It wasn’t that long ago that I was talking to Jason Scott, Volition’s studio design director hero, about how bummed I was that so many of my colleagues from other disciplines weren’t actively listening to the game. He was bummed, too. We were just a couple of guys sitting around, tears in our eyes, chins quivering, being bummed.
I had recently hooked Jason up with a little Behringer mixer and some spare M-Audio BX5a speakers. He immediately transformed into the Maxell guy. The one sitting in the chair. Google it. He felt my pain. He had been experiencing the sound in our games in a way that transcended his previous Labtec lifestyle, and he yearned for others to share in that experience.
So, we decided to buy all the designers headphones. Nothing too fancy, just some reliable, closed-ear Sennheiser headphones. There are a lot of designers at Volition, so it wasn’t going to be cheap no matter which way we sliced it. It turned out that it was easy to justify, though. How?
Story time! This is a dramatization, this did not really happen, but it could. It totally could.
It’s down to the eleventh hour. Only two months before submission. An overworked system design hero is hunched over his computer, the outline of his spine practically ripping through the back of his shirt. A bare light bulb dangles over his head, the hot, oppressive light illuminating the beads of sweat on his scalp. A cigarette dangles loosely from his lips as his fingers punch his keyboard to tweak the handling of a motorcycle for the fiftieth time that day. CLAKKETY-CLAK CLICK CLICKETY CLACK. He threads his hands between his glasses and his eyes and grinds more sweat into his corneas. He is numb to the sting. He’s done. It’s time to test. He runs the game, hops on the motorcycle and drives. He drives and drives, far away from this place. He is happy. He checks in his work and falls asleep in his chair, snoring loudly for three hours before he has to wake up again.
Next day, it’s time for a multi-discipline group review of vehicles! Yay! Even the producer is there! Team Audio bounces on their tails into the conference room. One audio hero is particularly excited to hear his new motorcycle audio in action. He had spent a good five hours last week making sure that all the loops were smooth and that each gear sounded more aggressive than the last. He was proud of it. The game is loaded up. The motorcycle is mounted. And then BARRFFFFFF. It sounds awful! It doesn’t sound anything like it did last week. Producer mad! PRODUCER MAD!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. Producer chases audio designer around the building with a chainsaw to the theme from Benny Hill.
So, what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Vehicle designer changed the handling of the motorcycle but didn’t listen to hear how the handling totally botched the audio, and then he checked it in.
Now, to be fair, audio hero screwed up, too, so to any design heroes reading this, I’m not trying to pick on you. A smart audio hero knows better than to spend five hours tweaking vehicle engine audio when the handling isn’t finished. That’s why I chose this dramatization. Besides, the only thing that’s even remotely realistic in this dramatization is the behavior of the producer. I’m kidding! (I’m not kidding).
So, we bought all the designers headphones. And we didn’t just buy headphones and throw them at the designers’ desks and swagger off, either. I sent numerous messages to the entire design team offering my personal assistance in hooking things up however they wanted. Want to be able to switch between listening to the game and listening to your PC with one convenient swap of a cable without crawling under your desk? I can do that for you. Want to be able to listen to Hey Ash, Watcha Playin’ on your PC and listen to the game at the same time? I gotcha covered. Want to listen to your PC, PS3, 360, PSP, and iPad at the same time? Okay, that’s annoying. Not doing it… Oh, alright, I’ll hook you up.
I’m not going to lie. It’s not like every single designer is listening to the game at all times. That would be amazing, but it would probably drive them insane, especially since audio tends to be in this weird, ramshackle state until about three days after release to manufacturing. And just buying headphones for designers doesn’t replace relentless communication and real rapport. But it helped. It really did. Designers were coming to us with audio issues before the group playtests, and we were able to fix those issues before the producer had even finished marinating his garotte in botulinum toxin.
All we had to do was describe a handful of these scenarios while groveling obsequiously at the feet of our finance hero and boom, headphones for all.
So, to all the Team Audios out there, if you find yourself in a situation where nobody is listening to the game, take some time to make your case to your buddies in studio management and finance. Ask to earmark a little bit of money for some listening pleasure for your colleagues. If you can’t afford it, at the very least you can spend some time informing and educating your colleagues from the other disciplines about how their changes can affect your work. Work with them to coordinate your changes in a way that makes sense. Invite them into your world. Because in the end, it could mean saving a life. I’m looking at you, producers. Wait, who, me? No, no, I wasn’t looking at you. I was, uhm, I was admiring your coffee cup. <nervous whistle>