Feature: 'Truth Versus Fiction: City of Heroes Creator Rick Dakan on Leaving and Entering the Games Biz'

In one of today's main Gamasutra features, City of Heroes creator and 'Geek Mafia' author Rick Dakan discusses his strange transition from lead game designer, to design contractor, to comic book writer, and to novel author. In this extract, Dakan offers advice to would-be game designers looking to "break in" to the industry: "My situation is so unique. I mean, I had the idea, and City of Heroes is an idea you never had to sell people on. It was one of those great ideas that people just GOT. It was obvious, but no one had done it yet. And so...I think it's tough. I think it's just advice that I think would apply to writing in general, you've just got to do it. You have to get out there and write in whatever form, and get your name out there, and get some experience under your belt. I can say that when we were hiring programmers and artists, we always looked really favorably on sort of self-starters, people who had gone out, even kids when they were in school, straight out of college, if they had spent some time and made a little game that was really good." You can read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including a confession of fantasies and a sassy quip about Resident Evil 4's dialogue (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).