Hello, Substack World
Locked out of my LinkedIn account — what's an unemployed game dev to do?
I’m here because I’m locked out of my LinkedIn account.
Uh, let me back up:
I’ve been working in the games industry for 18 years. That was going fairly smoothly until 2023, when I got laid off from my role as Narrative Director at A Thinking Ape following an Embracer Group acquisition.
I spent the next five, six months looking for my next role — and when I finally got an offer to join Velan as a Senior Mission Designer, I quit my lease, sold all my furniture, packed what I could fit of my remaining belongings into a rental SUV, and drove 3,500 miles from Vancouver, Canada to Albany, New York across 11 states over six days with two screaming cats in the backseat.
Then Velan laid me off seven weeks later. My second layoff in nine months. Because our co-development partner abruptly cancelled our AAA open-world action-adventure fantasy RPG featuring an IP anyone the world over would recognize. Under ironclad NDA and not be used in one’s portfolio, of course.
Back to the job hunt. Currently going on another five months. Only this time, because I’d lived abroad for the last seven years, I don’t qualify for unemployment benefits in the US — and we sure as hell don’t have free universal healthcare.
You know what was keeping me from the edge of panic during these last five months? A thriving and active LinkedIn network helping me with my job search. People resonating with my posts, helping my story reach far and wide, helping me network my way to opportunities, reaching out with freelance gigs and full-time leads, offering camaraderie and support. Over 5,000 people — up from 900 12 months ago — were in my corner rooting for me. I had a safety net. I had support.
And, today, LinkedIn chose violence.
LinkedIn chose to randomly cut off my access to my account. And despite emailing LinkedIn Support, following all of their troubleshooting steps, screenrecording me following all of their troubleshooting steps to prove I had already followed all of their troubleshooting steps and sending them those screenrecordings… nada. Nothing. Ghosted. No help. No access to my account. No indication when or if access will be restored. And no violation of any terms and conditions warranting a suspension — my account is still live. I just can’t login to it.
This is uh, DEVASTATING to my job hunt. The entirety of the games industry networks on LinkedIn. We don’t have any other mass platform where we congregate as professionals. There’s some folks scattered on X, sure, or Blue Sky, or wedged into Subreddits, but LinkedIn is the professional network where you go to connect with recruiters and hiring managers en masse. It’s been generating 100% of my job leads. And now I’m cut off for no discernible reason and with no access to the black box that is Customer Support.
LinkedIn has the monopoly on professional social media — so it’s terrifying and kneecapping when you no longer have access to your professional network. What am I going to do for job leads now? How am I going to reach people in the games industry who can help me network my way to my next role without LinkedIn?
“Start a Substack, I guess.”
So, here we are. Trying to rebuild. Trying to stay sane while the games industry is on fire and our success in finding the next job, already an infinitesimally tiny chance, is decided by a monopoly corporation that controls our ability to network with recruiters and hiring managers through the whims of account access and algorithms.
Anyway. Going forward, some topics you can expect from this Substack if you subscribe:
Game writing and narrative design musings (perhaps even advice)
My experiences (perhaps even learnings) in the games industry
Interesting (perhaps even useful) narrative tools
Solo dev projects in Unity and Unreal (and weird little things like Pulp for the Playdate)
Tinkering around with 3D modeling and animation in Blender
Dabbling with music and composition (for games, and also not for games)
Fiction writing not related to games — maybe!
The occasional meme, or cat picture, or creative writing exercise prompt and result, or haiku, or rambling about a game I’m playing and enjoying, or a band I really love (it’s Rainbow Kitten Surprise; it’s always Rainbow Kitten Surprise)
[Other]
Hope we’re well met.