Games Industry Work
My first job out of college was with what was then Zeppelin Games. I did a variety of things there, including documentation and design as well as error-trapping. That's a more impressive way of saying I played games and tried to break them, then wrote a report for the programmers. It's not nearly as much fun as it sounds.
Since then, most of my other games-releated work has been in the over-the-table end of the market. I was for a time a sub-editor for PBM Scroll magazine and wrote the odd piece for Flagship, but my real entry into the marketplace was with GDW in 1993 or so. I was already published elsewhere, but my approach to GDW fell somewhere between fandom and professionalism. GDW offered me a novel contract, but hit difficult times and went out of business a year later with the book unpublished.
I did some work for Imperium Games in the later 1990s, but never got paid for it. I still have the 'renegotiated' contract I was given, which offered me 50 cents on the dollar as a settlement, take or leave. With no alternative, I took it but still didn't get paid. Got to wonder why they bothered really.
Next, I collaborated with Neil Fryer on two books for Steve Jackson games. A third was commissioned, but for reasons that remain unclear the project stopped and started repeatedly at their end, and although we submitted the manuscript on time it was never published.
I did have various flirtations with other games companies during these years. Some worked out quite well from my end (by which I mean I got paid for my work), others... not so much. Around 2001-2 I started doing a lot of work on the T20 product line for QLI. That went pretty well for a while, but QLI hit serious finanacial problems and the owner was incommunicado for about a year. I never got paid for a lot of the work I did for QLI, and I'm not credited on some materials.
Around this time I set up Avenger Enterprises to publish Traveller materials. We put out 30-odd products in a short time but had to radically revise the product line when our license ended. We'd expected to renew, so the decision to 'sunset' the small-publisher Traveller licenses was a blow - especially since we found out about it from a third party, and just after sinking a lot of money into art for products we could no longer publish.
Avenger evolved into an associated design house working with Mongoose, and gradually we began to put out revised materials and new products. I began to write game materials mainly for Mongoose, rather than through Avenger, and this has continued to date.
I have written numerous sourcebooks and adventures for Mongoose Traveller and some other product lines including Paranoia and Victory sat Sea. My other current games industry affiliation is with Cubicle Seven, whose World War Cthulhu and Cold War-era games allow me to combine historical knowledge with, well, making stuff up.
Since then, most of my other games-releated work has been in the over-the-table end of the market. I was for a time a sub-editor for PBM Scroll magazine and wrote the odd piece for Flagship, but my real entry into the marketplace was with GDW in 1993 or so. I was already published elsewhere, but my approach to GDW fell somewhere between fandom and professionalism. GDW offered me a novel contract, but hit difficult times and went out of business a year later with the book unpublished.
I did some work for Imperium Games in the later 1990s, but never got paid for it. I still have the 'renegotiated' contract I was given, which offered me 50 cents on the dollar as a settlement, take or leave. With no alternative, I took it but still didn't get paid. Got to wonder why they bothered really.
Next, I collaborated with Neil Fryer on two books for Steve Jackson games. A third was commissioned, but for reasons that remain unclear the project stopped and started repeatedly at their end, and although we submitted the manuscript on time it was never published.
I did have various flirtations with other games companies during these years. Some worked out quite well from my end (by which I mean I got paid for my work), others... not so much. Around 2001-2 I started doing a lot of work on the T20 product line for QLI. That went pretty well for a while, but QLI hit serious finanacial problems and the owner was incommunicado for about a year. I never got paid for a lot of the work I did for QLI, and I'm not credited on some materials.
Around this time I set up Avenger Enterprises to publish Traveller materials. We put out 30-odd products in a short time but had to radically revise the product line when our license ended. We'd expected to renew, so the decision to 'sunset' the small-publisher Traveller licenses was a blow - especially since we found out about it from a third party, and just after sinking a lot of money into art for products we could no longer publish.
Avenger evolved into an associated design house working with Mongoose, and gradually we began to put out revised materials and new products. I began to write game materials mainly for Mongoose, rather than through Avenger, and this has continued to date.
I have written numerous sourcebooks and adventures for Mongoose Traveller and some other product lines including Paranoia and Victory sat Sea. My other current games industry affiliation is with Cubicle Seven, whose World War Cthulhu and Cold War-era games allow me to combine historical knowledge with, well, making stuff up.
