In May and June of this year I stopped posting regularly to this weblog, apart from the occasional indicator that I was still alive. Finally, in June, I wrote a post about bad stress that explained what had been going on.

Somewhere around mid-August, my posting frequency dropped again, and it hasn't picked up much since. (My foolish attempt to distract my dear readers with a second blog has only resulted in doubling the questions about why I haven't been updating.)

So now it's time to revisit that bad stress post.

I wrote:

At the start of this year, I was made producer on a new project at Rockstar Vienna. Rockstar's confidentiality policy being what it is, I won't be able to tell you anything about it until the well-orchestrated PR campaign has started.

Being a producer on a Rockstar title is a daunting thought, what with the huge sales numbers, the critical acclaim, and the intense attention to whatever the company does. This project also has a larger team and budget than what I've worked with before. But oddly enough all of this is not really a source of stress for me. Optimism is the hallmark of a producer - you have to be optimistic to believe that something great can be produced from nothing.

Much of this is still true today. However, managing a project of this size and duration did eventually become a major source of stress for me, and after several months I came to the conclusion that in the medium to long term it would be bad for the project and for myself if I were to continue as producer. So I decided to step back.

As you can imagine, this was not an easy decision. Thankfully, I work for a very solution-oriented company, so the whole process of dealing with this has been very smooth, and the new situation is better for the project. But this is a complicated period for me, involving many positive and negative emotions, and a lot of thinking and rethinking.