS3 and the XBOX360 that its extra download packs reached the #1 dowload spot on those platforms, so that has to be positive news.

I occasionally hear from some of my former team members which I appreciate. Everyone seems to be doing well. I do miss the day-to-day activities in the office, constantly being surrounded by creative people, running around and doing creative things is an unique experience, one that I am grateful for having been part of.

On the other hand, I do not miss the stress. And there was a lot of it. Now I spend a lot more time with my family than I was ever able to do and I have developed an efficient writing schedule… I’m finishing a story every week and a bit and also doing research and brainstorming for my novel (and writing the occasional test scene for that). I’d still like to get more productive and increase my daily word count, but that will happen.

And of course there’s been the unexpected increase in story sales as I’ve noted previously on this blog. Some of my fave stories have found good homes — next year I have at least three more stories appearing in print, including my winning story for the Writers of the Future Contest.

So all in all I’m pretty darn happy. More family time. More reading time. More writing time. Heck, even more videogame playing time — I get to mess around with games a lot more than at BioWare.

I’m grateful for the experiences I had with BioWare, especially meeting such an interesting mix of personalities and talents, but I am really enjoying (and taking advantage of) being able to work on my own projects, in my own way, and learning and developing my writing skillset which sat on a backburner for most of my time with BioWare.