Just a Lark

I’ve received my first rejection letter, and in only three weeks! Of course, it looks nothing like what’s above (though I wouldn’t mind getting that either), but all in all I’m actually quite pleased with myself. What I got in the mail wasn’t a form letter, but rather a personalized letter from the editor. He didn’t have any real criticism of my work either, simply saying that it just didn’t grab his interest, and wishing me luck with it elsewhere.

Overall, this is a good thing. He wouldn’t have wrote me out a personalized letter if he thought it was terrible, and since he didn’t offer any criticism he must’ve thought it was good, but not good enough for him to publish. That means that it IS publishable material, just that he personally didn’t like it enough, and that I have a decent-to-good chance with it elsewhere.

I’ve already got a couple other places in mind to send it to, so I’m going to shop it around a bit more and see how I fare.

Friday night was quite the night for me. Along with a bunch of friends and co-workers, I got a bleacher seat at AT&T Park to watch the Oakland Athletics play against the San Francisco Giants. I’d never seen a baseball game live before, and so I was looking forward to it, but ultimately it wasn’t too fantastic. What was fantastic was the 80’s Night garb that some of our guys donned. After the game was finished, I came back to the office to wrap up some work on a few projects and wait for another group of friends to show up, because we had a whole different type of outing planned–a decidedly crazier type of outing.

Saturday marked the final North American stop of the Metal Gear Solid 4 World Tour 2008, and game creator/director Hideo Kojima was scheduled to show up at 4pm for a two our signing session along with Ryan Payton, Yumi Kikuchi, and Kenichiro Imaizumi. With the knowledge that I could get a Kojima autograph, I decided to join Patrick, Julian, and Chris in the waiting game.

It all started out at around midnight, when we did the first location spot check. Granted, we were crazy, but we didn’t want to be the first guys in line. That entails a whole different kind of responsibility that we weren’t willing to assume, and we really only wanted to be in line as long as we could. The office is only a couple blocks walking distance away from the Metreon, and so we walked down to check for the early stages of a line forming, and upon discovering that there wasn’t any we came back. At 1am we did another spot check, and again returned to the office, where we got a few hours of precious sleep in.

At 5am, we ended up doing our last spot check, upon which we discovered that there were already nine people there and quickly got in line. The group that had already formed was full of some really nice people, but I couldn’t help but notice how under-prepared I was for the event–some of them had camping chairs ready, and they were definitely wearing some thicker jackets than I was or had blankets. Being unaccustomed to overnight line camping, I just had a hoodie, my DS (with a game I’m doing a review of in it; yes, I worked while I was there), and a book (Altered Carbon, a good sci-fi read). In the very unlikely event that I do something like this again, I’m coming packed for bear.

Those guys at the front of the line had been there since 2am, a fact they pointed out with pride to anyone who asked. They also fought tooth and nail (and believe me, they had to at some points) to make sure that everyone knew they were at the front of the line. For a significant stretch of the day, one of the good-natured guys, a huge black fellow wearing camo who was incredibly nice but had a fantastic stern glare, held up a hand-written sign that simply read, “START OF LINE” with “WE GOT HERE AT 2AM” written beneath it.

At around 7:30, we needed to make a food run. Across the street was both a Mel’s and a Denny’s, and we decided to go to Denny’s. Mostly because the food at Mel’s always looks and smells so appealing, but is ultimately incredibly disappointing and borderline terrible, whereas Denny’s is consistently somewhat awful. But when you hadn’t eaten real food in 15 hours, you’ll pretty much eat anything, right? So Patrick, Julian, and I made our way there while Chris stayed behind to hold our spot, and await the fruits of our return, because apparently Denny’s does to go food (I really had no idea). It was a little while after we got back that things started to get real crazy.

By 10am the line was already most of the way down the 4th street side of the Metreon. The day before, I had stopped by the PlayStation Store to see if they had any plans for the event, and it turns out that they of course had no idea how they were going to do anything. The complete lack of planning started to show around this time. The Metreon opened its doors, and of course the crowd in line began to surge inside the building. It wasn’t until a significant portion of the line was already inside and waiting that the PlayStation Store manager came out and indignantly informed us that we weren’t allowed to wait and had to move it back outside. For reals man, it’s not like you didn’t see the line, it would’ve helped if you actually tried to look like you knew what you were doing.

So the Manager Jerk pushed us all back outside, all the while with an attitude of bitter resentment that would continue throughout the day. As the day went on, more and more people showed up, and at this stage some crowd control methods were called for. Despite the fact that the Manager Jerk knew where the front of the line was, several of the people at the front reportedly had to enter the building and double-check that everyone working knew where the line began. This had to happen again once they finally managed to get some ropes up to keep the line orderly, as there was again confusion by the Powers That Be about what part of the line was the front and which was the back. All throughout the day, I had heard horror stories about how the LA event was botched by the group behind us, who didn’t even make it inside the building and drove all the way up and got in line at around 5:30am just to make sure they didn’t get screwed out of it again. I was hoping that wasn’t going to happen this time.

Cosplayers began to show up throughout the day, including a guy about 7 people back who donned a Naked Snake outfit complete with face paint. Out of the people that I saw though, the best costumes belonged to a group who had unfortunately shown up too late to nab autographs (though they hung out by the window looking in the entire time, so here’s hoping they were seen). The group consisted of an Old Snake, complete with awesome looking Octocam suit and a wicked sweet ’stache; a crocodile head helmet wearing Naked Snake with a slice of watermelon; a decked out Frog soldier; and a really good Meryl Silverburg, who for some reason seemed disgruntled at having her photo taken. PROTIP: If you cosplay and don’t like posing for photos, you’re doing it all wrong.

Around 2ish I want to say, Manager Jerk showed up again (having reared his ugly head several times earlier to make sure we were all standing and lining up against the wall properly or something). This time, he came with a couple ladies bearing wristbands for us all, proclaiming that without a wristband you weren’t getting in. Finally, some order, if not a bit late. He ended up trying to screw a couple of the guys that had been there since 2am out of wristbands because they weren’t in line the precise moment that he came by, but they did get theirs after a lot of complaining–unfortunately, I heard that there were a few others who didn’t manage to get wristbands later on, despite complaints. In addition to wristbands, Manager Jerk also brought a series of draconian rules that he proclaimed loudly:

- Kojima will only sign the gunmetal grey special edition PS3s or a supplied slipcover, nothing else. The store had no gunmetal grey PS3s in stock, nor did they have any limited edition copies of the game.
- You aren’t allowed to pose with any of the guests, nor could you ask them to pose for you
- You have to be in and out ASAP
- You cannot look directly at Kojima, nor can you speak unless directly asked a non-rhetorical question**Apparently, Kojima would sign anything you asked him to sign (I saw posters and limited edition copies of the game signed), but I decided not to press my luck and ask for a DS signature (hey, he was a producer on Lunar Knights). I blame Manager Jerk for not knowing what was going on, and also the dude who asked him to sign a pack of Marlboros. I mean, really dude, WTF?

At around 3:30pm, a car came up to deliver Kojima and group, and the line surged down to look on to see him wave and smile. There weren’t many people who actually stayed in line at this point, and I was thinking to myself that it would have been the perfect time for some less scrupulous types to try and sneak their way to the front, but apparently that didn’t happen, or I didn’t see the fights. I think the weirdest thing that happened to me the entire day was that someone came by asking for where the line ended (at this point, it literally wrapped all the way around the building and was over 500 people long), and then ended up chatting with me for a bit when he recognized me for my Super Smash Bros. Review. That’s the first time something like that’s ever happened! I wish I remembered his name, but I blanked out on it due to sleep deprivation as soon as he left. Sorry dude!

Finally, at about 4pm, we were let into the building where we were pushed through a signing gauntlet that began with Kenichiro Imaizumi, moved on to Hideo Kojima, and ended with Yumi Kikuchi. Sleep depraved, I didn’t really do much besides thank them and tell them that I loved Metal Gear, and then I headed out and collected a rad MGS4 dogtag, and then it was over.

Looking back on the ordeal, it was certainly a crazy but awesome experience. It was fun, and I’m glad I did it, but I’m not sure I could do something like that again. In the end though, it was totally worth it, and I’m proud to have gotten a Hideo Kojima autograph by waiting in line for 11+ hours. Special thanks go out to Patrick, Julian, and Chris for setting this whole thing up and making sure I tagged along!

* All photography by Chris Lovos
** Not really true

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer of sorts. I remember making Choose Your Own Adventure fiction in the fourth and fifth grade in lieu of reports, which were presumably accepted because they were somehow still tangentially related to the topic assigned. I remember daydreaming of my own bizarre plots and stories all throughout high school like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes did, something that I’m amazed to this day didn’t negatively affect my grades any more than it did. And of course I remember applying and being accepted to my first creative writing course in college, where I learned how rewarding having your work enjoyed by others was. That was when I decided I wanted to be a writer.

But of course, I didn’t want to just write stories (though I would be quite happy doing that), I wanted to write interactive, visual stories. I wanted to combine my love of games (the career path I had already chosen to walk) with my love of writing. An unpublished author doesn’t stand much of a chance–even though I am technically published, but yeah, college press doesn’t count–so I didn’t really get a second glance when I did the Game Developers Conference career walk.

Since then, I’ve managed to fall into this job, and for that I am eternally grateful. I get to write professionally all the time, and while it’s not really the sort of writing I had wanted to do, I’m quite pleased with it nonetheless. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve given up on writing fiction though.

Thanks to some advice from a colleague, I’ve decided to take my hobby a bit more seriously. I’ve dragged out a short story I wrote a couple years ago (as part of a series I’m still writing today) and polished it. Today, I finally submitted it for publication, and am now waiting on a response, something that takes eight or so weeks. Rejection is part of the business though, and while I understand that, I’m very confident in my work. Nonetheless, I’m prepared to send it elsewhere if necessary.

Here’s hoping it won’t be necessary!

My official job title at work is Associate Producer, but I can’t really say that I’ve ever felt like I’ve been much of a producer. This is because there’s quite a disconnect between my title and what I do.

My job is basically one half project manager and one half air-traffic controller. I am primarily responsible for site-wide promotion of our content, which entails everything from making sure that the topslot carousel has the biggest and best stories in it to keeping the various “picks” lists up-to-date. Outside of that, I map out and project manage our game launch centers and some editorial events and features. That all together is a full-time job, and one that essentially makes me on-call for important things, but on top of that I find the time to volunteer myself for previews, reviews, and the occasional feature. What can I say; I love to write and I love games. But with all of that, I’ve never really produced something all the way that had a full video component and I could really take charge of every aspect on. Today that changed.

Tonight we aired a three-hour live gameplay marathon of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and I’m quite proud to say that it was my baby. In fact, as I type this out on my phone while waiting for the train home, I have only just been able to remove my makeup. Wait, what? Yeah, I had to wear makeup for the camera, as I was basically the host.

The idea came up around Monday. Kevin VanOrd, the reviews editor put in charge of Conan, had briefly mentioned the possibility of a marathon, and I was all for it–our viewers love them, they pull in huge traffic, and they can be a lot of fun. Once he received a cursory approval, I went full steam ahead with it, marshaled the resources, and made it happen.

I’ll admit that producing it wasn’t as particularly massive undertaking as you might expect that sort of thing to be. We’ve pretty much got the art of creating this sort of thing down to a fine science, and I work with some of the most creative and talented people in the industry. So it’s not like I had to rig cameras and figure out how live streaming works or anything like that–mostly it was an issue of finding and committing the resources. That’s not to say it was an easy thing to do either though. This week was already crazy enough (I had a preview to write and two other live video appearances) and it made it that much more stressful, but in the end I managed to keep it together and get it done on time.

Hosting the event was kind of a surprise to me, as I hadn’t originally planned on it–it just sort of happened that way. The plan was to have Kevin on, but I felt like we needed someone to be up there with him and ask user questions, and he didn’t really want to be alone on stage. In a meeting with Ryan MacDonald, the man in charge of all video-related things on the site, he just sort of threw out there that I should do it, and though I wasn’t necessarily sure I had the chops to do it, I was totally down.

I’ve only had a few on-camera experiences, and I know that I say “umm” and “you know” and “good times” way too often, but overall I don’t think I did too bad of a job. Going into it, my plan was to be very conversational, very much the smartass, and know nothing about the game–the last one because I wanted an outsider’s perspective on it. I think I stuck to my guns on that pretty well, and anyone who knows me should be able to vouch for that as that’s how I really behave. I mean, I asked a teabagging question and rambled on about riding sweet mammoth mounts!

Anyway, I wish that we could have answered everyone’s questions or shown off some endgame content, but Kevin had only played for about 3 days and was only level 19. Overall though, I’m quite proud right now that I was able to take a casual comment and run with it like I was, producing a full blown (albeit a one-off) video feature like that in less than a week.

I think now I’ve finally earned the right to call myself a producer.

Standing 3 feet away from the developers of a game that you’re writing a preview for and hoping that no one tells them this. You desperately don’t want to converse with them, because the urge to tell them that their game makes you physically ill would be too high*.

*This is not a euphemism–you almost got sick** playing it twice.
** This is a euphemism.