Who am I?

Well, I’m Chris Rhodan. Duh. I’m a 19 year old student studying a Bachelor of Interactive Entertainment and Game Design at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia, majoring in Game Design, but also dabbling in some programming. Though I study in Brisbane, I live on the Gold Coast but am currently looking at moving closer to Brisbane to be closer to study and also future job opportunities in Brisbane (which is, along with Melbourne, one of the main Game Development hubs in Australia).

Apart from university study, I obviously spend a chunk of my time playing video games as well working part time and trying to maintain an active social life. Im also a huge fan of sports, especially both Rugby codes and American Football (which despite never having been in America before, I’ve developed a love of) as well as most other forms of entertainment such as books, movies and music.

What’s this blog about?

Blurred Reailty is my own blog focusing predominantly on Video Games (because the internet doesn’t have enough of them), especially game design and production. This is my personal blog and everything contained within are my own personal opinions, not that of companies I work for or people I’m associated with.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to provide you with intelligent and interesting discussion and feel free to leave comments and let me know your own opinions on anything I write.

Why Video Games?

I’ve enjoyed playing games as well as having had a broad interest in technology, especially computer technology, since a young age. Despite this, I never had a firm idea of what I wanted to do with my life, drifting from idea to idea, such as being an author, movie director or various roles in the I.T. industry. Although there were a wide number of possibilities in my head, they all seemed to form around two main fields – I.T. and Creative Industries. It wasn’t until early 2006 that I really thought about designing video games, not that I hadn’t played around with map editors before (especially Blizzard’s Warcraft and Starcraft editors ) which, like many people my age,  I’d invest hours in drawing and designing levels for my favorite games, but until the mid 2000’s, I’d never really considered it a career possibility.

I don’t know what changed exactly, but aside from running a very successful raid guild in World of Warcraft (managing 40+ WoW players at the age of 16 in between school and rugby commitments is no easy feat, and being one of the top raid guilds on the server only made it harder) , I began to research more about the industry and how games were made. Obviously, the internet made this rather easier, especially sites such as Gamasutra and Gamecareerguide, and I was quickly captured by the synergy of skills from both Creative Industry and I.T. fields. Further to this, Interactive Entertainment is the quickest growing entertainment sector in the world, money earned from selling Video Games surpassing that of music in many countries, and even that of DVDs in others. I was hooked.