Year in Review & New Year Resolutions

December 29, 2007 in call of duty 4 modern warfare, life, press |

2007
Year in Review

Call of Duty 4: Modern WarfareBy far the biggest accomplishment and largest contributor to everything awesome and insane that happened in my life in 2007 is the development and most importantly the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for the Xbox 360, Ps3, and PC.

I started to write out lengthy paragraphs regarding the roller coaster ride that was video game development in 2007, but I’ve decided for the sake of my ADHD and the ADHD of my readers, I’ll sum it up in a quick bullet list w/ pictures:

All in all…. it was one crazy year full of amazingly long nights and lessons you can only learn by falling flat on your face, but in the end we pulled out a game I couldn’t be more proud of.

The Consoler (available for your viewing pleasure here)

A site I decided to create in Early 2007 (the background story here) as a hobby to satisfy my google / wiki tangents of wanting to know everything about anything in video games and wanting to document my ever growing video game collection. I got hooked and eventually ended up scanning in every cover of Nintendo power from the first issue in 1988 to today, as well as breaking down the contents page of every issue and making an article for each, complete with the included fold out poster, cover art, and editors note. (compulsive anyone?). Sadly, I took the site public around the same time all my free time was sucked away by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. One day little Consoler, one day I will give you the attention you deserve… (see new year resolutions)

For some reason I thought this list would be longer, but it seems the majority of all things in 2007 for me revolved solely around the game. Regardless, I can say this has by far been my most successful, busiest, most amazing year to date. I have grown and learn so much over the past 365 days (as of new years) and I’m anxious to see how 2008 plans on even coming close to this year…. good luck 08, 2007 is a hard act to follow.

Now for the RESOLUTIONS (Many will be made, few will be followed through), as with every new accomplishment, comes many new vices:

2008
New Years Resolutions

  • Blog More - I apologize, you deserve better. I’ve gotten in a bad habit of only blogging when there’s a major announcement, forget why I started blogging about work so much in the first place. I’m going to start blogging more often, with more personal insider updates, and not just the major Press worthy tid bits.
  • Answer EVERY Email - This has always been my motto, ever since I started working professionally I made it my first priority to answer every email or message I ever received because I’ve always felt that anyone that takes the time to write you deserves the same attention in return. With the success of Call of Duty 4 my inbox and private messengers exploded, before I knew it I was receiving thousands of emails a day to all my accounts. Over 1.5 million in my work accounts (thanks beta), and thousands a day to my hotmail (personal), blackberry, and other accounts. Not that I’m complaining nor mind, I love getting email, but I hate when I can’t reply to everyone. I try to get to as many as I can, and I honestly read everything I receive and make sure it’s used as intended. However, I admit there we’re moments when I simply couldn’t get to them all, but NO MORE. With things winding down a bit, it is my goal to get back to answering EVERY message I receive, whether it be email, IM, comments or other.
  • Create a more functional blog design - I’m never happy with the blog, I mean the basics are all there, but I think I really need to do some redesigning and add some functionality. I may move over to some paid professional blogging software to get what I need (community server perhaps), which I think will help a lot in the organization and communication of my first two resolutions.
  • Take more Photos + Videos - One thing I’ve never been is a picture person, don’t know why, but I rarely take photos of anything, which I regret. So I’ve decided to make it a priority to document more through photo and video, I’m gonna be picking up a mini-cam in JAN to help with this and will hopefully be providing a more visual look behind the scenes of what it’s like to work in video games, go to the events, meet the people, and just live daily live in the city of Los Angeles and at Infinity Ward (the greatest company around). What do you guys think? Is that something you’re even interested in seeing? (comment if so)
  • Become even more accessible - I’m always looking for new ways to interact with you guys, the public as a whole. I mean I consider myself pretty accessible already as I heavily make my contact information available, and for good reason as you can’t make a good game without the influence and input directly from your community. I strongly believe that, and in the ingenious words of Kimya Dawson “I’ll ask you what you think, because your thoughts and words are powerful”. I couldn’t name any other developer whose AIM, MSN, Hotmail, Phone Number, Blog, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and just about any other means of communication is ready available for anyone with the fancy to use it may, but I’ll find even more ways to keep you guys updated more detailed, more personal and more frequent.

Well… as my iPod starts to die and demand to be recharged and my thoughts start to become less and less coherent as the time rounds 1:30 AM I’ll call it a night. Just a few more days left in 2007 and I plan on spending them working towards the aforementioned goals and aspirations… I return to California on Jan 6th and I’ll see you all in 2008!!

Words of Wisdom:
Never blog without music
Always go with your first draft
Always publish without proof reading
Its more honest…

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