I know I’ve been fairly quiet recently so here’s a bit of news: I recently took a job at Flying Lab Software, a computer game company in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. I’m working as a Content Designer on Pirates of the Burning Sea, a MMOG that’s been under development for the past several years. You can learn more about the game at www.burningsea.com. If you like swashbuckling pirate action, booming broadsides, and sunken treasure (and really, who doesn’t?), you will dig this game. It goes live in June, 2007, just in time to take advantage of the hype around Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Crossing over to the computer gaming field is something I’ve considered off and on for years, but it never seemed like the right time. When Flying Lab approached me about working there though, it all seemed to fall into place. The question for me was how would I like to make a whole lot more money and get a nice benefits package working for a small, independent company with people like John Tynes (Producer) and Jess Lebow (Content Lead) on a game about pirates? It didn’t take me long to decide that there was really only one answer.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not a “screw you, game industry, I’ve leaving” maneuver. I’m still the President of Green Ronin Publishing, I’ll just be going back the old ways and doing it nights and weekends. Everyone else at GR remains in place and things are moving ahead as planned. Really, the only difference you’ll see is a little less material designed by me. I’m going to be concentrating on running the company and only doing a bit of design work, at least in the short term. At the moment that means working on the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, which is coming out in March. After that I’ll probably start work in earnest on a Secret Project.

I started at Flying Lab about a month ago and things are going really well. It was a bit of an adjustment to start commuting and doing regular office hours again after working from home for four years, but I’ve gotten into a good rhythm and now it’s going smoothly. It’s about an hour each way by bus, which isn’t great, but it is better than commuting to Bellevue or Redmond where most computer industry jobs in Seattle are located. Flying Lab is the nerd nexus point of Queen Anne. I’m still getting to know a lot of my co-workers, but they seem like good folk and we all seem to have a lot in common. I try not to dwell on the fact I’m probably the oldest guy in my department.

So yar, it’s a pirate life for me, mateys.