Stay at Home Dev & Family Management with Randy Forsyth | Game Dev Unchained

(This is an interview conducted on the Game Dev Unchained podcast, an audio podcast that has been transcribed into written form. Please forgive and assume anything written that seems off to be completely my fault and not of the guest. Thank you!)

Randy Forsyth gives us his true family and parenting stories as a stay at home professional full time game developer. The Dev Dad himself lays out what you'll expect and need to do in order to function both as an employee and a parent simultaneously from the comfort of your own home.

Randy has since become a Senior Character Artist at Epic Games working on Fortnite after the interview was conducted. The world is facing a huge amount of uncertainty in result of the pandemic and more game devs are forcibly working remotely than ever before. Additionally, before COVID-19, many developers were making the move to Texas to chase after the next tech space. Therefore, there are some timeless lessons here that readers can learn from to help cope with the changing landscape and perhaps more permanent ramifications due to current events.

Randy, before working at Epic Games, was living in Texas with his family working remotely as the Lead Character Artist for Iron Galaxy Studios working on Killer Instinct: Season 3. He occasionally takes on freelance and you can see his work in Lawbreakers as well. His past work also includes Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Planetside 2, TNMT Out of the Shadows, Duke Nukem Forever, and Neverwinter Nights 2.

Living in Texas

Randy has spent his career split between living in California and Texas working at several different studios. His family is based in California and the majority of his wife’s family lives in Texas. In recent years, game developers moving to Texas has become a common trend by not only game developers, but also other tech industry veterans. These individuals, and therefore companies, are attracted to affordable housing and overall quality of life. It’s no secret that California residents, on average, are faced with higher mortgage and rental expenses and are often struggling with living from paycheck to paycheck.

The first time Randy lived in Texas was when he was working on a little infamous game that is ironically titled “Duke Nukem Forever.” For awhile, Duke Nukem was plagued with development horror stories of how it suffered from various developmental delays and was handed off to multiple studios to attempt at finishing the game.

Relationship Tester

The game industry is a volatile place and on top of trying to stay financially stable, it stress-tests any relationship. Especially when a relationship is at the early stages. Luckily, Randy went through this early on in his career, between his wife and him when they started dating.

To add on to that trauma, Randy shares that surviving shutdowns together was a theme early on in his relationship with his wife.

Despite going through some life-altering career changes, he still is very optimistic and doesn't see himself ever doing anything else, especially now. The places Randy have worked at use to make decisions for him, but they were hard lessons that he learned from to stay a step ahead by rolling with the punches.

”I love this job. There's always a fear of ‘Oh sh*t! How long is this gonna last?’  kind of thing and trying to reevaluate for my family and myself, what's the best path to take, longevity-wise. Where is the industry gonna go? That's a testament, hopefully, how my wife trusts me. I'm getting us moving in the right direction. The same reason why we moved back here, in Texas, was so she could get into nursing school and give our family a little bit of more stability with dual income. I think that'll help us out in the long haul. But it’s kind of crazy for her to go through these things and stick with it. I think she have seen the nature of the beast.  I really love what I'm doing and she'd never say ‘You know... maybe you should change careers.’ I don't think she'd be telling me to do that. Maybe, she might be thinking it, but she wouldn't say that. I think it would be understandable. Sometimes I think about like ‘Fck! What have I got myself into?’ After the second studio shut down... I came out stressful, but unfortunately, it's f*cking fun to do game dev. And yeah, I love doing it.”

Working from Home and Family Life

Randy have seen his fair share of successes and pitfalls working in the industry and his career have taken him across multiple states. So it was a relief to learn that Randy has found a home in Texas and works remotely from his home office after years of commuting and being away from his family and newborn.

Larry adds that:

Randy responds…

The ability from home is a luxury that most developers would love to do. However, there is still a very low amount of blueprints to actually get to that point. Randy luckily, shares his experience for the transition and how it sort of fell on his lap.

Although, working from home is obviously a step up, there are some office perks that Randy misses.

When asked about what a typical day working from home looks like Randy answers,

There are challenges getting use to working from home and Randy wasn’t shy about sharing that experience. We asked about productivity and efficiency and he says

[this is a repost from www.gamedevunchained.com- the original article can be found here with resources and links]