He went on to explain about the incident of the schoolgirl in Ohio, the classmates who played the game in real life. Maddie said she hadn’t heard of it.
He continued: “Maybe those crimes gave the perp the idea. When word gets out that for the second time somebody’s been inspired to re-create the game, the publicity might ruin the company.” He tapped some of the printouts. “You probably know this, but there’s a lot of concern about violence in video games. Maybe the perp’s harnessing that.”
“The debates’ve been going on forever. Back to the seventies. There was an early arcade game called Death Race, published by a company right here, I think, in Mountain View. It was cheesy: monochrome, two-D, stick figures. And it caused an uproar. You drove a car around the screen and ran over these characters. When you did, they died and a tombstone popped up. Congress, I mean everybody, freaked out. Now there’s Grand Theft Auto... One of the most popular games ever. You get points for killing cops or just walking around and shooting people at random.” She touched his arm and looked into his eyes. “I kill zombies for a living. Do I look disturbed?”
“The question is: Who’d have a motive to ruin the company?”
“Ex-wife of the CEO?”
“Thought of that. His name’s Marty Avon and he’s been happily married for twenty-five years. Well, I’m adding the happily. Let’s just say there’s no ex in the picture.”
“Disgruntled employee,” Maddie suggested. “Plenty of those in the tech world.”
“Could be. Worth checking out... There’s another thought too. What’s the competition like in the gaming world? I mean, competing companies, not players.”
Maddie gave a sardonic laugh. “More combat than competition.” Her eyes seemed wistful. “Didn’t used to be that way. In the old days. Your days, Colter.”
“Funny.”
“Everybody worked together. They’d write code for you for free, no bullshit about copyright. They’d donate computer time, give away games for nothing. The one that got me started was Doom — remember from C3 yesterday? Ground zero for first-person shooters. It was originally shareware. Free to anybody who wanted it. That didn’t last long. Once the companies figured out they could make money in this business... Well, it was every shooter for himself.”
Maddie told him about the famous “Console Wars,” the battle between Nintendo and Sega, Mario the plumber versus Sonic the hedgehog. “Nintendo won.”
A shrine to the chivalrous who protect the weak...
“Nowadays, you can’t look at the news out of SV without seeing stories about theft of trade secrets, ripping off copyrights, spies, insider trading, piracy, sabotage. Buying up companies, then firing everybody and burying their software because it might compete with yours.” She glanced at the remnants of the roll and pushed it away. “But murdering somebody, Colter?”
Shaw had pursued rewards for fugitives who’d killed for less than the value of a businessman’s second Mercedes. He recalled the welcome screen at the conference.
THE VIDEO GAMING INDUSTRY REVENUES WERE $142 BILLION LAST YEAR, UP 15 % FROM THE YEAR BEFORE...
Plenty of motive with that kind of money.
“The Whispering Man’s made by—”
“Oh, Colt. We say published. A game’s published, like a book or a comic. By a studio, like Hollywood. Games actually are just like movies now: the avatars and creatures are real actors shot against green screens. There are directors, cinematographers, sound designers, writers, CG people, of course.”
Shaw continued: “Published by Destiny Entertainment. Marty Avon and Destiny have been sued a dozen times. All the suits were settled or dismissed. Some complaints alleged that Avon stole source code. I’m not sure what that is but it seems important.”
“Just the way your heart and nervous system are important.”
“Maybe one of the plaintiffs got kicked out of court and wanted to get revenge against Destiny his own way.” Shaw slid a stack of sheets toward her. “This’s a list of lawsuits against Destiny for the past ten years. My private eye pulled them together.”
“You’ve got a private eye?”
“Can you see if there are any plaintiffs that publish games like The Whispering Man and were around ten years ago?”
Reading, Maddie said, “It’d have to be an independent company. None of the big public companies — Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, id — are going to hurt anybody. That’d be crazy.”
Shaw didn’t necessarily agree — thanks for the paranoia about corporate America, Ashton — but he decided to stick to private companies for the moment.
Maddie read for no more than two minutes before stopping. “Well. Think I just earned my Cinnabon,” she said, and brought her index finger down hard on a name.
33
Tony Knight was the founder and CEO of Knight Time Gaming Software.
He’d been creating video games and other programs for years. He’d been hugely successful, hobnobbing with politicians and venture capitalists and Hollywood. He’d also been down-and-out, bankrupt three times. Once, like the Walmart residents Shaw had spoken to, he’d lived out of his car in an abandoned lot in Palo Alto and written code on a borrowed laptop.
Maddie had ID’d Knight as a possible suspect because his company published a survival action-adventure game in the same vein as The Whispering Man. Knight’s product was called Prime Mission.
“Let’s see if it came first. If it did, maybe Knight believes Marty Avon stole his source code. He tried to sue and lost and now he’s getting even.”
It took only a few minutes to find that, yes, Prime Mission preceded The Whispering Man by a year.
Maddie reminded Shaw that she wasn’t particularly familiar with either game — they were action-adventures, which were too slow for her — but she did know that Tony Knight was known in the industry to have a raging ego, a ruthless nature and a short fuse... and a long memory for slights.
“How close are the games?” Shaw asked.
“Let’s find out.” She nodded to his computer and scooted her chair close to his.
Lavender? Yes, he smelled lavender. Freckles and lavender seemed like a good combination.
And what was that tattoo?
She logged on to a website and an image of a labyrinth appeared — the Knight Time logo — then the words Tony Knight’s Prime Mission.
A window appeared. Shaw expected ads for insurance or discount hotels. It was an actual news broadcast. Two attractive anchors — a man and a woman, both with fastidious hair and wearing sharp outfits — were reporting on the news of the day: a trade meeting of the G8 in Europe, a CEO of a Portland, Oregon, company under fire for suggesting the government was justified in interring U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, a shooting at a school in Florida, a Washington congressman under investigation for texting a gay teenage prostitute, an “alarming” study about the cancer risks of a brand of soft drinks...
Cable news at its finest...
She nodded at the screen. “Most video games’re cheap to buy but you can’t really play without the add-ons — things to help you win or just be cool — power-ups, costumes for your avatars, armor, weapons, spaceships, advanced levels... You can spend a ton of money.”
“The razor’s free,” he said, “but the razor blades...”
“Exactly. Knight Time never charges for anything — the game, the extras. You’ve just got to sit through this.” The newscast faded to a public service announcement encouraging voter registration. Maddie then pointed. “See?” The announcer said players could get five hundred “Knight points,” to be used to buy accessories for any Knight Time game, if they did in fact register.