Significant Zero

by Walt Williams

  “Okay, cool. Ready when you are.”

  Carlito signaled the audio engineers in the booth behind us. One of their voices came over the intercom. “Recording.”

  Carlito nodded to Nicky. Nicky gave us three grunts as if he were being punched in the chest, and then we moved to the next line.

  MOBSTER

  [Grunt, small scream]

  “This is like a bullet grazed your arm. It stings, but not enough to slow you down.”

  MOBSTER

  [Grunt, big scream]

  “This time, the bullet hits you but goes clean through your shoulder. It hurts, but you’re still on your feet.”

  MOBSTER

  [Death gurgle]

  “The bullet has torn through your jugular. You’re lying in the street, cold and alone, bleeding out. You know you’re dying; you’re trying to sob, but it’s hard to cry when you’re choking to death on your own blood.”

  “Gotcha.”

  In any other medium, a character choking to death on his own blood would be “A Moment.” For us, these were generic lines. Nicky’s dying tears would play a hundred times over the course of the game. This was one more sound thrown into a pool of death gurgles from which it could be randomly selected whenever an enemy died. This was the ambient sound of combat, death and despair as white noise.

  “Great,” said Carlito. “Let’s move on to the next page. These are taunts you’re shouting at the player while trying to kill him.”

  Nicky nodded. He took a swig of water and cleared this throat.

  He snarled into the recording mic, murder in his voice. “Your head’ll look good stuffed and mounted on my wall!” He did three takes, as usual. They were good. It was a perfectly menacing line, but I felt like it could be better.

  Carlito looked sideways at me. “Call it—A, B, or C?”

  For every read of a line, he had me mark down A, B, C, and so on. That way, we remembered which take we wanted to use when it came time to implement them in the game.

  “Maybe C?” I wasn’t sure if there was a wrong answer, but it felt like there was. “Yeah, I think C.”

  “Good. Mark it down.”

  I did as I was told, then leaned over to whisper to Carlito. “I think I have an idea for an alternate take on that line.”

  “Yeah? Let me hear it.”

  “Your head’ll look good stuffed and mounted on the end of my dick.”

  Carlito gave a snort. I couldn’t be sure if it was laughter or derision. “That might be too much. These guys are bad, but not that bad. I like that you’re throwing out ideas, though.”

  * * *

  AS WE LEFT THAT evening, we passed the studio’s head manager. Carlito had basically been living at the studio for the past month, so the two of them had grown familiar.

  “We’re going for dinner,” said Carlito. “Wanna come?”

  “Wish I could, but I’ve got a director going long. I can’t say who, or what he’s working on, but it’s a game. The poor guy’s freaking out. Apparently he’s on take one hundred ninety-seven of the same line.”

  Carlito shrugged like it was no big deal. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  As we got in the car, I asked, “How do you end up doing one hundred ninety-seven takes of one line?”

  “I bet whoever’s directing that session is a fucking writer. These guys write a line and think they know exactly how it should be delivered, then they come in here and fuck up the entire session trying to get it exactly the way they hear it in their head. They all think they’re Stanley Kubrick.

  “Listen, forget one hundred ninety-seven takes. If your actor can’t get a line in ten, it’s not because they can’t get it right. It means you wrote a shitty line. You have to trust your actors. This is what they do. It’s why we pay them to show up and talk into a microphone. When you hand off your script to someone else, it has to stand on its own. You can’t control it every step of the way. I don’t give a fuck if you wrote a great script; it’s not all you. It will never be all you. This is why you never let writers into a recording session.”

  “. . . I’m a writer.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know shit. I can teach you to do the job right. At least then you won’t make extra work for me.”

  “Good to know.”

  “One hundred ninety-seven takes . . .” Carlito sneered as he pulled out of the parking lot. He wasn’t angry; it was more like he was disgusted. “Just walk away,” he said, quoting the Humungus in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. “Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.”

  * * *

  MY SANTA MONICA EXCURSION was scheduled to last two weeks. That was fourteen days of living like Carlito. By design, my world was reduced to a hotel room and a recording studio, both in Santa Monica. The distance was short enough to walk, but I never did. My schedule did not allow for leisurely walks. Every day had to be fast, focused, and familiar. Too much downtime and I started asking questions—dark, terrible questions with answers I didn’t want to know. Questions like, “Why?” If I asked myself that question, I would have passed the point of no return. To avoid it, I lost myself in the routine:

  0800—Wake up.

  0803—Wash down Adderall (20 mg) #1 with Sugar-Free Red Bull (12 oz) #1.

  0810—Shit.

  0830—Shower.

  0840—Shuffle downstairs.

  0850—Drive 1 mile to studio. Drink Sugar-Free Red Bull (12 oz) #2.

  0900—Eat donut. Drink Sugar-Free Red Bull (12 oz) #3.

  0930 to 1200—Record VO.

  1200—Eat lunch. Something brown, preferably fried.

  1230—Adderall (20 mg) #2, Sugar-Free Red Bull (12 oz) #4.

  1300 to 1800—Record VO.

  1810—Drive to hotel.

  1820—Drop bags in hotel room.

  1830—Start drinking.

  1900—Eat dinner. Steak or hamburger, alternating nightly.

  1930—Review scripts for tomorrow.

  2100—Take melatonin (5 mg) and Advil PM (ibuprofen, 200 mg/diphenhydramine citrate, 38 mg).

  2105 to ????—Listen to an audiobook until I pass out.

  The audiobook was a source of escape that I could enjoy. The uppers and downers weren’t fun; they were necessary to keep my brain in the game. The first half of my day was ramping up; the second half was ramping down. I was chemically controlled, around the clock.

  One morning, Carlito found me downstairs in the hotel lobby, sitting on a bench with a half-full can of Red Bull in my hand. The ever-present dark circles under my eyes had reached undead levels. I was staring at the pattern of tiles on the lobby floor.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “My brain won’t turn over.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “What you’re experiencing right now? This is the job. It doesn’t get better. We all float down here.”

  * * *

  THAT AFTERNOON, RICKY WAS preparing to record his grunts when Carlito said to me, “Why don’t you direct this one?”

  “Are you sure?” Off the top of my head, I could think of many reasons why I shouldn’t.

  “Yeah, why not? If you fuck it up, it’s just scratch.” Fair enough.

  I directed Ricky through the first page of grunts. It was the easy stuff, like running and panting. He was doing great, burning through them at a rapid pace. I was starting to think I was born to direct, until the session literally screeched to a halt.

  The line was:

  MOBSTER

  [Shot, scream]

  Ricky let out three short, high-pitched cries. I won’t say they sounded girlish, but his voice had definitely undergone a sudden and drastic rise in pitch.

  I raised my hand and said, “Cut,” because that’s what I’d seen people do in movies.

  “Something wrong?” asked Ricky.

  “No, that was good. But do you think we could try it again with a little more intensity? Remember, you’re getting shot.”

  “You got it.”

  Ricky took a deep breath and then unleashe
d a string of sounds that could only be described as squealing gasps.

  Ugh, God, this was hard. I had no idea how to properly word my feedback. How could I get him to make a sound that didn’t sound like a ten-year-old girl stubbing her toe? I tried to be diplomatic. “Your pitch went a little high on those. Let’s try it again, and keep it low this time.”

  Eager to please, Ricky gave me another three. “How was that?”

  To his credit, he went from sounding like a ten-year-old girl to a fifteen-year-old girl who’d been sneaking cigarettes behind the gym. Unsure of what to do, I just came out with it.

  “Is there any way you could sound manlier?”

  Ricky slowly leaned forward in his chair. “You want me to sound manlier? While I’m getting shot?”

  “Yes, please.” When someone repeats your question back to you, it is a clear sign that you have fucked up.

  “Have you ever been shot?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I have.” He was still leaning forward, closing the distance between us. “Do you know what happens when you get shot?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You scream like a bitch.” On the last word, he jumped forward, causing me to flinch away. I nearly fell backward in my chair. It was not my finest moment.

  Properly chastened, I blushed and lowered my eyes to the floor. “The grunts you did earlier were a lower pitch, with more gravel in them. Think we could get some like that? We’ll need them all to match.”

  Ricky smiled and leaned back in his seat. “Sure thing.”

  * * *

  “HOW DO I GET from where I am to where you are?”

  The question had been on my mind for a while. We were nearing the end of my second week, and I’d seen enough of Carlito to know he had everything I wanted—autonomy, control, respect, and, of course, money. In other words, freedom. Not freedom to do anything he wanted, but freedom to do things his way.

  He said, “Don’t wait for an opportunity to arise. Find the thing you can do that no one else can, then keep doing it until they realize you’re indispensable. Or until it kills you.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t say, ‘Build it and they will come.’ ”

  “Too easy,” said Carlito. “Look, we’re all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet, or on your fucking knees, begging? I ain’t much for begging. Nobody ever gave me nothing. So I say fuck that thing. Let’s fight it.”

  “You lost me. What are we fighting?”

  “The xenomorph. I was quoting Charles Dutton in Alien 3.”

  “Would you believe I’ve never seen the Alien movies? Actually, no, that’s not true. I saw Alien: Resurrection. I liked it.”

  “How the fuck are you working in video games?”

  “I met a guy in a bar—”

  He held up his hand. “I don’t want to know how that story ends.”

  * * *

  MY LAST DAY IN Santa Monica, Tony brought his wife, Janice, to the studio to record some lines. We had a few female characters to record, but only enough lines for a half day’s recording.

  The days leading up had been a nonstop tirade of ball busting and shit talking. Nothing was off limits except getting offended. I don’t know if it was the presence of a woman or the fact that her husband was also in the room, but when Janice arrived, we suddenly became more polite. There was a little less cussing and a lot less talking about ex-girlfriends, ex-wives, and women in general. Honestly, it was kind of refreshing.

  If we didn’t need Janice to record sexy grunts, it would have been a lovely afternoon.

  Sexy grunts are the fourth and final category of exertion noises. You can probably guess what type of exertion I’m talking about. I hate recording sexy grunts. Call me old-fashioned, but there is nothing I find more uncomfortable than paying a woman to fake an orgasm so I can record it. I won’t say sex has no place in games; there’s a time and place for everything. The problem is, video games are terrible at sex.

  Our sex is passable when it’s implied, like in a PG-13 film or on CBS before 10:00 p.m. Nothing shown, nothing lost. One of my favorite games of all time, Fable II, is full of sex. After I was crowned king of Albion at the end of the game, I celebrated by inviting every sex worker in the kingdom back to my castle for an orgy, because it’s good to be the king. And it all happened offscreen. The game faded to black, then played a short moan of pleasure for everyone who was involved. That was forty-three consecutive moans. Fade back in, and voila! Congratulations, player. You have sexed. Enjoy your new STDs. Where sex goes wrong is when we put it on camera. There are many reasons, but off the top of my head I’d say it boils down to the fact we’re watching poorly designed crotchless dolls pretend to have the most vanilla sex you can imagine. It’s both creepy and boring.

  When playing a game, you can avoid any content you don’t want to experience. You don’t have that luxury as a director. If your game calls for sexy grunts, you just have to buck up and power through.

  “Give me about fifteen seconds of sensual moaning.” One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississipi . . . “Thank you. For this next one, start with moaning, build to an orgasm, and then climax for another fifteen seconds.” Oh goddammit, is this seriously turning me on right now? Don’t look her in the eyes, don’t look her in the eyes, don’t look her in the . . . Oh, thank God, it’s over. “Great! Quickly moving on, let’s get one that is obviously fake. So unconvincing it hurts. You’re bored and tired, and you want this guy to know it.” Huh. That’s not quite right. “Can you make it sound meaner? Maybe with a Russian accent?” Yeah, there it is. I feel emasculated just listening to it. “Perfect. Let’s grab one more. Same thing—you’re faking an orgasm—but this time, you’re weeping with uncontrollable sadness.”

  Yeah.

  Luckily, my first experience with sexy grunts was vanilla as they come.

  There’s a scene near the beginning of Mafia II in which Vito, the main character, has returned to the city of Empire Bay after fighting overseas in the Second World War. Vito is invited to the apartment of his old friend, Joe. When he arrives, he can hear music inside—the normal kind you find on a record and the sweet kind you make with someone else. Apparently Joe decided to throw an impromptu party with a pair of prostitutes.

  Prostitutes played by Janice.

  Carlito put on his serious face. “All we need is about thirty seconds of gasping, moaning, that sort of stuff.”

  Janice smiled. “Not a problem.”

  “We’re rolling,” said the sound engineer.

  Carlito nodded at Janice. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  There was a soft, sudden intake of breath. Janice made a slight sound, not quite a moan. It trembled, almost involuntarily, her lungs reacting to an imaginary sensation we could all visualize far too easily. Every eye dropped to the floor except for Tony’s. With crossed arms and flared nostrils, he scanned the room to see which of us assholes would be dumb enough to look at his wife while she pretended to cum into a microphone.

  Thirty seconds later, Janice’s ecstasy reached its peak, then fell off into quick, desperate gasps, each growing softer and slower as the oxygen saturated her blood, until they finally faded into relaxed silence.

  “How was that?”

  Carlito cleared his throat, signaling the recording was over. The rest of us responded by shifting in our seats and looking anywhere except at Janice. Tony was still staring us down, searching for any sign we might have enjoyed his wife’s orgasmic moans.

  “Yeah, I think we got it,” said Carlito. “Let’s move on.”

  Out of everything we recorded, it was the only line that didn’t get a second take.

  8

  * * *

  LOST AT SEA

  The AAA game industry is a franchise operation. If you’re not working on an established franchise, you’re trying to start a new one. A new franchise is the dream. It’s a clean slate, a chance to create something new, free from the expectati
ons of fans and publishers. No one can get in the way of your vision, except for the publishers (who will expect your game to reach a certain scope and marketability) and the players (who will expect it to measure up to a subjective level of quality and value established by companies with near-endless resources). But aside from that, it’s all yours! If you’re lucky, it’ll be so successful you have to churn out new installments until you quit, get fired, or die.

  This is the franchise trap. The only way to escape it is to make a game that doesn’t sell well enough to warrant a sequel. I know because I have made many of them. I am free in the way most AAA developers are not, both from franchise exhaustion and any sort of profit sharing.

  A franchise is marketing shorthand. We create a character and concept for a player to inhabit. Stepping into that role allows a player to inject a bit of him- or herself into the character. If it’s relatable enough and provides a certain level of joy, then we’ve done our job. Once players are hooked, we don’t have to sell them a game—we can sell them a feeling.

  “Remember how it felt to be twelve, playing Super Mario World in your bedroom during Christmas vacation, when your mother brought you a red paper plate filled with sausage balls and butterscotch crunch, and every molecule in your body felt electric as you ate your favorite treats and uncovered the secret Star Road for the first time?

  “Good news! You can feel that way again by picking up any of the games in the Super Mario, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Mario Golf, Mario Baseball, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Mario Sports, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Paper Mario, or Mario & Luigi series.” Nintendo’s Mario franchise is the best-selling video-game franchise of all time because Mario is a beloved character whose name is synonymous with childhood, quality, and entertainment. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s appeared in nearly three hundred games across thirty-nine platforms since 1981.

  There’s nothing wrong with franchises or building an industry around them. I’m a die-hard Doctor Who fan, so I understand the appeal. There are only three photographs in existence that show me smiling—me at my wedding, me holding my daughter, and me standing inside the Ninth Doctor’s TARDIS. I’ve devoured the show’s entire fifty-year run, even going so far as to track down the audio tapes of lost episodes. Even when the show is bad, I can’t get enough. A beloved franchise is a warm blanket in the middle of a very long, cold life.