My journey to gamedev world. (part 2)
I’m no stranger to debt, in fact I remember very clearly my first relationship with it around 13 years ago: It was graduation day and the university headmaster was delivering the closing speech, at some point he said that there was really no rush to start working right away, that we should take some time to enjoy our freedom and celebrate the end of our student lives before we began the next step of joining the productive adulthood workforce, unless, he said, you enjoyed a scholarship with us, if that’s the case you probably should start looking for a job as soon as possible. You see, if you were of the lucky few that managed to get a scholarship, the university divided it in two, one half to be paid trough scholar service during your time as a student and the other was accumulated as debt to be paid after graduation, you had a six month grace period to start paying. So as I lay there, holding my diploma, all I could feel was anxiousness instead of relief, hadn’t even started searching for a job and I already owed a six digit figure, at least it was in mexican pesos.
…I was laid off, said Andrés to Rod and me, we were sitting at a table in a Starbucks, it was evening and people was starting to go home for the night, — and I’m afraid there’s more bad news, the person taking my place is the one I removed from the position in the first place so there’s bad blood between us, and she is going to do her very best to find any mistake or shaky contract to throw dirt on my grave; regarding the contract with Chronograph there can be three scenarios: One: they just continue as planned and that’s that; Two: with all the movements they don’t notice the contract and you get to spend those four month payment in anything you want; or Three: She wants nothing to do with it and asks the money back cancelling the contract. — I already spent a significant part of that money on preparing the office space, buying supplies and equipment — I told him, — Then let’s hope it’s not number three.
The following week on the weekly Blackraken partner’s meeting there were even darker news: this year sales just didn’t went as planned and our expenses were too many, the loan with the bank reached an all-time high and the big project that we were expecting to work on just wasn’t happening. 5 years of working hard, earning a laughable salary, sacrificing weekends and sleepless nights were on the brink of falling to the ground like a house of cards and left us with nothing to show for it. That night the four of us went home with two options: We could declare bankruptcy, sell all the assets, machinery, equipment and everything we could, pay the banks, pay the workers and if something was left divide it between us thank you very much; or we could find someone interested to become a partner and buy us more time to keep trying another year, but if four of us were already too many, five would be absolutely ridiculous, some of us would need to sell our shares and end the dream. Dark times indeed, debt had made a comeback and demanded a dance, and not a slow, calculated dance like before, this time it wanted perreo intenso.
As fate would dictate, Andrés was now unemployed and had the time and money to decide what to do next, Rod proposed him to become the new Blackraken partner, and after some consideration and careful analysis of the company situation he decided to join along with Arturo, our uncle from Mexico City that had a very similar business, the catch? there were going to be only tree partners: Andrés, Arturo and one of us, the other three must sell all their shares or the deal was off the table.
Having Chronograph to fall back to, the four month payment that could or could not be mine (which I had already spent part of) and my childish excitement to finally start working on things related to video games, I decided to sell my Blackraken shares. Of the original four partners I was the only one that became part of the team a year after the company was created, the other tree (Rod included) where there since the beginning, so I never felt that deep level of ownership and parent-like love the others had, the only thing that weighed heavy on me was leaving my brother to fend of the upcoming challenges alone, but I was going to be close by anyways, in fact in the same place renting a room that now looked like an office.
I ended up selling my shares for less than the price I paid for them four years prior, the alternative was to declare bankruptcy and get almost nothing at all. The only original partner that stayed was Rod. Still I was happy, I hadn’t heard any news from the international company that had paid me four months service in advance, and foolishly I started to think that maybe, just maybe the contract that we made with Andrés somehow got lost in the process of him leaving the job. I had a new company! fresh start, clean slate and with some money on the bank and no work required to show for it. Sometimes life is good.
But debt is a fickle lady, just waiting around the corner to catch you off guard, she loves to dance, just one more song, it will be worth it! she promises, and so this time she came in the shape of a meeting call, the new manager at the international company wanted to discuss a payment that had been done in advance for a four month contract on graphic design services to Blackraken.
