The secret life of a games programmer: I’ve lived my dream and it came up short | Anonymous

'Passion' meant working six days a week -16-hour days. I still play games, but having seen the inside of the sausage factory they'll never be the same again

At the age of 11, I wrote my own version of Space Invaders. Someone I met on the internet who I knew only as "Mit" (it was a more trusting time) gave me the code. I muddled my way through the logic of enemies sliding back and forth, collisions and player controls, and after a few weeks was completely hooked. I loved playing computer games, and now I could make my own: I knew that I definitely wanted to become a games programmer.

When I left university, it was in the middle of the last economic meltdown and buying games wasn't really people's top priority. The whole industry was going through a massive round of layoffs, so jobs were thin on the ground. In the end I was incredibly lucky, landing a junior role at a major UK studio owned by a console manufacturer just after they had made some more experienced engineers redundant.

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