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Chapter 7: the almost-as-big meeting
May 31st, 1994
"That's a dumb idea."
"Why? What's so dumb about it?" asked Tim.
"It's just not funny."
"I think it's funny."
"He falls down the hole and lands in Dranhem Beast droppings? It's so contrived. It's so?so?Swarthy Victor," said Geoff.
"I heard that!" Art chimed in with a smile from down the table. He prided himself on his low-brow humour. Even so, he had never yet resorted to 'landing in a pile of dung.' He wasn't that big on scatological humour. That seemed more?more?more Sci-Fi Quest humour, actually. They'd used jokes like that in the previous games?but now those guys couldn't agree on anything anymore. Their bickering, though funny at first, was getting irritating. Why couldn't they develop a relationship like him and Bill? One based on trust. Intelligence. Penis jokes.
"Do think we have enough penis jokes?" Art quickly asked to Bill sitting beside him in a sudden, last minute game-design anxiety attack.
"Sure. We have tonnes. Speaking of penis jokes?where's the coffee?"
Art laughed. Speaking of penis jokes, where's the coffee? That was funny. Bill was funny. "Speaking of penis jokes?where's the pastry?" Art added.
Then, as if Will had been standing just outside the meeting room listening for his cue, the door opened and Will came in with the coffee and pastries, setting them down on the middle of the table. The coffee had been delivered to the front door a few moments ago?specially ordered for each member present at the meeting. It hadn't been Nicole who delivered it and, for a moment, Will had worried that Naught? had already been usurped, absconded, assimilated. But then he noticed the Naught? Latte logo on the guy's apron.
Today could have been two months ago: It was a Tuesday, the sunlight was just breaking through the tops of the trees and spreading across the large oak table like it had during their last big meeting, and the Madre family was all here - including Smith and the other guy - ready to hear the big news about Will's San Francisco pilgrimage, about the new headquarters, about the head hunt for a new manager. They were here to learn was what going to happen at Madre.
But Will didn't want to talk about that just yet. He had more important things to start off with. As the individualized cups of coffee were passed around, Will took a piece of paper out of his suitcase.
"Enjoy your coffee especially well today," he said. "It could be the last time." There was stunned shock and surprise around the room. Will had expected some outrage at this news, but the family seemed, well, shocked, like someone at the office had died. What Will didn't realize was that they had interpreted his statement to mean 'You're all being fired and never drinking coffee in this room again'.
"Naught? Latte is being bought out," he continued.
Faces around the room visibly relaxed a little as they realized they still had job security. But faces didn't relax much. Naught? Latte couldn't go away! Naught? Latte had become a custom. Naught? Latte had been there when they needed it most. Naught? Latte was their comfort, their guidance counsellor - it had helped them through these big meetings with the hard and heavy news. It was their soother. It was really good coffee.
"What?!" asked Tim. He especially liked Naught? Latte's tall, iced chococcino.
"Closing down?" asked Ron. "It can't be losing money. They practically cater to us, man!"
"No," said Will. "Actually. It's quite the opposite. They've been too successful. You know the chain coffee shop Che's Coffee Revolution? Well, apparently, in their bloodlust for expansion, they keep tabs of existing coffee shops. One of their tactics is to find a coffee house that's doing well, go directly to the landlord of the property and buy the lease right out from the existing coffee house, close 'em down and set up shop. That's what they've just done to Naught? Latte. Naught? Latte will be gone in less than two months."
There was silence around the table. Tim was appalled. Geoff was appalled, but secretly glad it hadn't been Berney's Classic Pizza. Art was ruffled. Smith and the other guy were just made aware of the fact that all the coffee at these big meetings had come from the same place.
"That's terrible," said Ron.
"That's what I thought."
"I can't believe they'd just buy out the lease like that," added Geoff.
"It seems overly sleazy," admitted Will. "The thing that most gets me, though, is that I'd never heard of Che's a year ago. And now they're everywhere, banging at our doorstep!"
"Well, Atomic Sub Sandwiches started as one store in Minneapolis in '87 and in grew to 3,400 stores in 6 countries in five years," offered the other guy.
"Really? How do they do that? Where do they get all the capital?" Madre was expanding insanely fast?and even Will couldn't imagine it ballooning like that. How do you even manage something growing so fast?
"How is it even possible to grow that fast?" Art took the words right out of Will's mouth. He'd had Che's pastries before and he was livid at the thought of them replacing Naught? Lattes! "I like submarine sandwiches as much as the next guy - maybe even more - but isn't one or two local stores enough? Why do we need 3,400 identical sub-shops? I mean?I like my prostate a lot, but I don't want it to start consuming my other cells and grow to the unwieldy and unhealthy size of a grapefruit!"
"I don't understand how it's even feasible. It's like money doesn't even matter," Will continued. "In Sacramento we saw two Che's right across the street from each other! They're packed in, one about every four blocks. I don't understand how that makes money."
"It's called cluster bombing," the other guy offered suddenly. All eyes were on him now as the apparent resident expert on a topic they were all fascinated by. The other guy felt good about that. He had the feeling that he was the odd man out in this group. By the way they referred to him he was pretty sure that half of them couldn't even remember his name. "They open as many stores in an area as they can. They call it 'saturating the market.' Sure, it cuts into their profits, but since they're a franchise they don't have to worry about it. It's the franchisee, the individual manager, who puts up all the money and therefore the one who stands to lose it too. The headquarters makes all their money selling supplies, cups and real-estate to the franchisees, in effect, by opening stores. Che's headquarters doesn't lose any money by over-saturating - it only cuts into the franchisee's profits - the local who puts up most of the money. The more stores they open the better? And then, once they've squeezed any local coffee house out of the market, they just close down the excess stores to return the profits. It's brilliant. A franchising siege."
Everyone stared in awe at this golden information nugget. Who was this guy? Why did he know all this? Why couldn't they remember his name?
"Wow," said Tim. "How do you know all this?"
The other guy shrugged with casual deference. "My brother. He's a culture studies student at the University of North Carolina, but he's taking a business course out of interest. Mostly because he thinks business as a course in university is a joke and wanted to see if his suspicions are right. The more he learns the more sure of it he becomes. He says it's like getting a degree in gym teaching."
Everyone laughed, especially Art. That was pretty funny, Art thought. A gym teaching degree. He'd have to remember that. He remembered the huge scandal at his university when he was there. Some 60 business students were caught handing in the exact same paper! The news even made it into the local papers. But what did they expect? It was the most efficient way to the best results. That's what you learn to do in business - this is what makes successful, modern day businessmen - people willing to do anything to take the shortest, quickest, easiest route to success. With all this business wheeling and dealing at Madre over the last year Art (and the others apparently) could really appreciate a businessman joke.
Even Will thought this was kind of funny. Will respected the demands of business, the calculability of it. The logic, the risk taking. Running a business required skill and intelligence. There was an art to it. But getting a degree in it seemed rather cheap. Like a shortcut to a corner office. It was like getting a degree in drama. You don't learn drama in a classroom - you learn it by doing it. And yet, he thought, it was all about business these days. If you were going to get a degree?and you just wanted a good job and good money?it was the degree to get. Caring about the business wasn't important.
Will had had no business experience when he'd started Madre. He'd learned it all himself. Now his business sense was personalized to Madre. He knew what it was and what it needed. That's what business was about: A personal connection with your company. You couldn't teach that in a classroom. These people who took business courses?the 'pure' business people - they were like lego pieces. Taking shortcuts to fit into any anonymous hole in the corporate structure. Plug n' Profit. But as Will laughed at the gym teaching joke he was aware of the irony of it. These were exactly the kind of people who they were looking for to fill their new managerial position. Someone who just did business - no personality needed - just good with dollar signs.
Will was a little surprised to hear the other guy make this joke, though. He was one of the big manager types over at Synapse Games. But the other guy had started off as an industry guy too, Will remembered. He was a programmer first who became a business man by necessity, like Will.
"Anyway," Will continued, "we can have a say in whether we're drinking Naught? Latte coffee at the next big meeting or not. They've got a petition going. If the community puts enough pressure on the Che's chain, they may not be able to push Naught? Latte out. I picked up a copy of the petition to pass around the office. I'll put it up outside my door later. If anyone cares."
"Actually," said Henry, "Why don't you pass it around here now. I'll sign it. And having a few signatures already on when it goes up will help."
"Good idea." Will passed it over to Henry who, signing it, passed it around the table.
Geoff found himself bitter at this newfound activism on Will's part. Will was such a conservative guy, hardly the protest signing, banner waving cause-fighter! He and Tim couldn't even design their new game because Will had made them back off all of their great lampoon ideas?because Will was afraid of Madre getting sued?'cause our lawyers were contacted by McClownBurgers' lawyers or Toys B Good's lawyers and threatened with suits. They had no case, but we backed down! Geoff shouted out in the roomy interiors of his mind, still angry about it. And now him and Tim were stuck for ideas! It had killed their flow. Sci-Fi Quest was all about parody. Or at least?the fun parts to design and play were, the parts people liked. Sci-Fi Quest was basically a rudimentary sci-fi plot wrapped around sci-fi and pop-culture in-jokes and references. And now their best ideas were getting fried out of the air like a Gornothian Tremor Egg because they were too 'litigious.' They'd been in the design stage for this game for months, blanking out, shooting down each other's ideas, fighting, self-censoring?all this time because the basic structure of Sci-Fi Quest was being undermined. Will wouldn't stick up for their game, but he'd stick up for the local coffee shop? Geoff gritted his teeth.
Well, in all fairness, Will had stuck up for them initially. Madre had yet to be successfully sued. But the sheer number and vitriol of corporate lawyers was mind numbing. And Will hadn't specifically forbidden them from doing parodies. But he did point out that they could do as many parodies as they wanted if they were comfortable paying the legal bills. So they backed down. Still, they should have fought more. It was bullying. They didn't slam or insult these companies - they just used them as in-jokes, quirky cultural references. In a way it was flattering - in a way it was advertising. MAD Magazine got away with actual critical parodies all the time! Why couldn't they? Geoff didn't understand.
The companies they parodied didn't even used to care. In the first two games they parodied whatever they wanted?and there was no problem. They hadn't even considered lawsuits. But now Sci-Fi Quest was getting too big for its britches. The game industry was getting huge and Sci-Fi Quest famous enough that the companies now actually noticed their products being parodied?and were paranoid to the extreme about their bottom line. Now, if Tim or Geoff even mentioned a product in a brain storming session, the next moment the phone would ring and it would be a lawyer saying, "Don't even think about it." Why wasn't there a petition to let Sci-Fi Quest be free to parody? Why didn't Will stick up for their best-selling game? ?Granted, Madre wasn't going to get sued for signing this petition. Well, it wasn't entirely rational bitterness, Geoff realized. It was more jealous, irrational bitterness. In a brief moment of hope, Geoff saw this as a new face to Will. Maybe Will was about to start sticking up a little more instead of getting pushed around by the waves of corporate consumership.
Geoff looked over at Tim. He was scribbling on a pad, drawing crude cartoons of Dan Destroyem shooting stuff up. Tim drew a dialogue box and wrote in it: "Eat explosion!" Tim pointed the pad so Geoff could see better and mouthed the words 'Eat explosion!' and laughed silently. Tim had locked his computer in the basement several days ago because his girlfriend accused him of having a closer relationship with Dan Destroyem than her. The irony of Tim spending more time with a man who constantly searches for babes than with his girlfriend was not lost on Tim. Even after beating the game three times he kept wanting to play more. He kept wanting to be Dan Destroyem. It was so much more fun to be Dan Destroyem than Tim McAllister. He knew all his cool lines and kept waiting for a situation to use one of them?to really burn his opponent. But Tim never thought of them when the time came up. Some day, he would. He promised himself. And it would be sweet.
"Well. That's the unpleasant news," Will now changed the topic. "And not what you came here to learn. As you know, Kendra and I took a trip down to the newly acquired Madre headquarters in San Francisco this weekend and things are coming along quite nicely. Our space, the top four floors, should be in operational condition, with computers and desks, etc?, in a few weeks. In the meanwhile, the head-hunters are quickly narrowing our search for a new business manager down to three which I will be interviewing in the next month or so. Several staff from here and a few from our small eastern office have applied for the new management team positions and we will be interviewing in the next couple of weeks.
"I'd just like to stress again that the head office isn't a replacement for me or for our work here in Redwood. We remain the most important aspect of this company. Think of the headquarters more as a department that focuses solely on our business ventures - concerning itself with markets, advertising, expansion, research, etc. Our division - along with the other game designing and programming divisions," Will gestured to Smith and the other guy "will now be focusing on just that - game design and programming. We'll be able to concentrate on making fun, intelligent and addictive games. Think of it as a division between the legal and PR sections of a company. Both are necessary, neither more powerful than the other, but both having input into what the other does."
People were listening calmly, emboldened by Will's hopeful and encouraging tales of new and better pastures. There was no longer fear of the new direction they facing. Sure, there were dark clouds overhead, seething with lightning and thunder, but it was no more scary than it was exciting. The cattle were settled into the path, heads down and moving slowly ahead, as they always had, under the steady direction of their cowhand.
Kendra was still thinking about the hiring. Scanning the table she remarked to herself how few women there were present. She'd have to remind Will to hire a good portion of women in this new hiring phase. In a way it was ironic. In this company composed mostly of men, the average woman's salary was higher than the average man's?because there were much fewer women here and Kendra, as co-owner, made tonnes. Madre had a fairly evenly gendered staff for a computer game company, actually, but the majority of the women were in the business departments. Not in game design. The new hiring phase wouldn't solve that. But there should be more in design, she thought to herself. And more female programmers too?if there were such a thing.
"After we've chosen the new Headquarters Manager," Will continued, "we'll move to hiring new employees and moving some of the existing employee pool in Redwood to the head office. We'll be shipping a lot of the lawyers and accountants, etc? from downstairs to San Francisco."
Good-hearted cheers shot up from around the table. All the game-side employees generally got along quite well with the business-side employees, but it was always fun to make a joke about shipping off the lawyers and accountants.
Will smiled. "And most of the complaints I've received over the years about our location out here in Redwood have come from accounting and legal so they'll be glad to go, I think.
"We will also be moving some of our design and programming work down there?but nothing serious. Mostly it will be similar to the stuff we did when we opened the Madre Coast and Madre North offices. Those offices will be doing mostly grunt work, or specialized stuff, particularly in batches via temp work. This is necessary because, as you all know, there isn't a big pool of programmers in Redwood. In San Francisco, there's lots.
"Furthermore, the-"
Tim had tuned out. At some point in this discussion he had wandered down some path in his brain, trailing off at the forks in the neurons and finding himself in a new and wonderful place. Sparkling with lights, brightly coloured synapses shooting sparks, raining fire flowers to the ground like fireworks. Look what he'd found back here, hidden deep in the depths of his brain. It had seemed too dark and thick and foreboding lately. All he had found in here was weakness and bad moods for weeks. But here was a beautiful find! It was a brilliant idea! He wasn't sure how he'd arrived here. Hadn't been cognizant of the path he'd taken down the grey matter. But it was stunning! Brilliant! He quickly scribbled it down on his pad and passed it to Geoff.
What if we made Dan Destroyem as the enemy? He's trying to destroy Johnny 10-4 because Johnny's become outdated.
Geoff looked down and read the note. A long silence. Geoff wasn't going to like it, Tim thought. As usual, he was going to shoot down Tim's idea as impractical; too 'out there'. And they would be back to square one?again. Actually, looking at the idea on the paper again even Tim thought this idea was, perhaps, a little too wild. He'd closed his eyes for a moment and lost the beautiful idea. He was back in the swamp of his mind. He'd understand if Geoff didn't want to use Dan Destroyem or some parody in the game. They'd probably get sued for this too.
Geoff took the pen and wrote down on the pad.
Like an 'out with the old, in with the new' invasion story?
Yeah, wrote Tim. Geoff would never go for it. It was too zany. They were never going to find their way out of this swamp. They would be trudging through this sludge forever. There was a long pause. Geoff took the pen again.
That's brilliant!
Another pause. Tim was stunned. Geoff continued to write.
And I don't think we'd get sued either. Apocalypse software would probably be flattered if we used their character. It would be an in-joke within the industry. And it's very fresh. Of course, we wouldn't use the REAL Dan Destroyem?just someone similar?a macho shoot-em-up game character. Trying to kill off Johnny to increase his own game sales?or out of some twisted belief that he is bettering the world by ridding the world of inferior gaming styles and characters?
Recovering from his shock Tim further fleshed out his idea for Geoff. Geoff added plot points and serious criticisms - as he was always good at. They were both really excited. The small note pad's pages bubbled over?
Will babbled on in the background. And before they knew it, the meeting was over and everyone funnelled out of the room. Tim and Geoff went to their office and put a chair in the doorway to signify it was closed since they had no door (more on this later). For the first time in a long time they were making progress. And everyone knew, because there wasn't any shouting.
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