Long post:
Known him for 10 years, have been together 7 years. From the age of 16 to 25 he hasn’t changed much and I’m resenting him for it. We started dating at 18 and I’m realising he is pretty stunted at 25.
We started a game company together last year because it was our dream when we 17. We now have 13 people working under us making a game.
However, he took the liberty of getting us an office that costs $1500 a month. The office is costing me way too much money but the team love it so we won’t move. My boyfriend is blowing his money on posters, anime figures and office plants for the office since he practically lives there now. He has a minimum wage full-time job and spends THOUSANDS on office rent (I pay half) and other useless crap. As a result he has $0 in savings. I wouldn’t mind if he could afford it and I don’t hate his hobby…but he can’t afford it.
His parents think the idea is ridiculous and they’re given up reasoning with him. Ive been trying to talk about moving out, travelling or getting our own place in a new city and he shuts it down with “yeah don’t worry we will move when our game takes off and makes millions”.
Im trying to shift the company to doing contract work because we need money, and backing from reputable clients, however they are set on sinking thousands of dollars into this game.
Here’s the thing: the game sucks….nobody is ever going to fucking play it. I hate saying and haven’t said it to him, but the game is a 2D side scroller and it looks awful. It’s really simple too. We submitted it for two video game grant and the judges who are esteemed in the space were brutally honest with us. They said “We play thousands of games and this is nothing special. The App Store churns out hundreds of new games just like yours every week. The gameplay isn’t fun either, the judges got bored and gave up. You might want to reconsider making this your main project”. They LITERALLY used the word bored. The other grant basically said the same thing “the project is poorly put together and not worth funding” to which the team said “Don’t listen to these judges they don’t know anything!” and are continuing with this shitty game.
The team are his friends and while they’re nice, they are a bunch of adult babies. Half live off the government because “they don’t WANT A reaL joB!”. and the others just don’t want to work because they wanna make games and watch anime, apparently real jobs are too hard. I’m the only one with an actual career. It’s driving me nuts because they’re 25-30 and live like 15 year old kids…oh and they talk about jerking off to anime girls, which is funny and sad at the same time.
My parents and co workers are telling me to gtfo of this company asap. We need to move out into a home in 2 years and he’s wasting thousands of dollars every month. I’m furious. The issue is if I leave the company our relationship is pretty much doomed. He will be upset that I quit our dream, our interests won’t align, we’ll never see each other and our relationship will die. Anytime I bring up money or the likely reality that the game might not take off and we need a plan B (contract work) he gets pissed and basically tunes out. He is marking success off the TINY amount of 2D platformers that made money, not counting for the other 98% that failed.
How do I get out of this? I adore him but I hate this idea. I don’t want to leave him but if I leave the company that’s probably gonna be the end.
7 comments
If he runs through all your money and it fails, wouldn’t you be doomed anyway? He’s made all the bad decisions and insists on dragging you financially into them. He doesn’t listen to you about what you want to spend your money on.
That doesn’t seem a good basis for the future and how he makes major decisions. I would get yourself out of this situation quickly before you’re ruined.
I can’t imagine how you’re paying all of it.
Save yourself. Move on with your job and move on with your life. It’s very obvious that you have started to resent him. It’s also obvious that he doesn’t respect your professional opinion. And I’m assuming that when you change jobs the relationship won’t last afterwards because he’s not going to be able to handle you making financially stable decisions.
I’d urge you to read your post back to yourself, but pretend it’s just some random Redditor that’s posted it.
Then see if there’s any way you get to the end without thinking to yourself “girl, run!”
You leave. This will not be the last bad financial decision he makes. You don’t have to let him drag you down with him. All the money you have been wasting on this could have been a very good investment towards your future. Even just paying half the rent that’s 9k a year. If you put just that 9k into a Roth IRA right now, and never contribute another penny to it, compound interest would turn it into almost 150k by the time you retire, just to put it into perspective. You’re not just sacrificing in the moment, you’re sacrificing for the rest of your life. He won’t listen to you or his parents, and surrounds himself with an echo chamber of immaturity. He is not going to change. You either become ok with being girlfriend-mommy-ATM forever, or you save yourself.
It’s incredibly hard to make money in game dev. Where did you guys even get the money to hire a bunch of employees?
Leave the company and secure your finances. Tell him you will no longer support anything to do with the company. If it ends the relationship so be it. Also say you will not be supporting him financially and that he needs to be an equal contributor
I started a successful business with my husband nearly a decade ago, when we were both pretty young. We were aligned in our vision, deeply committed to the project, and had a strong relationship with excellent communications skills. And it was still UNBELIEVABLY HARD and at times incredibly scary for our relationship.
In the nicest way possible, I see nothing remotely conducive to success here. This isn’t a business, it’s an expensive way to spend time with his friends. You’re clear that there’s no real market analysis or path to commercial success behind the push to develop the game. It also sounds like there is no foundation for why you exist as a company or how you’ll exist together – no shared sense of what the company should be, shared management or leadership instincts, or shared commitment to how you’ll operate together. No better example of that than the fact that he’s making financial decisions that you’re on the hook for without you – which in and of itself should be the death knell for any business or personal financial partnership.
You sound like you have your shit together and whatever you’ll do on your own will be grounded in reality. I’d bet that whatever “consulting” you’re imagining might be profitable could be done just as easily with a couple of the better team members on the side instead of running it through this mess. You should get out.
Finally – you seem afraid that leaving the business will end the relationship. You should be more afraid that the way he’s behaving in the business is a forewarning of the way he’ll ultimately behave in the relationship. He made a terrible financial decision that you’re now locked into. He’s delusional about his own finances and prospects. He’s refusing to take constructive feedback from reputable sources. He refuses to acknowledge the prospect of failure. These are not traits that suggest he’s going to be a good long-term partner – they’re the traits of someone who’s going to constantly sink their money into stupid get-rick-quick ideas, make bad financial decisions, or surprise you in a few years with a zillion dollars in credit card debt. You’ve got decades and decades of adulthood ahead of you – why are you so worried about staying with someone who you know you can’t trust to make good decisions?