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Notch Backtracks on Psychonauts 2 Support


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55. Re: Notch Backtracks on Psychonauts 2 Support Feb 6, 2013, 08:43 Beamer
Creston wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 22:10:
Beamer wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 15:35:
As someone that has moved around the country and been in cities big and small (though never rural or suburban), I can say that I'd happily take much less disposable income and have more options at hand. The Midwestern city I live in now blows. Good food is hard to find, you need to drive almost everywhere, the lack of upper echelon schools deemphasized education and overemphasized getting pregnant so finding an intelligent, educated, attractive single girl is neigh impossible, etc.

Being a single guy with a lot of money in a small to mid sized city is far less entertaining than being one with much less money in a big city.

Overly absurd stereotypes, ahoi! Yes, Beamer, I'm sure there are no attractive and intelligent girls to be found anywhere, nor is there anything to eat in your city. Rolleyes

I've said this about a billion times before, but let me take one more stab at it: Your personal experience does not somehow equate to "this is how the rest of humanity feels about it as well."

I think quite a few of these devs, if given the chance between working in Shitsville, Arkansas, or Cool Single Dude Town, California, would work in Shitsville if doing so meant they'd have a far better chance of their studio surviving throughout the years. Not all of them, surely, but I think quite a few would happily make that sacrifice. Because it's not just THEIR personal lives that cost less, it's also the expenses of the place they work for, and thus it has a better chance of surviving as well.

But hey, I don't really give two shits. They can all work in studios in Silicon Valley if that makes them happy. I'll just nod knowingly when Yet Another Dev Studio can't pay its bills because they went without a contract for a month and thus goes belly-up.


It's a generalization, but it's relative. When I lived in NYC good food and attractive girls were not a problem. In the midwest? Good luck finding any good pizza, good luck finding any italian at all, and it's far more common for girls to get married in their early 20s here whereas in the Northeast and West they tend to do so 10 years later, meaning a much larger dating pool.

In any case, though, you're wrong. Yes, it's true, my experiences can't be extrapolated out, but for godssake look at where tech companies are located. Typically LA, SF, and NYC. Why is that?
Because you have to go where talented people want to be. Things move in cycles, sure, and right now the cycle for young, talented people is large cities. My city has lost several big companies, and had most of the others move their creative functions to other cities. Why? Because it's nearly impossible to get talented people to come here. Even though the cost of living is less we have to throw enormous amounts of money to convince someone to move from Chicago or New York to here. We've had positions open years.

It's a very, very common problem in smaller cities right now. Simply put - living in a small city is not attractive to people that did not grow up in the small city. Whereas companies in larger cities can easily attract any talent they need, companies in smaller cities are often playing solely in a pool of homegrown talent, which means finding the needed skillsets can be nearly impossible.

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