The Crust Convo: What do you do for a living?

Everyone gets asked what they do, what I call the “crust convo”, and having drifted around careers over the years I’ve experienced something of a  range of receptions to whatever I’ve chosen to give an answer. I have to say that actually working in videogame development has been one of the better ones but also one of the strangest. I give an answer like “I work for a game developer” or “I work in videogames” and the reply is generally a sort of cheeky smile. It’s sort of like “oh wow, there’s no way you can actually do that stuff for a living right?!”

Then they want to engage you in what you do, but only briefly because they’re not that interested. What they want to do is say “I can’t believe there’s people that play games for a living” in some way, either shortly before or after they tell you about how their children, neice/nephew etc loves games. If they are of a generation that plays games, they genuinely want to know more. This will inevitably involve telling you about what games they play, it will never involve a question about what games you play but it will involve what games you make and that inevitable kicker, what games did you make? Anything I would have heard of? Saying you make handheld games (but not iPhone) is another barely hidden disappointment generator. It’s interesting watching for the ‘tell’ as people nod enthusiastically.

So what do you say?

Well I dunno sonny, since we didn’t make Gears of War or Halo I’m guessing that’s a “No”. Then you get the disappointment. This is exactly the same sort of response, incidentally, I used to get when I was a journalist. I was a specialist press journalist so writing about games or computery stuff, or industry computery stuff. When this comes out you get the badly hidden disappointment face. To be fair, journalism is a weird one. It’s sort of up there as a job in respect but when you drill in any detail at all, respect vanishes with an audible pop. I dare say if you were a war correspondent or Charlie Brooker, then you might escape. For everyone else… Tough titties.

Back to games… If you talk about what games you do make as being something that really neither you, nor your interrogator, are likely to choose to play such as, well, 99% of the gaming product launched today if we’re honest. Like, say, Pony Friends. This gets the understanding smiley nod, ah right you make games but nothing actually very gamey, but I suppose it’s technically games. Just like the journalist conversation; ah right you don’t write for the Sunday Times but I suppose technically you’re still a journalist.

Both are met with this initial elation of interest that cannot possibly be maintained.

It’s curious really because you could do many professions and get a nice response, some respect and maybe even some genuine interest in what you do. “I’m a musician” for example or in Australia more or less anything which involves honest things real people should do like playing football, cricket or even sailing and windsurfing. Inside stuff, gamey stuff, science stuff… bad. There are whole lots of people, people in their 40s with children for example, you don’t want to mention computer games at all with because they hate them. Inside is un-Australian don’t ya know?

It occurs to me I’m being crushingly cynical here after all it’s still a way better exchange than telling someone you’re in marketing. In my experience this was very very bad indeed and quite curious really when you consider than anything people actually like is probably the result of marketing. Marketing itself, though, must be uncomfortably close to seeing the puppet strings  so it’s a form of devious manipulation to be genuinely despised. I’m reminded of how often ‘spin’ comes up with politics these days. Spin is bad of course, presumably the view is that if the politicians does a good job then all the newspapers will write nice stories about how they’re doing such a good job. Rather than the reality of the situation in that ‘spin people’ are a necessary evil in the same way lawyers are.

So anyway… these days my response to “what is it you do” changes depending on what sort of person is asking, even going so far as to create a fictitious job for when I really can’t be arsed to have the conversation. “purchasing manager at a stationary company”.  This works, I assure you. Try it! If anyone has a better one let me know.

If you are having the Crust Convo, they’re going to ask what you do, exactly, in the collective enterprise of making games. I feel a bit hard done by here because I think the conversation would go better if I was an artist or a programmer (and they do have fascinating jobs!) but my response of  “the business guy” isn’t that bad. It’s not marketing bad.

So what’s that like?

You want the truth? Well some times it’s the best job in the world. Other times, like when times are tough, you feel like it’s entirely your fault that there’s not enough work and you’re having to let go of a bunch of people. Those times I feel like ending it all, you know what I mean Larry? So Larry, what is it you do for a living? Oh you’re a purchaser at a stationary company? Brilliant!