GamesIndustry.biz's article has made me think:
(It's a good read btw)
I was living in Italy, doing tours of a Grappa distillery, dreaming of a future in the games industry.
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Video Games
Ten years ago I'd just moved to Brighton and was finishing up my probation at a (now defunct) web agency that made e-commerce sites. Their biggest client was Rapha, the cycling company, but they dropped us not long after I started and I'd say the company never really recovered. Fun place to work, though.
I think I was either just finishing up my stint as EIC on Modojo, or just settling into the guides editor role on Eurogamer. Either way that's 10 years that's gone by far too quickly...
Patiently waiting for my free copy of the £180 COD ghosts prestige edition I managed to bag at Eurogamer expo 2013 to arrive. That was a good year (but probably not for the organisers dealing with the mayhem)
EGX jesus tried his best to control everyone:
Oh my gosh this was such a weird day for me! I was the first in the line, with my (still good!) friend Mike, I made a new friend for life who meets up with me every EGX now. I didn't realize at the time, I have sleep deprivation epilepsy which probably explains the look of literal death on my face. I remember that when the show opened (and as you can see in the video, everyone charged), me and Mike ended up in place like 50 or something, and some guys from RARE gave us a bunch of free stuff. Also one of the people who had been lining up all night with us had his ankle broken in the rush!
This was also the year I found out my wife was pregnant, while I was lining up for Titanfall!
Sorry to hear about the epilepsy.
I would never dream of doing it these days but I think I queued up from about 3/4am outside (on my own, didn't meet up with anyone I knew until the saturday) and there were already a lot of people there.
I was way back at the steps in the video but somehow I ended up about 5 people from the front at the final crash barrier bit they had put up, I didn't run or push or anything it's just where the crushing flow of the crowd took me!
The bit I loved was that when we got to the COD queue they handed out tickets to the first 500 and that was that, I think I was around 350th in the mad scramble to get to the booth (chose a bad route and got stuck briefly, losing vital seconds). About 10 minutes later a whole bunch of tough looking guys turned up and pushed in a couple of people in front of me. Obviously noone told them about the tickets so it was great fun letting them queue for about 2 hours (I think it's was a long 30 minute session you got that year) only for them to be denied the freebie. very satisfying! Ha ha.
There were quite a few injuries from what you heard on the show floor gossip. I think this was the year someone fainted in that lobby area as well and a big screen TV went flying and smashed on the floor. There is another video that has me in it as I get through the crash barriers, I am shuffling along moving my legs really wierd because there was so little room to take a step while having thousands of people behind you pushing and treading on the back of your feet.
Was it Kinect stuff rare were showing that year? I don't recall what they were doing back then.
This was also the year I found out my wife was pregnant, while I was lining up for Titanfall!
Also that is some memory to look back on! Congrats!
I was working in a small design & ad agency in Leicester. I was helping conceptualise campaigns for Honda. But, if you were to peel back the curtain on that, it was mostly for their lawn & garden products (hedge trimmer anyone?) and I was mostly formatting product information tables for their reseller network
I was working for a broadcaster and had just become a dad - I'm struggling to remember too many details, i must've been sleep deprived. 😴
Working on the announce website for this beloved, but ill-fated title...
Both my kids were still little, and I was still in the same job (I've kinda got stuck - help!). The more things change the more things stay the same
You were living in Italy, doing tours of a Grappa distillery... and you wanted to be doing something else?? Madman.
Not 100%, but pretty sure I'd have been Deputy Editor on Official PlayStation Magazine at that point. Most fun job ever.
Yeh, looking back at it I had a sweet deal.
I made a load of friends, learnt Italian (which I have now forgotten - don't test me), got discounts on grappa, and the family I was staying with were super generous and treated me like family.
It was pretty low intensity, so even though I perfected the Ukulele - which, as everyone knows is an S level achievement - I felt that I needed to do something more.
I was working on GamesIndustry.biz as European Editor, so this is a bit weird.
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