Derek could tell that Jim had immense pride in Netertainment. “I agree it's a pretty unique business model.”
“Indeed. We let the players adventure for real money. Other players’ money. We have a number of utility and design patents on the system for our subscribers to transfer money into the game as their table stakes.”
“Okay, so that's the part that still intrigues me. Why would a customer put more money at risk in your game?”
“We tie their character’s level to their account balance. The higher the amount of money they have deposited in the game, the more powerful their character becomes in ability and experience. That becomes the offense side of the equation. But just as importantly, we represent that same money as treasure to be won in the game environment. A player’s account balance gets manifested into gold, jewels, and artifacts that he or she must protect back in their headquarters while other adventurers figure out how they might take it. This means our players have to plan for defense as well, placing defenses in a stronghold that they get to design from the ground up. And thus the dance begins.”
Jim led them out of the cubicle room and through a fire door into what almost appeared like a movie studio. A green screen hung from one wall, with a hanger rack holding a dozen or so gray body suits pushed neatly to the side near a mass of digital camera equipment. A short Indian man was there, wearing jeans and a western cowboy shirt that were incongruent with the turban and beard that marked him as a Sikh. He was flipping through data on a tablet PC when he noticed their arrival.
“Oh, good morning, Jim.”
“Hi, Manmeet. Do you know where Roger is this morning?”
The Indian thought for a moment. “Normally I’d just follow the swearing, but it’s still early.”
“Well, then, I’d like you to meet Derek Callahan,” Jim said. “Derek is our new CFO. Derek, Manmeet is our Director of Game Design. He runs the teams that are responsible for all the tools management, character creation, everything. Here, for example. Every time we have a new member enroll, that person needs to create the virtual avatar that will act as their character in the game. As I said, this is a game where the spirit is defined by players campaigning against other players. You’d be amazed at how much time and energy our members spend in getting the look and feel of that character just right. Manmeet’s responsibility is to make sure those processes go beautifully.”
Manmeet shook Derek’s hand with a firm grip. He was almost a foot shorter than Derek, even with the turban. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Derek replied. He nodded toward the green screen. “What is all that stuff over there, then?”
“Oh, we use that for motion capture for the character animations.”
“I’m sorry... motion capture?”
“Yes,” Jim said, smiling. “We have very high production values here. That’s part of the allure. Role playing online is, if nothing else, a bit escapist. We don’t want to dispel that fantasy with shoddy animation or graphics.”
“Would you like to try on a suit?” Manmeet asked.
Derek gave a wry smile. “Maybe if you need to motion-capture someone picking their nose. But no, thanks.”
While Manmeet provided some of the finer details of the process, a heavy-set man lumbered up to a table and started unloading a variety of pastries wedged into a cardboard drink carrier. That was in addition to four large coffee cups. He had long, frizzy hair pulled back into a ponytail, a beard to match, and thick, dirty glasses. His black T-shirt said My Other Car Is an Unmanned Probe.
“Hey, Marty,” said Manmeet, “will you show our new executive here how we model the faces?”
The black-clad man brushed his hands free of sugar and icing. “Hello,” he said. His voice reminded Derek of Kermit the Frog.
“Hi. I’m Derek. First day is today.”
“That’s great. What do you do?”
Derek glanced at Jim. “CFO. I handle the money.”
Marty tilted his head back in appreciation. “I’ll do anything I can to help the man who pays me. I’m Marty. I manage Quality Assurance for the in-world tools. Is Manmeet showing you how we animate the players?”
“Yes. Sounds like a lot of work.”
Marty nodded sagely. “Ah. And do you have a guess as to why we put so much time into it?”
“Indulge me,” invited Derek.
He led them back to the workstations and paused for a moment to snack from a croissant and wash it down. Derek suddenly realized that all four cups were just for him. Everyone was standing around, waiting.
No hurry, Derek thought. I’m just standing here with your CEO. We’ll be happy to loiter.
“So, Derek. What sort of car do you drive?”
“An Audi.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
Manmeet shifted uncomfortably at the inappropriateness of the question. Jim was stoned faced. But Derek was kind of curious where this was going and took the initiative. “About sixty thousand dollars. It’s a nice car.”
Marty didn’t miss a beat. “And why did you opt to purchase it instead of something cheaper?”
Derek thought for a moment before rattling off a list of considerations. “It’s nicer. Less prone to break. Leather seats. Good acceleration. It looks sleek, fast. I like the brand—it’s a luxury car, but not too snooty. It’s black, and I like black cars. Satellite radio. Plus, I bought it new. I could have saved some money in getting a used one, but this way I could pick all the options that I wanted. What else?”
“Ahhh.” Marty turned and went through several menus on the workstation, with another pause to scarf a donut. To say that their conversation was socially awkward would have been a gross understatement. Derek noticed Jim had his arms folded, still stone-faced.
“So,” Marty continued at last, “the option of having something different, of something that represents your personality, your tastes, your you, caused you to willingly put out more cash than you could have for a readily available substitute. Would you agree?”
Derek thought about that for a second. “Yes. I guess that’s it.”
“It is exactly the same case with Safari. We ask members to pay a little bit more—in some cases, a lot more—than what they could pay to play another online role-playing game. A lot of that has to do with the game itself. You contribute to the pot in order to have a chance to win other people’s money and leave with more than you started. But if that’s all we had for draw, then we might as well be running the lottery. No. Our members choose us because we allow them to create a character that is as living and breathing as you can get in an online game. They move like real people, as you’ve seen. Now, let me show you how they look.”
With a mouse click, the head of a very handsome man who would be at home in any Armani advertisement appeared on the screen. Slicked-back hair and a dark, Mediterranean complexion contrasted with green eyes and brilliantly white teeth. For a split second, Derek thought Marty had just placed a video teleconference call. Then the realization hit him that he was looking at one of the character models.
“This... is Roderick,” Marty said. “Roderick, meet Derek.”
Another mouse click, and Roderick gave a quick smile and nod, as if greeting a real person.
Derek stood still, stunned.
“Not bad, huh?” Manmeet said.
Marty took a couple slow, patient swigs of his Starbucks before donning a set of awkward looking goggles connected to a nearby workstation. He held a small, hands-free microphone by its clip. He turned his back to them and started talking.
“Hello, my name is Roderick. I’m a Defender of Truth, Patron of the Weak, and all-around good guy. I’m pleased to meet you, Derek.”
The talking head was so well animated that Derek could have sworn it was a real person.
“I’m speechless.”
Marty dramatically flipped the goggles up and put down the microphone. “Now, Roderick is as well,” he joked.
He paused again to take a
nother bite of a kolache. Derek thought back to the picture he had seen in the lobby of the dragon eating a goblin and suspected he knew where the inspiration had come from.
“There’s a lot of work behind this, mind you. We start with 3-D facial captures of models and actors so that players don’t have to settle on their avatar looking like, well... me. Players usually customize things like hairstyles and all the usual role-playing stuff after that. But what’s really sweet it how we can take advantage of new technology as it comes out to market.” He took the goggles off and held them out to Derek. “These here are a pair of high field-of-view virtual reality glasses. What’s extra sweet is this little biometric sensor over here in the corner that presses against your forehead. It picks up your facial expressions through electrical impulses that we transfer to the animated head.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Derek said.
Manmeet intervened. “What Marty’s saying is that we can pick up nonverbal movement from the player behind the computer and animate them on the character in the game. If you squint, the character model will squint. If you space out, the character model will go kind of blank. Get it?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Try it. It’s actually not that computationally intensive. But it provides huge bang for the buck in regards to immersion.”
Derek hesitated before finally putting on the goggles. When he looked at the computer monitor, everything somehow became crisper, spatial depth became more real, the colors and detail transformed into something so much more vibrant that it almost seemed like he was looking at real life.
He made a goofy face. Roderick suddenly looked like he belonged in a strait jacket.
Jim was smiling as if to say, aren’t you glad you took this job offer?
“Wow,” Derek said as he handed the goggles back. “I have to admit, this is a bit overwhelming. I’m used to games that I play on my smart phone.”
“Oh, we have a mobile app, too—though, you can’t really adventure on it. Mostly it’s so you can manage your stronghold whenever you want. But since Safari is a persistent game environment that never stops, even if you’re logged out, we had to devise a way to alert players if bad things were happening.”
“Bad things?”
“You know, like when your stronghold gets attacked and the system’s AI has to handle your character defending himself. If you get an alert in time, you could log in and take over.”
“Oh. Sort of like Words with Friends telling me it’s my turn?”
Marty raised an eyebrow. “Um, yeah... right. Kind of. Just like a... a violent, gory Words with Friends.”
“I’m kidding, Mary. I get it. Thanks. Thank you for showing me this. It’s very impressive.”
“I am pleased to educate. Now, do you understand why members choose to play our game and not someone else’s?”
“Certainly. This must be a big part of it.”
“Indeed.”
“Speaking of customizing,” Manmeet interjected, “let’s show him the stronghold generator, since that’s ultimately responsible for where most of the adventuring takes place. What do you think, Jim?”
“Great idea. Just a quick demonstration, though. I have a bunch of business things I need to take Derek through as well.”
“Sure, no problem. We can do a short version in fifteen minutes.”
As Manmeet led the men further into the building, Derek heard a cough trying to get his attention. He looked over his shoulder back at Marty. The old hippie was holding a croissant, looking at Derek, pointing to the computer-generated Roderick.
“Immersive escapism,” Marty called out. “People want to get away from real life once in a while. That’s what people are really buying when they subscribe with us. Not a game.”
Derek considered that as they went around the corner.
3
Manmeet led them into a large, unpartitioned room packed with rectangular folding tables covered with computer workstations. Red Bull cans lay everywhere in ridiculous quantities. There were six or seven young, disheveled men frantically typing or clicking on keyboards and mice. A large poster on the wall read, Help! I’m trapped inside a game dev factory. Have not seen sun in 3 months. Send rescue.
“This is where our QA testers work,” Manmeet explained as they walked past. “We’re getting ready to release a new patch, so a lot of them were up here late last night logging bugs and fixes. But where we’re going is over there, on the far side. That’s where the developers are for all the player tools.”
Derek looked over the shoulders of the testers at amazing animations of armored knights running, jumping, or fighting. This was a teenager’s dream job. He glanced over at Jim, who simply smiled back.
At the far side of the cavernous QA area, they turned right and walked down a short hallway until they entered another giant room. Banners of incredible fantasy artwork adorned three of the walls, while the fourth was a large whiteboard from floor to ceiling and filled with brainstorming notes. A bullpen of cubicles filled the middle of the room. Swords, axes, and suits of armor were everywhere, presumably for inspiration.
Derek heard the voice before he saw it.
“I don’t care what his fucking excuse is. The work’s not done and it’s holding up the release into production! Yes... so what if it’s early? What the fuck... it should have been done last night... listen, you tell that goddamn pine cone-eating hippie motherfucker that he better have that QA script done in the next hour, or I’m going to jam my foot so far up his ass my toes are going to be tickling the backs of his goddamn eyeballs!”
The one-sided tirade ended with the sound of telephone handset smashing down.
“And that’s my boss,” Manmeet said.
Jim was chuckling. “Roger!” he called out. “Good to know you’re running a tight ship.”
Two heads instantly popped up like prairie dogs over the tops of the cube walls. One was a short, thin man with short white hair and a goatee. The other was taller, also thin, dressed all in black and with brown hair down to his shoulders slicked back with hair gel. The shorter man spoke up first.
“Ah, hey, Jim. How’s it going this morning?” Roger’s tone changed completely to a playful, mild voice unaware of the tirade a moment before.
“Roger, I’d like you to meet our new CFO, Derek Callahan. Derek, meet our Chief Operating Officer, Roger Norling.”
“Nice to meet you, Derek,” Roger replied. “I should also introduce you to Dave Streib, who runs our In-World Tools group.” He gestured to the longer-haired man next to him. Derek smiled and shook hands with both of them as they congregated in the large cubicle.
“What do you guys do here?” asked Derek.
“Hmm. How to explain?” Roger thought aloud. “How much of the tour have you gotten so far, Derek?”
“We were just over talking to Marty about character modeling.”
Roger raised an eyebrow at Manmeet. “Yeah. Marty. I was just talking to him.”
Manmeet raised his hands. “He does good work, Roger.”
The small man snorted. “When he gets to it.”
“I’ll talk to him again.”
Roger checked his watch. “Tell him if he doesn’t get that script done in... fifty-six minutes, my fist is going to go on a fucking search and rescue mission for all those goddamn muffins he’s been shoveling.”
“Yes, boss.”
“In any event,” Roger continued, suddenly pleasant again, “what do you think so far, Derek?”
“Pretty impressive. Great graphics. I can see why people want to play our game.”
“Ahhh,” said Roger sagely. “But the graphics are just the ticket to entry. Without an interesting journey along the way, the pretty pictures don’t last very long. Do they, Dave?”
The man with the slick black hair cleared his throat and folded his arms, adopting a lecturing tone. “Yeah. Ultimately this whole business relies on players creating the content. So, just like with character creatio
n, it’s critical that we build the right toolset so that a player can embed their personality and creativity in everything they do—without having to be particularly personable or creative. Otherwise it’s all style, no substance. Here, let me show you.”
Dave sat down at the double-monitor workstation at his desk and clicked through a number of pull-down menus. On the left screen, another window into the Safari fantasy world quickly rendered an idyllic scene of some mountain foothills bordered by a large stream.
“When a player starts out, they’re assigned a plot of land that is somewhat geographically isolated and protected. This is where they can build their stronghold and establish a home base. Their land might look something like this, okay?”
Derek nodded, still amazed at the near-photorealistic graphics.
“The number one rule of Armchair Safari is to protect your treasure. If your stash gets stolen, your experience drops, your player gets weaker, and your real bank account is that much smaller. So, the first step a player has to go through is to draw the layout of a structure that will act as the vault where they can store and protect the goods.”
A couple clicks, and a window with tiny grid squares opened up on the screen.
The floor plan of some kind of castle that was mapped on top of a three-dimensional grid to visualize size and distance. It was not a simple design. There were storage rooms, barracks, a kitchen, a great hall—the sorts of details Derek couldn’t imagine the average person caring to spend time designing. Above and below the floor plan were additional grids showing what he presumed were basements and upper stories.
“A player is supposed to build something like this from scratch?” he asked incredulously.
“Not quite. Some do—the would-be architects, I suppose. But most of our players take advantage of our template generator so they can automate the mandatory crap and customize the rest. It gets the stronghold up and running much faster so that the player doesn’t get overwhelmed with the rules we enforce. Then they can go adventuring off to someone else’s stronghold and be assured that that person also was forced by the game to create an environment that was actually fun to try and break into and steal from, instead of Fort Knox.”
Armchair Safari (A Cybercrime Technothriller) Page 3