What else do you do?

WhiteOpus

WhiteOpus

Hey all,

thought it would be a cool idea to find out what you guys do for a "day job" if you're not making a living off of filmmaking. what is it you do for a living? other than that, what is it you're occupied with professionally? what is it you're occupied with personally?
 
For the past three years I've been working on start-ups...

The one I make a living from is my tabletop game studio, Fishagon. Four published games and last year proved it could financially support me and the two people who helped me start it as a part-time job. (Leave it with 2014 made a five digit number for us :D )

Then I have a few other start ups that I'd love to move forward, but lack the resources and contacts at the moment... Really need to become friends with a web programmer that would be willing to put work into them and hope for the future with me XD

As well I've wanted to expand Fishagon into video games! So personally for the past year I've been working to do just that. Got a project going with a Game Art Undergraduate student to do all the modeling and artwork, just need to find a programmer willing to make a proof of concept possible for Kickstarting.


Now these start ups could all die suddenly... and I'd be invested in nothing but SkyTech Productions... and I'd be screwed... uhhh I'm also a full time Full Sail student.
 
When I am not knocking doors as a direct marketer, I am either at home as a dad, or in my shed feeding and tending to baskets full of earthworms which I sell to gardeners etc.
 
Sky that is cool you've found success as a startup.

I'm a small part of a company that will be launching soon. Our demographic is tennis coaches, to help them organize and analyze their students for improvements.

After like 18 years though I've gotten to the point where I don't care about programming anymore. It used to be my hobby for fun and I loved it for most of my life.

Now I would be happy to never write another line of code in my life.. just focusing on film. Yet here I am doing coding for someone. Originally I was just a consultant but his overseas developers weren't cutting it and after working with them for a whole year I've had to dive in and get everything ready myself. My friends project just wasn't going to get finished any other way. Probably another 2 weeks of coding left for me.

But my partner there will do all the business work, marketing, meeting with investors, etc.
 
Sweetie said:
Tell me more. I used to work for Wizards but left a few years back.
Click to expand...

Wizards? That's awesome (even though legally Wizards is a pain to the rest of the industry with their TCG patent). I'd be very interested in hearing what it was like working for them. One of the few full time high employed tabletop studios.

Tell you more about Fishagon... Well, I started it while I was in high school so I had the whole "They design games and aren't even adults yet!" thing going. Which locally was great for the company. Lot of attention when we attended conventions or public fairs. Our local convention is where we tested our 4 published games to see how they'd do. 1 kinda flopped, but we still published it. Another is a little party game which did good with families. Then my dark humor about what people would do on the last day of the earth did EXCELLENT. Then lastly our best seller that eventually came from the four is a statistical deck building dice game. All of them are card games, but we plan to expand.

Kickstarters are planned to make a bigger fan base. Currently it's mostly local fans, our Facebook barely even shows it as most of the people who buy the games never follow up to see what else we do. (The sad after-effects of most sales coming from conventions.) So hopefully we can build a more global fan base with Kickstarter. Plans include board games, that video game I mentioned, and about two years ago I signed a contract with a designer who needed a publisher for his pen-and-paper RPG system.

I'm always up for talking about things specifically if you'd like? Haha. I'm very proud of Fishagon and can't wait to see it's future.
 
pain to the rest of the industry with their TCG patent
Click to expand...

It seems that I remained ignorant of that. I couldn't tell you what their patents are/were.

I'd be very interested in hearing what it was like working for them.
Click to expand...

It depended on who was managing you. There were good times, there were bad times. I left them, so you may gather that there were more bad times than good times towards the end.

I'm always up for talking about things specifically if you'd like?
Click to expand...

For sure. I'm not sure my knowledge base will help you that much. With the exception of occasional playing, I have had very little to do with gaming for years.

Creating that base wasn't something I dealt with. My area of responsibility was retaining that base, to devise and execute methods to increase both their spending amounts and frequencies. For all that to happen, there needs to be that sizable initial momentum.

most of the people who buy the games never follow up to see what else we do
Click to expand...

This is something that's both easy and very tough to fix, depending on where you're at and what you already do. I'm going to assume that you don't have a client database and/or a method/means to collect customer information so you can keep in direct contact?
 
Retail manager, working in the projects. It's interesting because you get a lot of good stories to write about but, it sucks because it's demeaning and doesn't pay that much. I also do part-time photography...I should have stuck with my teaching job.
 
There was an article about this local YouTube show called Beer and Board Games (from the Chad Vader guys) last week. The few shows I've watched so far were pretty entertaining. I wonder if it would be a good promotional opportunity for Fishagon or for one of your other games (or not)?

NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EUNzKXkdE&list=PL49WgzlbhrT0kCIoZQukx-xbwFjSQhYFQ&index=4

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYjE_UyUy-A&index=3&list=PL49WgzlbhrT0kCIoZQukx-xbwFjSQhYFQ

All episodes
 
Wil Wheaton does (I'm assuming it's still going) with Felicia Day do a web series that reviews board games. They may also be well worth talking with. They're both known gamers.
 
Cool to see what everyone is doing.
I'm one of the IT member who makes a living with making videos, although there have been times where an extra job would have been comfortable :P

Besides doing 'corporate filmproduction' fulltime I try to help promote my girl's starting yoga school and I'm working on setting up a brand activation team with several design, marketing, proposition, strategy and communication professionals. Obviously filmmaking/producing is also one of my tasks in these projects :P

My Death/Doom music demo will never be finished this way :P
 
I work in visual effects. When I'm not doing the work, I'm passing all I can to the next generation or Artists. Computers are nice, they really are! But, I'm still in love with the flexibility of a pencil & glue.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top