Why I left Unity

I left Unity about a month ago. It was a short, but amazing and enlightening, experience. I felt that my job there was done (or here). My first little contribution to the world of VR.

Instead of pivoting onto some new project or something, I've decided to basically pivot my entire life. Currently, it seems a large subset of the industry has rearranged itself around VR/AR, so I figure my timing couldn't be better. Unsurprisingly, pivoting your entire life isn't easy but I believe it's for the better. Working a full-time software job endlessly bulldozing countless lines of anonymous C/C++ code isn't on my list of happy things to do anymore. Screw that!

I'm now living in Seattle, a city I've only visited like 3 times in my entire 6 years living in Washington. Holy shit, what an amazing city! Bellevue is such a barren wasteland compared to Seattle it's ridiculous. I'm avoiding the eastside completely because the place reminds me of a mental prison. I've got some particularly bad memories there. I can't even look at downtown anymore without thinking of various horrible memories. I'm now a much happier independent consultant here in Seattle.

You know, just thinking here: I must be a bunch of game/software industry execs worst nightmare. "Oh shit, Rich is some crazy ass SOB, he's going to spill all of our endless secrets and damage our hiring and spotless reputations!" Yes, I've seen a lot of shit in my career. A lot of it the world should know about -- someday. If it makes you feel any better, I'm almost as public as I possibly can be, and I'm staying that way. I really love blogging.

I've been thinking a lot about the word "counterculture", especially in relation to the software industry. I know exactly what the "mainstream", or "normal" software developer culture is. The corporate software development and game industry culture I've seen so far is immature, exploitative, abusive, and downright dehumanizing. Where are the alternative software developer cultures?

Imagine the kinds of amazing new software that could be created in alternative cultural environments. To really improve this industry we need to upgrade our culture, not our hardware, comp-sci curriculum, or office arrangements. We need to fix the root problem, which is to escape from this insane mainstream culture and create something healthier.