Shrapnel Games Blog

The other day my good friend (and talented musician), Ed Weir, was on a local startup radio station, Radio Sandy Springs. Prior to appearing he provided the show with a smorgasbord of material to preview, including some radio comedy he and I had done together. One particular skit, probably our favorite, was apparently enjoyed greatly by the folks at Radio Sandy Springs. That skit is “Bomb Talk”.

The gist of the skit is foreign cultures often import American culture and then put their own local spin on it. Here in the States we have Car Talk, a radio show hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi. It’s an informative, usually quite amusing, call-in show about car problems. So after listening to them one day I wondered how Car Talk would fare in the Middle East? I couldn’t picture them talking about cars, but I could picture them talking about bombs, and thus “Bomb Talk” was born.

You can download a MP3 of the broadcast here and listen to “Bomb Talk”. Scroll down and click on 3/14/06. It starts up around the timestamp of 27.17. The production isn’t the greatest, but more on that in a moment.

This skit, along with about 90 minutes worth of other skits (including a seven minute D&D spoof that probably only my D&D wrecking crew would probably get), was originally intended for a local radio show that a friend of Ed’s, a woman named Pamela, was going to produce.

Ah, Pamela. Pamela was the producer at a local theater company. Marietta, another ‘burb next to where Ed and I live, is known for their local theater productions. She was in charge of the Square Globe theater, which has now long since passed into history (which seems pretty common when it comes to the various Marietta theaters). Using our scripts and her troupe of actors the show was going to be a hipper Prairie Home Companion.

They performed about three shows. Once at the Hard Rock Café in Atlanta, and a couple in other local coffee shops/pubs. They added a lot of their own material, which really, really sucked. One thing they did not use was “Bomb Talk”.

You see Pamela thought it was over the audience’s head. Specifically the whole section of describing the bomb mechanism. She thought I should rewrite it, make it more palatable to the masses. Her words, “You need to dumb it down.”

My response? “How about the audience smartens up?”

She had no response to that other than, “Well, I’ve been a producer for over a decade and blah, blah, blah…”

The skit works because it is a parody of Car Talk. Except for one joke, it’s not really meant to be a jokey kind of thing. The humor comes from the fact that it’s following the same pattern as Car Talk. Two brothers. Making fun of names and places. Going into the problem. Et cetera. I think most people are smart enough to see that, and from all the reactions we’ve gotten, they do get it. They don’t need it “dumbed down”.

If there was anything I’d change it would be to re-record it. We did it at around 2 in the morning, one take, no rehearsal. The production could be better. But the content is just fine.

Pamela though is all about the almighty dollar. She’s never had to work for money her whole life. Married at a young age, became a housewife/mother for about twenty years. Divorced, wealthy husband’s alimony provided her with all the income she needed. Oldest son bought her a house and a car. It’s interesting how the people who crave money the most are usually the ones who never had to earn it.

Myself, I could care less about money other than let me pay my bills so The Man keeps off my back. Give me a roof over my head, some wheels, and a few bucks left over for gaming and I’m a happy camper. Ed is the same way. We did the skits because we thought they were good. We didn’t do them to have Ferraris parked in our garages. So if only ten people out of one hundred get it, that’s fine.

Pamela never sees that though. She has to get the other ninety people. Her view of art is it has to be liked by the masses, because the masses will provide you with the big bucks.

But I never changed the script, and so far not a single person has listened and said, “Hunh?” See, I have faith in the audience and that faith usually pays off.

Last night I was talking to Rich of Digital Eel. We were talking about the downfall of Looking Glass, who Rich had worked for at one time but got out before the Gottendammerung. I asked him what he thought happened, to have such a great developer close, and he remarked they were a niche product maker in an industry that had to sell a million copies to be successful. (Rich, hope you don’t mind me using our conversation! That, along with the radio broadcast got my wheels turning. :))

Pamela is the industry. Let’s make dumb games for a dumb audience. Let’s recycle the same thing, because it worked, but we’ll make it look better and have higher system requirements, that way people will know it’s something new.

First question, are the masses really dumb? Is that just a convenient generalization? Or is it just that’s what people expect? Ever notice how most folks into wargames and indie games are long time gamers, back from the time when owning a computer was a rarity? If you grow up knowing nothing but McDonald’s, is it any wonder that’s all you eat?

Next question, does the bar really have to be set so high by publishers? You need to sell a million copies because you invest tens of millions of dollars into one title. What if you had a realistic budget, with a focused team? What if you ran it like a business instead of a money pit?

Next, wouldn’t quality make up for quantity? Isn’t there an overflow of games? Especially sub-par games? Wouldn’t you rather make two really great games that would sell than a hundred lousy games that end up in the bargain bin within a week?

Now the big question that I really wonder about. What exactly is a smart, mass market game?

Hey, just like the audience for “Bomb Talk” I believe the audience is out there and mainstream publishers don’t give folks credit. But I’m not sure what the magic formula would be, or if it’s even possible. Sometimes I think it may not, that as the pool expands the desire for K.I.S.S. ratchets up. I hate to think that way though. Surely creativity and talent can be recognized on a wide scale.

Then again, maybe that’s a pipe dream. Maybe once gaming turned from a passion for a lot of folks, to becoming just another way to live in a gated community with 3.5 kids and a giant SUV, we turned down a path that we can’t turn back from.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In the mid-90’s I’m sure the mainstream publishers had good intentions. More and more people owned computers, games were becoming popular, and computer gaming was finally being recognized. But the way was lost. Can it ever be found again?

Perhaps this is the way it will be from now on. One side, the indie games, who will always continue to carry the torch of ingenuity. On the other side, mainstream gaming that will continue to become mindless entertainment. Are our paths parallel or will they one day meet?

Whew. Thanks for reading!

-Scott