Back from Otakon (what's next?)

Otakon marked the third and final "booth con" of the year for us. (Read more about our Otakon experiences on the forums, in this thread.) And now back to our regularly scheduled programming (i.e., finishing the game!). There's still a handful of other cons coming up, where we'll probably send over some promotional materials, but unfortunately it would be too costly to go to too many cons in person.

Part of me wishes I could spend the whole year just hopping from con to con around the country, telling people about ren'ai games and Shira Oka. I enjoy introducing people to the genre, as well as talking to people who have played other ren'ai games before, and finding out what they liked or didn't like about the game(s) they played. And I love the fact that thanks to the Internet and forums, now it's possible to continue the discussion with those people even after the con is over and we've all gone our separate ways.

But at the same time, another part of me is relieved that con season is (essentially) over for us, and things can go back to "normal" as much as possible. After all, the more time spent on cons, the less time for working on the game itself, since we don't exactly have a separate marketing department. Well, in a sense I am the marketing department, and now that we're done with cons I can shift my focus back to my web projects again. So look forward to more improvements to our website and forums coming up.

Read more: Back from Otakon (what's next?)

Rankism not allowed here

One of the founding pillars of Okashi Studios is the simple idea that every employee's company position denotes a role, and has no connotations of superiority or rank. Every staff member is valuable to the company for their expertise in one or more of the relevant problem domains (those that end up not fitting this description are not kept around for very long), and therefore should be treated with the same respect. I feel that is a rather important distinction, and in particular, is rife with the danger of degrading into lip service.

However, I didn't start this company just to be like anyone else out there. To me, it wasn't worth doing unless I can do something meaningful, from a "bigger" perspective. This game that we're producing...there's no technical wonder, or any "magic" going on. It's not about that. It's about trying to successfully put out a good product, while maintaining the most positive culture I can come up with, within my personal moral and ethical ruleset (and a big part of that ruleset involves treating everybody as an equal, socially and intellectually). The two go hand in hand. If I can't do both, I wouldn't have bothered doing anything in the first place.

The interesting thing about this, though, was something that occurred about two weeks ago, on the drive home from the office. I was listening to NPR, as usual (it's about the only thing I listen to these days, other than my anime music collection and the Shira OKa soundtrack). That day, there was an interview with a Robert Fuller, and that was the first time I heard the term "rankism".

Read more: Rankism not allowed here

Collaboration and community

When we tell people that we've started running booths and panels at cons this year, their first reaction is often,

Read more: Collaboration and community