The year in travel

(Originally published on Feb. 13, 2020 on my old Wordpress blog.)

As a I kid, I was always jealous of writers in gaming magazines who would travel around the world to visit developers and write about their experiences. I've spent years in freelance trying to get to that point, and 2019 brought me closer than ever to that goal.

Ironically, it didn't have much to do with my writing assignments. Most of the traveling came from a series of filming projects I sometimes work on, which consist of short, documentary-style videos about indie devs (part of a sponsorship deal between VentureBeat and Intel). Basically, a videographer and I would be assigned a certain amount of videos per year, and then if necessary, fly over to see these studios to interview and film them.

Working on these videos have definitely been a highlight of my freelance career, as they give me a chance to develop new creative skills outside of writing (like learning how to tell a coherent story with interview clips and b-roll). I started working on them in late 2017, but the number of videos increased every year since then, to the point where we were supposed to film 14 video docs in 2019.

That number was eventually cut in half due to reasons outside my control, but the remaining assignments still kept me busy. At one point, I was hopping on a plane nearly every weekend. And though I was tired most of the time -- traveling at irregular hours on a consistent basis will do that to you! -- I loved it.

It's something I hope I can keep doing ... I'm still waiting to hear if we'll be filming anything in 2020. But in the meantime, here's a look back at the places I visited last year and what I ended up working on.

Montreal

Our first big trip of 2019 took us to Montreal, Canada a day or two after a big snowstorm hit the city. Knowing this would happen beforehand, I bought a big puffy jacket to keep myself warm – outside of a snowboarding jacket, I never owned a winter coat because, well, you don't need one when you live in California. I also picked up a pair of waterproof shoes, and that came in handy while trudging through the snow-covered sidewalks.

The storm dropped a lot of fresh powder onto Montreal's streets, which made it a little tricky to drive on. Luckily, my coworker volunteered to drive our rental car because he has a lot of experience navigating ice-filled roads from growing up in Michigan. But it still felt a little dicey at times, especially at night.

The schedule for our three-day trip was jam-packed with shoots, which typically take between three to five hours depending on the length of the interview and how much we need to film. We were there to talk to three studios: Behaviour Interactive, Kitfox Games, and Elastic Games.

It was interesting to be in Montreal because I've always heard a lot about how Quebec is one of the largest game development hubs in the world, with thousands of people working in the games industry in some form or another. It seems like you can hardly walk a block or two in the city without running into another developer or studio.

Case in point: Behaviour's building was directly across the street from Ubisoft Montreal's office. Kitfox and Elastic weren't that far away from the downtown area we were staying in, either. While there are other development hubs around the world, the gaming industry's presence in Montreal is certainly unique (due to tax breaks, a lot of creative talent, etc.), and it's something that I want to keep exploring more in future projects.

Austin

My videographer and I barely had time to breathe after Montreal. We arrived back in San Francisco on a Friday, had the weekend off (just enough time to catch up on sleep and laundry), and then flew to Austin, Texas the following Monday for another three-day assignment. I was exhausted. But it was a fun week overall!

Like Montreal, we were supposed to film at three different studios. But one of them dropped out at the last minute, which made us pretty happy since our schedule wasn't going to be as hectic as before. This was actually the second time we've worked in Austin: The first was in 2017,  when we did a quick overnighter to film at a VR studio led by ex-Nintendo 64 developers.

For our 2019 trip, we met with the leadership teams at Certain Affinity and Gunfire Games, both of whom have strong pedigrees in gaming (CA being founded by one of the original Halo devs, and Gunfire's lineage with the Darksiders series). Since there was a little more room in our schedule, we were able to rest a bit more and get some of that famous Texas BBQ.

Funny enough, it wasn't the last time I'd be in Austin that year; I ended up going again just a few short months later with some friends to eat even more BBQ.

Vancouver

It didn't take long for us to head back to the Great White North. In March, we flew to Vancouver for two days to film at Piranha Games and Offworld Industries. Unlike Montreal, Vancouver was relatively free of snow (though there were some small patches we saw here and there). But the weather was still a bit chilly, and we ended up getting caught in the rain on our last day.

Unfortunately, our schedule didn't leave much time for exploration. But my coworker and I stayed at a nice hotel with rooms that, to my surprise, had a Siri-like virtual assistant that offered suggestions on what to do in Vancouver. But instead of listening to it, we just walked a few blocks and ate at a really good Japanese spot for dinner.

Sadly, the Vancouver trip represented the last batch of our international videos. We worked on one more doc in San Francisco before we stopped filming for the year.

Melbourne

My last big trip came in October – and this one actually involved some writing! I traveled to Melbourne, Australia for the first time to cover a week-long series of gaming events for GamesBeat (known as Melbourne International Games Week). MIGW reminded me a lot of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco ... except its way bigger, with a ton of other events happening around each other.

Similar to Canada, Australia also has a distinct game development community, one that – as I quickly learned from interviewing developers there – has struggled a lot in the past decade. But there's no denying the amazing creative talent in the country. Some of the best and most innovative indie games in recent history (such as Hollow Knight, Fruit Ninja, and Untitled Goose Game) came from Australian studios.

Though there are some big companies around, the community is predominantly filled with these smaller studios, which often have no more than two or three people. It's something I've touched on in my first two stories for GB, and I have a few more pieces in the works that'll dive deeper into that issue.

In total, I spent 11 days in Melbourne, which was plenty of time for both work and pleasure. I walked around a bunch in the city, so I got to know certain sections of it rather well while searching for food and drinks. After my stay at the hotel, I moved to my cousin's place in the suburbs for a few days, and along with his wife and parents, we got to travel outside the city to visit some tourist sights.

Going to Australia was a great way to cap off another busy year of freelancing. It isn't always feasible for writers in my position to get these travel opportunities, so I try to remind myself how fortunate I am. But at the same time, I know I'm capable of doing so much more. There are still so many stories to tell from people and countries you don't always see in the 24-hour news cycle. And I hope to change that in my own small way.