Like a lot of teenagers, Alexander J. Velicky loves computer games, and like a lot of teenage computer game lovers, Velicky dreams of working for a game company.
Unlike a lot of teenagers, Velicky eschewed college or design school in order to build a massive add-on to his favorite game to compel his favorite game company to give him a job.
Falskaar, the product of over 2,000 hours of work by the Idahoan, is a mod to Bethesda Softwork's monumentally popular Skyrim, and Velicky has been working on it since his graduation from high school a year ago. The add-on, according to Velicky, is 30 hours long, adds a landmass one-third the size of Skyrim's main island, and is voiced by 30 different actors. In an interview with PC Gamer, Velicky, who has previously done mods for Bethesda's Fallout 3, said that he managed to work so intensely on Falskaar because his parents fully supported his decision to live at home and work full time on the project.
Last year, Velicky started an Indiegogo campaign to "Help me raise money to fly to Rockville, Maryland to apply for a job at Bethesda Game Studio."; it fell short of its $3,500 funding goal. Bethesda has yet to comment on Falskaar, but if Velicky's impressive expansion eventually gets him a job there, it would certainly support that old job search maxim: know the company you're applying to.