Skyrim's main game was impressive when it was released, sure, but it will perhaps be better remembered for its sheer number of mods, conversions, tweaks and content packs. Now it's that latter category of work that has landed Alexander J. Velicky a job at Bungie, a year after he released the Falskaar mod that took him over 2,000 hours and a year of development to create, in one of the best examples of taking the dragon helm by the horns we've ever heard of.
Taking to the official Eder Scrolls forums (via Eurogamer) to announce his new position as associate designer at Bungie, Velicky is simply brimming with excitement at the news – but the tone is one of thanks, not of boasts or pride. Ultimately he said, the thread with the job announcement was more about the community than about him.
“Modding has been ~90% of my life for over four years now, and all throughout you were there to support me,” he began, we presume while rubbing a tear from his eye with his new game designer finger. “I know this will sound weird since this is an open community composed largely of random anonymous people from ‘The Internet', but you're kind of like my second family.”
He goes on to issue big thanks yous to everyone, from those that gave simple comments of encouragement, to mods and supporters of his projects. Even those that provided feedback, “positive and negative alike” get a look in.
Finally though, it comes down to his “corny life lesson,” to the community and that's just to try and not be afraid to try again. Doing so he said, is what's given him the chance to work at a company like Bungie, because he set his sights high and early and then worked steadily towards it.
Looking to the future, he said he would hope to continue modding for games, especially hinted at ones like Fallout 4, but he said it was likely his activity, especially on the forums, may lessen a little as he'll now have a full time job.
Kitguru Says: It will be interesting to see how he gets on. It sounds like he'll have had a prettty good grounding with his work ethic though, since he worked for a year on the mod as if it was his first time job while living with his dad. Did we mention the guy isn't even 21 yet?