Lesson Learned

This is what happens when you upset the waitress at IHOP by telling her you don't like their strawberries and would like extra blueberries on the red white and blue pancake special instead.
Yes of course I ate it.

Holy Hell

It’s nice to know that Utah can still surprise me. I mean in a pleasant way.

Today was Day one of the Geex Convention. A con I did not wish to go to and predicted would have less than 1000 people attending. I was so blasé over the event, I completely forgot to bring an extension cord and power strip for my demo setup. After finding out that a rental for both would be $98, (and mind you this is for RENTING a 15 foot extension cord and power strip that they actually wanted it back in working order) I decided to make the trek that unbeknownst to me would take an hour and have me walking for miles, I went off in search of a mall that supposedly housed an Office Depot.

The mall I found was pretty incredible. It reminded me of the outdoor mall my friend Phil lives in but better, because this one had an IMAX theatre, was way cleaner, with blocks of fountains, and prices for apartments above the mall that I could someday soon afford. The only thing that could have made it better was if it had shops I actually wanted to patronize or restaurants I would eat at.

Then there was the time yesterday when I was driving fairly quickly, trying to get out of the seedier part of town when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye that made me spin around giving myself whiplash screaming HOLY HELL WTF WAS THAT. Some guy had set up rows of metal animal sculptures all over an empty parking lot. It was rather terrifying and intriguing at the same time.

You better not cry, you better not pout, Rudolph the rain dear is coming and he's gona eat ya.
Phil this one's for you. You need a new Monkey.

Convention Season

The convention season is now in full swing. I am getting ready to do a little bit of traveling to promote our company and flagship game.

My first stop is just 40 miles north of the office in Salt Lake City, the last bastion of normalcy in Utah. The GEEX convention promises 5,000 local players. I think the event management is ambitious to think they will attract that many players from Utah who play with these electronic tools of the devil. 10 hour per day exhibit hall hours only add to my excitement over this event.

Not taking advantage of my position at all, I have arranged to leave clean up to someone else and depart the convention Saturday night to fly to San Diego. The Second Convention on my stop is Comic Con. I have not been able to locate solid numbers of attendees for this convention except that on the preview day before it opens up to the real crowd, 30,000 people paid extra to visit the exhibit hall. I expect over 70,000 people will be there over the fun filled 5 days, which incidentally is the longest of the conventions.

I am not staying on Heathers Yacht, eating sushi every night on the company’s dime while in town. Oh wait, yes I am. This is a Google Map from Heathers Yacht to the Convention.
Her Yacht is 9 slips out from the gazebo to the right of the pool if anyone cares. Google satellite view would scare me if it wasn’t so freeken cool.

I actually get to come home and see if my cat still lives before flying to Indianapolis for Gen Con. This convention is for D&D and Collectible card game players. They are probably the strangest of the bunch, and resemble me the most. This convention typically gets around 30,000 over a fun filled 4 days. Unlike the other 2 out of town conventions however, I will have 2 guys from management with me to help exhibit. This is also the only one of the “large” conventions where we have our own booth. We are part of much larger booths at Comic Con and Dragon Con that we were invited to join.

I get to spend a few more days in Utah before flying out to Dragon Con in Atlanta for another fun filled week. I may insist on working from NJ between Gen Con and Dragon Con.

Since my contract ran out, I’ve been able to renegotiate. Part of the new terms state that I only have to be in the office 2 weeks a month, however management is insisting that technically the conventions count as out of the office time. We’ll see about that.

In the mean time I am spending plenty of time out of the office to get my creative juices flowing. I am doing a lot of writing for promotions these days, and redesigning certain parts of our game. Here is a picture of my current work environment. While it changes daily, this place is one of my favorites.

Back from the Con

I’ll post a more detailed account of this week’s events later but since I can’t sleep on this plane I figure I’d write up a summary of the last few days.

While I type I find myself wondering, what is justifiable homicide? Surely the kid sitting next to me for the first leg of my flight trying to figure out exactly how long he can keep a very large coin spinning would fall into that category. I also wonder if I can get arrested for taking pictures of little boys. The convention was actually not as difficult as I first imagined. While I felt like I would lose my voice at some point on Friday, contracting the worst case of diarrhea that I have ever had in my life, totally took my mind off my throat. Half a bottle of Pepto Bismol seemed to have fixed both problems by Saturday morning.

Our booth was right behind the Pokemon pavilion and I quickly got into the spirit. Although luckily enough only one kid under 18 insisted on talking to me the entire convention, he later returned and purchased $100 worth of product.

The night life was a welcome change from Utah. Even though the average person looked like this the weirder ones stayed away from the bars.

We had a lot of our Saga players stop by to say hello, maybe because they give me money or maybe because of the drinks they bought for me I am going to say they are decent folk.

I suspect they thought that if I got drunk enough I would divulge some secrets about the upcoming expansion, but I am a professional.

Off To The Games

It has been 7 years since I manned a booth at a game convention. The memory of the pain and terror is dull now, and I believe I have what it takes to tackle the task again. I recently attended the GAMA convention in Vegas with 500 hobby store owners from across America with 3 of my team members. We manned two demo stations and were the talk of the Con. We kicked some serious ass and had everyone talking about the new collectible RTS game that is going to revitalize the hobby store industry.

The convention season is just starting, the next one on the list is Origins in Columbus Ohio with a slightly larger attendance of 35,000 rabid gamers. This day I woke up at the ungodly hour of 3AM, rolled over onto my cats head and with a swipe of a claw and a sharp pain across my ribs, I was awake and ready to start the trip.

Apparently Tuesday is the day the Mormon missionaries fly out across the nation to spread the gospel. Fearful that should one sit next to me, I would be in for 6 hours of preaching I quickly prepared a story that I was sure would dissuade any youngster from trying to preach further.

Sure enough the plane was full and a black sister (All the guys are called Elders and the girls Sisters) took her seat next to me and with a smile, introduced herself as Dante. She knew right away that I was a non believer and asked me about my faith. Demonologist I slyly replied. Oh I’m from Hati and know all about black magic, my family does not approve of my choice to follow the teachings of Jesus and practice black magic. Feeling suddenly outmatched, I had no choice but to drop the façade and subject myself to hours of preaching.
At some point during the lesson she must have gotten tired of my blank stare and fell asleep as her head hit the tray unfolded in front of her seat. I felt it rude to take a picture at this time. The angry stare of the very large Mormon physical fitness trainer sitting next to her may have also dissuaded me.

The second leg of my trip was on a plain a bit smaller than I was comfortable with. I can’t say the ability to feel every turn and wind gust was especially entertaining. I found myself wishing for the security sister Dante seemed to convey. I briefly considered praying to god as she had suggested, but was jarred to reality in the next moment as the landing gear retracting made the little plain jump.

For my steed on this adventure, I was given a Volvo S70, which may be a bit beyond what my aging years can handle. I managed to figure out, peg A into slot B but sat for minutes poking and jabbing at the start stop engine button before noticing the flashing lights and sirens with the message “Step on the break THEN press the start button”
That obstacle out of the way, I made good time to the hotel where I will return each night to nurse the wounds that 35,000 gamers can inflict. Tomorrow is setup, Thursday I dive into Hell.

When I grow up

Wanting to be a Fireman or Policeman is a bit cliché. These days kids want to grow up to play in the NBA, make computer games or do what ever it is their Dad does until he forbids them to follow in his footsteps.

I always thought it would be interesting even for awhile to write messages for fortune cookie companies. But how does one get started on this career track? Is that really a job someone has or is it some mythical position such as game tester? Well one of our mythical game testers decided to bake us some fortune cookies today and show off her creativity.

My First Picture

My bro Dave sent me a new camera for my birthday along with enough memory to start taking pictures of every random thing I come across.

I'm not sure how well this will work until I install something on this machine that can edit pictures, but for now lets try one of the view when I leave my place.

More wierd business practices

After surviving my walk to the movies I decided that physical exercise wasn't entirely a bad thing. Not wanting to overdo it however, I decided a cheap bicycle was better than walking to work.

For me at least Wal-Mart is synonymous with cheap both for price and quality, but for this experiment which is sure to get old in less than a week, the former is more important than the latter. I somehow won the argument that all management should ride bikes to work, and so everyone piled into the CFO’s truck and ventured the mile down to the closest Wal-Mart, which seems to be in every town in this part of the country.

I found a bicycle pump in one of the isles and prepared all 3 bikes for a ride to work the next day. There was even a contest for who could find the gayest looking helmet, which I won by declaring that I would not be wearing one.

At the end of the day when preparing to take my new instrument of torture and misery home, I found that my front tire had deflated. No bid deal right? I still had the receipt and should have been able to exchange my new toy for a non defective model. At least it seems like an easy solution.

I arrived at the local Wal-Mart to find that the greeters at the front of the store actually have a purpose. One of them stuck a return tag on my bike and was mumbling something about safety and death rates for bicyclists in Utah as I left her behind to search for the customer service line.

After a short wait, made shorter by people who left the line in search of their kids who had run off, I made it to the cashier. I’d like a shiny new bicycle please, this one is defective I told the nice customer service lady, putting on my most enchanting smile.

I was informed that it is Wal-Mart policy not to accept returns for defects in the tire or brakes. It’s not my fault I explained, look I said, I didn’t even take the cardboard ads out of the tires. It’s out of my hands the lady told me, at best she could impound the vehicle and hold it for the bicycle mechanic who would come by when he was available to inspect and rule on the situation.

I still have the receipt I pleaded. The merchandise is defective and I only wish to procure a working model to enhance my failing health. The lady however stood firm and unyielding. Sigh, I guess I’ll have to ask for a refund then. Well that would be fine the lady told me and promptly refunded my purchase. I suspect I should probably wait till her shift is over before picking up an identical bicycle.

I sometimes wonder why I am the only person blessed with such entertainment? But as long as I am, it is my duty to share it with you.

My product

It's been awhile since I gave up this blog and a lot has happened. In the future I will touch on events at work, however for now, here is a real photo of how the retail product turned out.


It is now being carried by somewhere between 100-200 stores across the US and Canada and may be showing up in the UK soon. We are still working on the large retail chains in the US.

Stupid internet practices

These days when a good portion of the world lives online, you would think business's have "figured it out". Unfortunately I am still encountering absurd business practices.

I celebrated my 29th birthday last week and unlike every year past, this time the choice of gifts was simple for my sister. I could really use a nice digital camera, which should have been easy to research, locate, purchase and deliver with a few keystrokes sitting at the kitchen table.

This morning I received a call from the company selling the camera to inform me that they could not ship the camera to the address provided unless it was added as a secondary billing address to the credit card used. WTF

You may as well put a huge header on your billing page. FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY, NO GIFTS ALLOWED. These days when half of the spam in my inbox is from companies suggesting I send Viagra to my dad for fathers day you would think gifts to people other than yourself would be encouraged. At the very least, don't allow the shipping and billing address to differ and waste my time.

As long as they took the time to make a phone call you would think the obvious course of action would have been to call the credit card company and ask for verification of purchase. Maybe I'm just a genius who should be making millions consulting to such companies, then again, maybe not.

Things I am thankful for

Sometimes it is important to take a moment in life to reflect on things you are thankful for.

Sonic is a restaurant which tries to take customers back to the era of drive in restaurants. Each parking spot at Sonic has a menu and intercom you can use to place your order. After a few minutes a cute girl would roll out to your car on skates with order in hand and a tray in case you felt like making a mess in your front seat.

The drive through line winds around the entire lot, ending in an exactly 1 intercom you can use to place your oder and wait for it to be made and brought out to you. Grateful for the four cars in front of me, I had some time to contemplate on what I was thankful for this day.

This stick, which helped me limp home yesterday after my 8 mile walk to the movies. I found it leaned up against a tree, next to a small dam that had a narrow lip I was able to use to climb to the other side to continue my journey.

Sonic, for having a $2.50 latte and an all day breakfast menu. Also being intelligent enough, never to wait in the drive through line again.

Mythbusers, for proving that even with gas prices approaching $10 a gallon, it is still cheaper to run the AC than drive with the windows down. Thank God Almighty for Mythbusters.

Yes I've been in Utah too long

I'm still here and so is this blog

I don't know why I decided to walk to the movie theatre today. Perhaps it was the price of gas or the weather. Maybe I was inspired by the latest movie I watched, which seems unlikely since it was about a little midget thief posing as a baby. More than likely I just wanted some time to think, which can be difficult while driving in the valley.

Many thoughts came and went as I made the five mile trek to see a disappointing installment of the Indiana Jones series. How much longer am I going to be stuck in this state, where should I go next? Should I take some of the opportunities opening up to me in the game industry? Why do my feet hurt so damn bad? I wonder if that girl driving by was checking out my ass and why did she have a sour look on her face?

Ultimately my only decision was to stop procrastinating and start up this blog again. I want to thank everyone for their support.

I'm still here, still frustrated with my coworkers inability to keep up with my promotions. While I am no longer sure if I will see this project to the end, I am not giving up yet. 2500 new players joined Saga today, and while many left due to crashes and bugs still present in the game, others will come and the bugs will be dealt with to whatever degree this crew can. Hopefully someday soon a large publisher will take notice of all the people coming and offer to take this game off our hands and do it right, or at least take notice of me and make me an offer I can't refuse.

Till then I'll be spending more 24 hour nights in front of the screen, managing promotions and player expectations. With the help of my trusty companion who stayed up all night helping.

This one's for you Phil, and damn be your curse.

Absurdity

When your success depends mostly on your imagination and of course the ability to recognize and execute on good ideas sometimes the most fantastic imaginings flutter by. To stay on focus I don’t let my mind wander too far, but inevitably a series of conversations around me spawn such horrific beasts I hasten to slay them for fear of dwelling on them too long.

Ordinarily I would never share any of my fantastic journeys, but I’ve already shared so much so why not reveal just a glimpse of the thoughts I need to wade through to get to the good marketing idea’s that I now nurture.

Today we on the way to lunch we had a conversation about donating to good causes, and how much money it takes to save a life of a child in Africa. One of my coworkers having lived most of his life in Africa was able to confirm first hand that even the small amount of donations from America ware actually doing a lot of good there. We then talked about a movie that just came out, “Charlie Wilson's War". How Charlie Wilson was able to raise 1 billion dollars to fight a war in Afghanistan but was unable to raise another penny for humanitarian efforts afterwards. Before we were done with lunch the conversation drifted to the US war in Iraq and what a royal fuck up that turned out to be.

On the way home my mind started to drift and here is just one thought that fluttered by. Please don’t hold it against me for I have no control over these things and would never even consider starting an organization for the cause.

Combining all 3 previous conversations I thought. If it is so easy to fund military efforts, instead of sending food to Africa, let’s send guns, lots and lots of guns. Then we can tell the people that all the food is in Iraq, the Taliban have it.

Yes I know, it was a cruel thought and was around for but an instant. I have hundreds of these every day, most of which I am unaware of. However when time allows they keep me entertained better then any movie could. Scared yet?

Dad, I know as soon as you read this your going to call and lecture me on the absurdity of this idea. Please don’t. Also I am fully aware that I am trying to make a living selling virtual property. It’s not the same.

The product

This is our artists rendition of the Saga retail display. Since this was made I've decided to go with a full size CD rather then the mini DVD pictured to allow compatibility with a greater number of computers and to leave room on the back of a CD sleeve for installation directions.

In addition to the game display pictured bellow, we will sell booster packs similar to the 3 included with the game purchase.

This is the front and back of the postcard that I hope will show up on the counter of every hobby store in America next month. We have always had a very positive response from the majority of our players. Since Hobby store owners are traditionally wary of picking up new products, having been burned many times in the past, the Beta trial offered on this postcard will return many positive reviews to the store owner from their customers.
This combined with our phone calls to explain to store owners why they should distribute the Beta invitations, and an article in next weeks Scrye magazine which is pretty much the bible for collectible card games, I hope will gain us a customer or two.

I have minions

Each time the executive producer would tap me for a marketing promotion, another crack would open and idea would leak out. These last few days I’ve felt as if a great dam of ideas has burst out of my chest. My day is filled with phone calls and emails trying to coordinate online and print media, negotiating contracts with distributors, working with printers, and tapping the leaders in nitch markets for coverage.

I feel I could do everything if I just had more time, or more people, or more money, always more. I am however happy to have what little I can get from our little startup. I would much rather work with finite resources then deal with infinite red tape at a larger well funded studio. Decisions literally take minutes from conception to reality. As I already wrote, last week I decided we should sell Saga to hobby stores because those players would grok the concept. I walked into the producers’ office and told him about my plan, he said wow that’s cool, and right there the decision to create a retail product was made.

The only remaining detail was to create concept drawings, hire artists for the box and packaging art, secure printing for the packaging, paper and CD, sign distribution deals with national and international distributors, and promote the product. Simple!

Jason, our executive producer is helping out with the art on top of his already overflowing stack of responsibilities, so the rest falls on me.

Most of the Beta postcards for players have already been sent to distributors and will go out to hobby stores next week. In addition I thought it would be beneficial to hire a staff to call every store and speak to the store owners in person to teach them about Saga so that they could better explain it to their customers and become excited about the opportunity to sell a virtual online game.

I put an ad into 2 local online classifieds and received many responses. My requirements were simple. Know more about games then my mom, know how to use a web browser, have an email address, and have a basic understanding of typing information into excel. Half the people I spoke with failed on the first 2 points. One lady failed after she said she was qualified to promote games because her kids played them. She also failed points 3 and 4 in case you think I’m being overly harsh.

I ended up hiring 3 people. One guy who was previously a telemarketer and young enough to play games and use a computer regularly. A girl who seemed intelligent but got sick the next day and has not yet shown up for work. And a guy with a great resume’ who will be starting tomorrow. The last guy is actually overqualified and will be tasked with securing distribution in Japan and Korea in addition to contacting stores, since he not only speaks Japanese but has contacts with a distributor in Asia. I’m not really sure why the last guy applied except he claims he wants to get his foot in the door in hopes of a promotion after we launch. If he is genuine I will take care of him when that happens.

I spent today teaching the telemarketer to not be a telemarketer. He first tried using a script that I had to take away, and then kept rushing through his presentation afraid the store owners would hang up. It took about 2 hours for me to get through to him that game store owners are actually ecstatic that a game company would take the time to personally call them. He got much better before the day was through and now you would not be able to tell that he was once a telemarketer.

I can’t really blame the guy. No one has ever tried anything like this before. Who ever heard of hiring a staff to call people and not try to sell them anything or ask them for anything? You don’t say Hi my name is, instead you say, Hey I’m Slava. These people don’t know you but they want to be your friend. Who the fuck knows? Maybe I’m just crazy, or maybe I’m just crazy enough to sell a virtual collectable product. All I know is, the sooner I get these 3 people set up, the sooner I can work on my next idea that’s so top secret I can’t even blog about it, but it’s already in motion and so far working as predicted.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the retail product and beta post cards.

Junk mail

I’ve decided I love to write. Sometimes the words are stressed like constipation, straining to come out, but when they flow like music it’s beautiful and often entertaining. I’m certainly no prodigy, I need to practice my instrument, and for this reason I’m vowing to continue this blog for the duration of my stay in this homogeneous state.

I enjoy many activities besides writing, which isn’t to say I enjoy them on a regular basis or even annually, I do however have a long list of things that would delight me should they fall into my lap with no exertion on my part. There are however, a few items which really irk me, one of which is junk mail. Into this category I group advertisements, bills, coupons, and religious flyers that seem to find their way to my door more often these days then ever before. I tried to take a picture of what happens when I leave piles of these papers at my doorstep; however I found cats not to be the most poseable creatures.

I have gotten fairly good at keeping papers out of my apartment for the above reason. What really irritates me is when I am tricked into bringing trash into my home.

The other day I got a letter from my insurance company. On the outside it said in very large letters meant to seem important that a bill requiring my immediate attention was enclosed. I decided to bring the letter home since that morning I had seen a police officer pull over 2 kids in front of my office. Place them in handcuffs. Then proceed to conduct a 20 minute chemical test on a bottle he had found in one of their pockets only to eventually and I should add with a very disappointed expression remove the handcuffs and return the bottle which turned out to actually contain the prescription listed on the front of the bottle. I had no desire to be subject to a more painful examination should I be found without proper insurance.

Imagine my anger when upon opening the letter I found it read. Payment required $0.00. Well of course the payment required was $0.00. That is actually my main reason for paying the bills on time; to bring the payment required to $0.00. At this point I could have sat back, taken a breath and let tranquility wash over me. Instead I chose to open a letter from my bank which read. Your online statement is now available. I’m not sure what happened after that, it’s all a blank.

Computer genius

I used to think I was so smart. I guess that outlook changed when I went to High school in NY. Having previously attended a religious school where people were convinced in the existence of a god and spent a great deal of time on rituals devoted to this belief, followed by a public school in the Bronx where I only had to show up for class to blow the curve for everyone, the Bronx High school of science was a lesson in humility.

Conscious of this realization, I went through the next part of my life convinced that everyone had the same potentials, only requiring the desire to learn. Then as I entered the “real” world my perception changed yet again.

I have met some incredible people over the years, and am more then proud today to call many of them friends. However there are other individuals who vex and perplex me. Here are a few amusing examples.

One of the QA testers working on Saga is a great guy with the best of intentions. I’ve given him some advice which I believe to be solid and try to give him opportunities to prove him self. Sometimes however my plan backfires, such as the other day when I gave him the keys to my car with the task of taking a stack of promotional material to Kinko’s for a print test. It was previously my belief that anyone with a driver’s license can get into any car without a clutch and drive 2 miles. I was proven wrong when the poor guy returned flustered and apologetic claiming he had driven my car to the shop in first gear without realizing it.

I’m not really sure how anyone can drive in first gear without realizing that something is wrong. What really puzzles me is that my car has a Tiptronic transmission and the gear shift only goes down to Drive. In order to go above 10 miles an hour in first gear a person would have to purposefully shift the car into Tiptronic then constantly hit the down gear every 5 feet to keep the car from up shifting. I highly doubt this was done. Yet the poor guy is convinced a magical first gear appeared on my gear shifter and is now missing.

This is actually only mildly amusing when I consider the sales guy who helped me buy a new cell phone for one of my staff this evening. After picking my phone, I expected to check out quickly and get back to the office. Cricket a new phone company that has unlimited calling, does not require a contract so there was nothing for me to fill out, nor any plans for the sales person to sign me up for.

I stood in the middle of a mall teaming with Christmas shoppers, afraid for my life watching this young man press what seemed like the same set of keys over and over for about 5 minutes with a blank unchanging look on his face. He didn’t seem to be on any sort of drugs so I expected his expression to change as he got closer to completing my order, yet after 10 minutes, he wore the same blank stare and continued to hit what I realized was the same 2 keys over and over.

Finally my curiosity got the best of me and I stepped over to his side of the counter to explore the situation further. At this point I should have taken a video with my cell phone because there is no way without knowing my distaste for lying that anyone would believe this story. The guy was standing there with a cursor in the price paid cell, trying to enter the correct amount, unfortunately, every time he would hit a key, the cursor would move one cell to the left. At which point he would press the right arrow key to get back into the correct position and repeat the process.

I observed this behavior in amazement for awhile longer, before reaching over and hitting the Num Lock key. His only comment after completing the transaction was, “Wow, you must be really good with computers”. "Ya something like that", I replied as I shuffled away.

My dilemma

Today I find myself contemplating blogging etiquette. Originally it was my intention to entertain my friends while having a place to vent my thoughts; however blogs being on the internet and the internet being a public forum, there are rules that must be followed as in any other public situation.

Already my blog has been located by my coworkers making me feel uneasy about writing anything touching on religion. Obviously since it is read by my parents, a certain prudence must be exercised regarding not only language but subject matter. It gets even worse from there. Since I am the marketing director for a company hoping to entertain many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people I must assume a portion of the player base will locate the blog. If that’s not bad enough, people I deal with on a professional level are sure to google my name. My blog isn’t exactly obfuscated being the 2nd hit.

I could certainly deal with my friends. Never having been one to hide my feelings my thoughts about each of them certainly won’t change their opinion of me, which is why the few friends I keep are true friends. Unfortunately, even though I only refer to them by first names some of them also have a public image which I have to be careful not to mar. So from now on writing about any of my friends is out of the question.

Writing about my coworkers is definitely out. We’ve only worked together for a brief period of time and while jests of all manner are typical through out the day, the inflections present in speech make them obviously light hearted. Putting something down in print no matter the meaning, could easily become misconstrued.

I shouldn’t even need to mention the consequences of writing anything about a business contact to myself or those I work with.

Which leaves what?

Writing about myself? To think anyone out there cares about my opinion or daily activities is a bit conceited, but really there is nothing else.

Actually it’s not that bad. I have always written about my views and usually most unfortunate events I am involved in and have received some praises, that the words have lightened some ones day.

Marketing Guru or maybe not

Work has been absolutely crazy over the last couple of months. I’ve been promoted to Marketing director, a position in this company that for some reason doesn’t come with a staff, not even a busty assistant. I’ve run some grass roots marketing campaigns in the past, when our company was one of two producing online collectable games and I knew which website to contact for coverage. Today everyone and their mother has a collectable online game and even grandma has a review site and expects to be treated as if someone cares what the old gal thinks.

I’ve been dragging myself into work between 8 and 10 in the morning and getting home no earlier then midnight with the exception of one day on the weekend when I try to spend at least a few hours not thinking about new marketing promotions. Last weekend I got out to Park City where I watched in the freezing snow, the US Bobsled team, take the gold medal with 16 other people who came out to support our Olympic athletes. The highlight of the event was when a member of the Italian team jumped out of his sled after a run down the mountain and threw my Uncle, who is the manager of the US team, a wedge of cheese that he obviously smuggled down in his pants. I was told it was a running joke between them and was given the cheese to take home.

I like to deceive myself that our company promotions are going well, however I am plagued by a feeling that I am missing opportunities that a professional with experience would find evident. I do have the support of my coworkers however. Just last week our executive producer invited me to dinner where he asked me to pull a brand new marketing promotion out of my ass that would take us in a yet unexplored direction. I’m no Italian bobsledder but I decided rather then trying to be the sparkling goldfish in a deep sea tank, I would be the Beta fish in my own bowl. My idea was to market to collectable gamers who visit hobby shops since no other online game has even attempted to capture an audience in the physical space. Saga is actually the first collectable online miniatures game.

My friend Phil has said in the past that if someone isn’t doing something I should look for the reason why. But I’m selling phoneless cords here. I don’t think anyone really knows what they are doing.

I wrote an article that will be coming out in this month’s Scrye magazine which is the bible for collectable gamers, and negotiated a deal with every major hobby distributor in the US to mail to their clients post cards that would give gamers who visit their shops access to the Saga Beta test. I’ve also designed 2 retail items that will be sold in every hobby store in America and a few in Europe and am currently working on getting the product into K-B toys, Toys R Us and most comic book stores that also sell collectable card games. Players will be able to purchase this product, enter the code they receive and get the products, delivered online. In addition to this I’ve placed Saga at every website that hosts downloads and have other online promotions, interviews and reviews scheduled.

I don’t know what else I could possibly do, and the not knowing is keeping me up at night. Yesterday the executive producer told me he really likes what we have so far and was wondering if I could pull something else out of my ass. Sure no problem I said let me sit on it.

And since it’s been awhile, here is my cat. I think he’s dead.

No more rain

People keep telling me that Utah has not seen this much rain in 6 years. Finally last weekend it didn’t rain. It snowed, 3”-5” in most parts of the valley. Of course this is the desert so it’s all gone today. I’m sure more will come next weekend.