limegl0wstix:

I would probably rip off this sign and put it on the front door.

I did a few video game manuals back in the day, bottom of the barrel stuff, the license I worked most often on was Bratz, most of the games on systems that had been superseded years ago. The betas were buggy and missing the art and sound assets, and let me tell you it’s a trip to realize it’s your actual job to restart a game 30 times so you can finally walk around a mall full of blank-faced mannequins and listen to Stephen Hawking talk about how fun it is to go shopping with your friends. That said Bratz has a reputation as My Little Hoochie Mama, but if you pay attention to the Bratz mythos, which is an actual thing I just wrote, it’s about how no matter what you look like or what your interests are, if you put in some effort you can make that identity seem awesome. I mean, as long as Commodities, right? I also did a Zoey 101 game, a Drake & Josh game, or maybe The Suite Life of Jack and Cody. Actually, I might’ve done both. The Nickelodeon games were mostly shovelware that THQ released as a condition of the Spongebob Squarepants license, mostly minigame collections though some of them were passable adventure. Real people worked on them though, the biggest part of my job was taking the two pages in the design document that detailed the one unique and novel thing the designers had come up with to justify this project to themselves and cutting it down to a sentence or two of Press B to Do A Thing. Oh also before that I was an intern for some managers who specialized in third-string boy band members, Broadway threat-and-a-halfs, SNL castmembers from a decade ago, and child actors. They had an office at Hollywood & Vine, which like pretty much of “Hollywood” still located in and around the actual neighborhood of Hollywood seems impressive to out-of-towners but screams “low rent” to anyone who knows anything. The world of child actors is basically the most dehumanizing thing in the universe, the DisneyLodeon machines are exact replicas of the old studio star systems, and anyone who says “it can’t really be like that, no mother would subject her precious child to such a thing”, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAHAHAHA. Yes, I’ve heard all the Dan Schneider rumors, they’re completely believable but at the same time they’re so obvious that anyone could make them up, and god knows the industry likes being catty and there are people who would stand to gain from taking him down. Besides what would it matter, the studios can spend more than your life’s worth in one month doing discovery and are perfectly willing to spend a fraction of that on cutting you a check instead. They’ll make it back in a second selling ancillary merchandise rights anyway. Like, you know, video games. What did I say about Raymond Chandler getting it right? There were parents who wanted a wholesome life for their child and it needed to be explained that we aren’t a goddamned afterschool enrichment program, we make money when you book and if you’re not dedicated to booking why are we dedicating resources to you? I mean, I wasn’t capable of explaining this at the time, I yet needed some polishing but LA’s good at that. (If you actually want to make a living through skilled thespianism, as opposed to rolling dice on celebrity, go into voice work.)