I had to do this once with Privateer II: The Darkening. It gained a bit when he said "I bet you didn't play it through, I bet somebody just told you how..." and I was able to smile gently and say "God, possibly, since I wrote the game." And plainly the Deity was with me that day, as I happened to be carrying docs from my UK agent (who'd done the deal) that showed not only that I was the writer, but the five-figure sum I had been paid. ...It was a happy day for me. Not so much for him. I'd never had a referent for the word "slink" for a full grown male before. As in "slink away in utter dejection." I smiled for at least three days without stopping. And am smiling now...
What's funny is that until reminded just now, that moment had slipped my mind. I don't take any particular pride in smacking down fools. But when the Universe drops them so blatantly in front of me -- it being, as any Sherlock fan knows, rare for it to be so lazy as to stoop to coincidence -- it's the least I can do to cooperate.
...You have to understand that I felt, and still feel, very possessive about that game. It wasn't my first [Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative was] but it was the first time I worked with a really big team [all of whom I liked] and it gave me the opportunity to write for the most amazing cast: Clive Owen, David Warner, John Hurt, Brian Blessed, many other lovely people. [Try getting them all in a movie now.] For this work, though, I got to suffer the pains of Hell in that I spent nearly six weeks [in a couple of tranches] away from Peter, immured near EA UK in a Holiday Inn in Slough. ["OH LOVELY BOMBS COME FALL ON SLOUGH", etc.] It was fun and happy work, but I missed Peter like oxygen. (There were minor compensations, though. On the days when I was in-house at EA, my temp desk was around the corner from Erin Roberts', and the "alert" sound he had running in his computer at that point was the anguished cry of "Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man!" from William Shatner's pop-music album of years before, and now I can't ever hear that song without thinking of EA.)
But then after all that work, and the game itself released to not-so-bad reviews (though everybody raved about the footage, the game engine was said forever after to have been a bit buggy, but that wasn't my fault)... then, that afternoon in Oriel (it was a nice bar/restaurant in Sloane Square, gone now alas), remembering the pains that work had cost me -- to have some snotnosed baby-boy gamer in a shiny suit and a cheap tie come try to tell me that I did not understand the game structure that I can still remember whiteboarding for Erin Roberts and the rest of the team...?
I. Think. Not.
#boys #don't own #gaming #now #or ever
