Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Sega Dreams Ft. Gabe Newell

You know what, there's so much crap going on with Sega.  People getting fired, Sega guys joining Nintendo, Yakuza games turning girls into porn stars, you know the whole ordeal.  I really can't go through it all since I got a lot of work to do and I really can't think it through right now.

But I did have a dream recently.  I have a lot of dumb dreams and this one's no different.  However, it's semi-relevant to this topic (as is this dream months ago).  This is how it goes.  I promise you that I'm not embellishing this.

...

Me and my dad are in a slim office building about 40 floors high.  There's large glass windows spanning multiple floors and a modest-sized crowd around.  What we were all doing there, I really don't know.  We're near the top floors and we're trying to get to the ground floor.  Apparently the glass elevator was broken but rather than walk down the stairs, we waited for the elevator to be fixed.

So while waiting, I discovered that the top floors of the building are in fact the Valve offices, where they make Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, etc.  Surprisingly, my imagery of the offices were similar to their real-life offices.  And guess what--you could just walk in and chill out, shoot the breeze, whatever.  There weren't that many people around so we weren't disrupting anybody.

So I get to the top floor and there's this brown board room with business execs in suits doing business stuff while little kids are running around playing with various toys like at a daycare.  It didn't make any sense.  But guess who was there standing around--none other than gaming billionaire Gabe Newell.


So I go up to Gabe, not to have a panic attack and shout "IT'S GABE!!!!!"  I play it cool.  But the first thing that comes out of my mouth and--get ready for it--is something like this:

"Gabe, you're a game developer guy, right!?  I want to work for Sega!  Sega needs help!  What can I do to help Sega?!?!?!"

That's right...I asked the head of one successful company how to help another unsuccessful company.  So Gabe just scoffed at my question with a non-answer.  The glass elevator (those scare me) was fixed and he started to walk out the office.  Then it was like a movie cliche how Gabe tried to get away but I remained in pursuit to ask for his wisdom.  I threw in some shoutouts to racing games cause I'm a baus like that ("Sega needs racing games").

Eventually, we made it to the ground floor and he casually walked across the boulevard to a lemonade stand (wtf??).  And as expected, I followed him.  Eventually, at the lemonade stand, he stopped and said this to me:

"Just keep making great games and don't worry about the money."

And that's when I woke up.

....

What does it all mean??  And why Gabe Newell??  I don't know--it's just some random game producer.  A fat, hilarous game producer?  I'm not interested in Valve right now (besides Counter-Strike)....

I think the message here is that money is temporary.  Yet the glory of a great video game lasts forever.  And if you put money before games, then you will fade away, hence what has happened to poor old Sega.  So, starting now, forget about the money, make the games that make people happy, and as a result, people will show up in droves and hand over the cash...for it is money they have but peace they lack (hence the serious businessmen & the worry-free kids).

....just go make the games already, dammit!!  I'm sick and tired of all this marketing bulls***.  I didn't go to gaming school for the $50K+ paychecks or to make a bunch of business suits happy, I can here to MAKE THE RACING GAMES!!!

*Sega takes my advice and goes bankrupt* Waw waw waaaawwww......  More relevant posts to come...this weekend.

BTW, I had a carton of orange juice in the fridge that was three weeks past the expiration date.  You ever drink outdated orange juice?  It's not pretty.  How did that outdated juice get there anyway???  Did I pick it up from the supermarket past the date?  Who knows...

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