In the Industry, sort of... (Career path advice)

BrianShray

I'll cut to the chase. 

I've been working for the same company for about 1.5yrs now, initially hired as an Assembly Artist to work on game cinematics (Light/Render/Comp)
I have some previous experience in amateur freelance Editing/MoGraph jobs, and my higher ups knew about this. 
Slowly but surely, while my team work on higher end client work, I was being isolated and given random Editing/MoGraph work to do.
This includes company demoreels for clients pitches, editing promotional videos, social media videos, making slideshows, mostly internal stuff.

I have no issues with helping out but this is not what I want to do, not the slightest. 
But they seem to like the work I do, So I find  keep falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole and being type cast as the editing guy.
Honestly, It is disheartening, soul-crushing, depressing,  and sucking every bit of passion I had out of me.
Literally watching as newly hired fresh grads are working on high-end client cinematics while im here editing the next Instagram video.

This has been ongoing for over a year now and I've had a number of chats with my superiors about this
But long story short, I was told that i was helping the company grow yada yada, for the good of the company yada yada. 

Believe me, I am very grateful for my job and the money is not an issue, but at the same time im extremely unhappy day in day out.
Im aware that a majority of you have had a fair share of unsatisfactory jobs, etc.  
I would like your suggestion on how you would handle this and/or if you have faced a similar situation. 


TL;DR  Hired as a 3D Artist but being typecasted as a editor/slideshow/mograph/social media guy.  

hmm_rock

Take this with a grain of salt, but I've been in a similar situation. Hired as a 3d environment artist after about a year, surviving layoffs and company restructuring, I ended up doing 2d art for mobile games - not the direction I wanted to move career-wise. "Helping the company out" is great, but not at the cost of your professional growth, and in this industry stagnating is an easy way to fall behind the competition. It's great that you've started conversations, but if the company isn't hearing you out you have to face the reality that you have to take initiative. For me that was leaving the job, focusing on my portfolio, and finding a much better fit with a different studio that is helping me grow on a daily basis. The best and worst thing about the game industry is that you're not going to be at the same company forever and if money really is no object you're probably in a better place than most to get yourself out of a bad situation. 

BrianShray

Thank you very much for the reply. 

I guess part of me knew what I have to do but I just had to hear someone say it.

One small problem however is that I am from a fairly small country with an even smaller studio count so I have had to weigh the pros and cons heavily before I make a decision. It is unfortunate, as I do currently work at one of the biggest companies here and I also like the working environment and people. But, I might just have to leave, even if its to a smaller company, so long as it doesn't drain all my energy every single day.

I have enough resources to take afew months off to level up the good ol' portfolio, so i might just do that.