A lot can change in a pretty short time. 4 weeks ago I was working at Sony, I had just gotten a nice promotion and raise, and I thought things were going well. Today I’m trying to sell off everything that I can’t fit into my car and getting ready to move 7,000 miles around the world. What changed, you ask? A once in a lifetime opportunity came along…

Now I’m working for a new startup heading up a project that I actually started a few years ago. The team is pretty geographically diverse, but one of the advantages of working remotely is that you can do it from anywhere in the world. I’m going to try living abroad for a while and see how that goes. I figure while I’m still young and stupid, it’s the perfect time to try something like this. Next stop: Switzerland!

I have to admit, as of late I’d been feeling a little down on some of our stuff. Work had started feeling like just a job, and I was afraid I was losing some motivation. I needed to get excited about Playstation3 again, and GDC has been really good for that.

Little Big Planet looks like a lot of fun based on the demo that Phil showed at the keynote. There’s a lot of potential for user-created content in that game, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the levels that people build.

The “Home” demo also looks very cool. It’s got some elements of Second Life, and it makes it easier to find and meet people outside of regular PS3 games. One of my pet peeves with PSN so far was that there wasn’t a centralized place to see all your accomplishments from different PS3 games, and the Hall of Fame fills that nicely. I spent a fair amount of time talking with the Home guys last night, and I think good things are coming from them.

It’s nice to see things finally coming together. We’ve got some cool stuff happening on this platform, and seeing more of what’s in progress definitely restored my motivation to keep working on our technology.

My alter-ego?

I went over to Best Buy in El Cajon for their midnight event to see what was going on, and there were tons of people lined up days in advance to get a chance to buy a PS3. It’s pretty insane to think that some people had been there for several days already, and from the news reports around the country some people braved getting shot at to get their PS3. I’ve spent the last year and a half of my life working on Playstation3, so it represents more than just a game console to me. It’s an awesome feeling to see hundreds of people camped outside Best Buy trying to get their hands on something you helped create.

I also met a playstation fan that had come out to watch the launch affair even though she wasn’t getting a PS3 herself until later on. Talking to her (and seeing everyone in line) made me remember why I got into the games industry in the first place. We do it to entertain people.. we do it to inspire people.. a video game can be a very powerful and moving experience, and I’m just happy to have had a part in it all.

I wandered by the NCsoft booth and saw that they have about six games all in development and all look like they’re using the same engine. Gotta milk it for all its worth I guess, although I’m a recovering Guild Wars addict so they’re doing something right. I also went by the Blizzard booth and all they were showing was World of Warcraft stuff. I think they said they’ve put Starcraft:Ghost on hold indefinitely, which is unfortunate. I heard rumors that Diablo3 was in development, but they weren’t showing anything. I really hope Blizzard doesn’t turn into “those guys that make WoW”, since they’ve been making killer games for so long and I’d like to see their other work continue too.

For me, the biggest disappointment of the entire show was the upcoming Shadowrun game from Microsoft. For some reason, they decided it would be a cool idea to take the name but throw out the entire shadowrun universe. We started with a rich cyberpunk universe, a gripping story to tell and questions to raise, deckers doing battle in the matrix, the list goes on and on. What we ended up with is Counter-Strike with magic. No seriously, it’s now a first person shooter. You get money for winning rounds and stuff, with which you can buy better things. Oh yeah, and the two spells that the game has (resurrection and teleport) are specifically the things that Shadowrun magic can’t do! I predict this one is going to fail, badly.

A friend and I managed to swing some tickets to the super-secret E3 Sony party at Dodger Stadium, where we saw Incubus play, stuffed ourselves full of tasty beef and chicken at the feeding troughs, watching some strange dancing entertainment, and took advantage of the approximately 8 open bars. We ought to do this more often.

Click here to see my collection of E3 pictures