Intern for a Day, Vol. 1: Harmonix Music Systems
"Can I get you a refill for your Goblet of Rock, Ms. McWilliams?"
8/8/2008 6:32 PM | 8 Comments | Page 6 of 7
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
Welcome to the Scribble Ballroom.
It's true; I've never been one to flail about like a jackass while playing Rock Band. I don't believe in overdoing it. Instead, I'm all business. I try to defend myself by explaining that if I were in a real band, I'd be the stoic, quiet, weird guy that everyone would be sort of frightened of. "Every band has one of those," Helen says. "It's called 'the bassist.'"
Everyone has a laugh at my expense.
3:59 p.m. I bug-test a few more top-secret songs, and sadly, still don't find any bugs. I say goodbye to the QA people, and Helen and I head back to her office, where we position ourselves underneath the laser thing again, letting ourselves get even more cancer.
But kindly leave your penis drawings at the door. Thank you.
4:22 p.m. It's been a full day of serious interning so far. Mailing Netflix returns. Figuring out Helen's favorite beverage. Writing Message of the Day copy. Sitting in on meetings. Bug-testing some upcoming DLC.
Things are winding down. My time here is coming to an end. But before leaving, I want to leave my mark in some kind of tangible way.
Down the hall is one of the practice spaces/testing rooms called, oddly, the Scribble Ballroom. Inside the Scribble Ballroom I find a Rock Band setup, complete with plasma TV, and walls that are covered with doodles of every shape and kind.
I ask Helen if I can draw a penis on the wall. She asks around. The official answer is, "No." I wonder if the old Harmonix, pre-Viacom, would have permitted a penis drawing? It's hard to say.
Helen's graffiti looks like a piece of zombie chewing gum that has come back from the dead.
Helen and I grab markers and make our G-rated doodles on the Scribble Ballroom's walls. As I draw, it occurs to me that this is an apt metaphor for Rock Band, a game that effectively creates the illusion of self-expression.
One question, or worry, that's been in my head all day is this: What happens once you've exhausted the canon? You know, once all the rock songs in history -- think Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, The Who, Dylan, The Band, etc. -- have been translated into little colored, scrolling notes? Does the entire genre simply … fade away?
Realizing there's only so much square footage on the Scribble Ballroom's walls, I ask Helen what happens when someone draws over my drawing. And when she answers, I realize she's inadvertently given me an answer to my larger question, too. What she says is this: "You'll have to come back and draw it again."
