The back of one of the NWC pamphlets Ben autographed for me.
Ben wrote to me after seeing my previous article, and needless to say, I was quite surprised. I surely never expected him to find me. I tried very briefly to look him up when I wrote the first article, but I gave up. Have you ever tried finding a Smith in a haystack of Smiths?!
In the early to early to mid-nineties I remember calling the Nintendo GPC hotline for a question on one game or another and asking about Ben. The GPC said she'd heard of him, and thought he moved into product development. I remember thinking, "WOW! Ben really is becoming a key player over at NOA. What a lucky bastard! Man, I wish I had his job." Ben was already a god in my eyes. But being in product development? That was even better, I thought. I wanted nothing more than to be a GPC as a kid and teenager, as I'd bet millions of kids did. Growing up, I seriously had ambitions to move to the other coast and work at Nintendo. To this day, I can still recite from memory the old hotline number: 206-885-7529.
So, it is with my great honor that I present you with this interview, as Ben was a bona-fide superhero of mine in my childhood. With his candidness and intense memory for detail, Ben has renewed his celebrity status with me!
Before my interview, let me start with an email and reply (both written just before I got to talk to Ben), between Ben and Dave Allwein, our host at The Warp Zone, where Dave asked Ben about his history with NOA and the NWC:
Dave Allwein: I was wondering.Rob had mentioned that he thought you had something to do with the NWC contest (i.e. planning it, or running it or what not). Is this true, and if so, would you be willing to elaborate a bit?
Ben Smith: I wouldn't say I had a big role in the NWC at all. I was the first Nintendo GPC to be selected for the tour. There was a couple ahead of me that couldn't go for some reason or other so I was lucky to be the first one.
They made it clear we'd be on the road for 8-10 weeks with long hours and maybe one visit home. Hell, it sounded like a lot of fun to me. We didn't know much about what the NWC was going to be about. Little detail was available and we were told we'd find out more in Dallas.
Rick Thompson, one of the GPC Team Leads and I flew out to Dallas on Saturday, March 3rd, 1990. We checked into our hotel rooms then took a taxi to convention center to meet with the production company that was staging the event for Nintendo. Mega something or other was their name.
During the meeting with Mega we found out the competition aspect of the event had already been planned out, but we had a stage show to create and only about five days to do it. All we knew was there was going to be a magic act based around Zelda and then we GPCs were supposed to do something as well. So we got to work.
We had meeting after meeting, idea after idea, and rehearsal after rehearsal for about 14-16 hours a day for the next five days. It seemed impossible at times but we finally put something together.
So while I was very involved with the group of people that developed the stage shows, it wouldn't be accurate to say that I was one of the major players. I was there to be promoted as a "Game Expert." It would be cool to say yeah, that's my baby, but it wasn't. It was the result of a bunch of hardworking and creative individuals.
I kept a journal which I read for the first time the other night. It talks about us trying to get the magic show right. Rick and I dressed up in these heavy monster costumes and we had to put Zelda in a sword box, then run swords through the box. Then we had to fight the magician, stuff him in a box, and handcuff him, and there was tray of spikes hanging above that would come crashing down and impale him. He would always escape just in the nick of time, then suddenly appear in the middle of the audience. My job was to lead the magician through the crowd and get him in place to say "HERE I AM, GANON!!"
So here we are, a couple of hard core gamers tossed into this big showbiz arena, trying to create a game-related and entertaining stage show and then play roles in a magic show. Man! We were in heaven! I think I have a pic of Rick standing in his monster tights in between costume changes.
We almost ran Zelda through with swords a couple of times. It took a lot of rehearsal to get the timing down and learn how to put the swords through the box. A couple of times we drove the final sword straight down through the top of the box before she was set, only to hear an "OW!", or to have the sword pop right back up. Talk about having to adlib at times.
We finally got it all fine-tuned and got ready for the opening. We did our little GPC bit, talking about games, Q&A;, and demos and such. Then we'd go backstage and get into our monster outfits and then go back on stage and do our bit during the magic act. By the time we got done with that we'd be dripping in sweat. We'd go backstage, take off the monster costumes, towel off, change into a fresh shirt then go back out in front of the stage for meet-and-greets with the kids. They started asking us for our autographs. I was stunned the first time I was asked. I didn't mind at all and I was absolutely flattered. I guess I didn't really grasp that we were seen in that light. Sure, when I took game play calls while at work many people would tell me I had a cool job and how lucky I was, which I already knew, but signing autographs was a totally different thing. I really enjoyed it. Some kids would get really nervous when they came up to talk to us, and even adults. It was just wild. You could see everyone was having fun and it was all very exciting. After that we'd go cruise the Power Walk, being available for questions and just mingle with the guests.
We would do sometimes 5 shows a day. It was grueling. We'd get to the venue about 8 in the morning and get back to our rooms close to midnight. It was hard work but it was fun work.
Sunday evenings we'd all be on hand for the city finals. If I wasn't out front monitoring competitors or helping line them up or something else, I'd be under the stage watching monitors, looking for signs of bad controllers and such. We had some competitors fall a little behind and then start saying they were having controller problems. Some were legit, most weren't.
I got to do ten cities in all, including a substitute stint in Seattle where I played SMB3 on the Kingdome's huge Diamond Vision monitor. That was awesome! I also was asked to go to Universal Studios Hollywood for the finals later that year and that was a blast. I couldn't believe they were paying me. During what little down time we had I'd spend a lot of time in my room playing the competition game so I could get better. This was prompted by a humiliating event in the second city Philadelphia.
With all the planning and rehearsals for the show, Rick and I didn't get a chance to play the competition game. Here we are in Philly and they needed a time filler the night of the finals. So they decided to put Rick and I up on the big competition stage and let us go at it on the competition game. I knew we were in trouble before I even picked my controller up. TV cameras, a couple of thousand people, everyone was watching us and we just sucked!! I think I scored 120,000 if that and Rick wasn't any better. I think we barely made it to Tetris. Yep, we were some game gods alright!
That very night I started spending all my spare time in my hotel room practicing that game. By the final city I was scoring well over a million consistently. I also got the claim the time I practice as work hours. We got paid our normal wages, time and a half for overtime and a generous per-diem. I lived on my per-diem and had my wife deposit my paychecks. I saved up a nice chunk of change.
After the NWC I settled back in to work at NOA in Redmond and was promoted a few times. I was supervisor over the game play information system known as ELMO for a few years, then moved down to the PAAD (product acquisition and development) Branch Office (branch office of the tree house), located in a small isolated room with secure access. I helped receive new versions of games from Japan on the ISDN line, burn them to test carts and pass them to the testers. I also helped test games and got to give some creative input. Not a lot, but some.
We then had orders to ramp up the testing facilities, so in a couple of years we grew from 8 full time people in the department to 40 full timers and over 100 temps. My job was to facilitate the growth. I'm ordering 300 VCRs at a time and such. That project was a blast too.
Things then settled into a routine and I was still receiving games and such and testing. I got really bored and burned out. I needed a new challenge. I had a great job making great money but I wasn't happy. My marriage wasn't doing well and I was thinking about moving back closer to my family in Las Vegas. In order to do that I'd have to change careers since about the only gaming companies in Vegas are casinos and I'd already been there and done that and didn't want to go back to it.
I finally left, ten years to the day from when I had started at NOA to pursue a career in the computer industry. I have nothing to say but good things about Nintendo and the people there and how they took care of me and everyone else. It was just an absolutely awesome experience.
I now have a small computer repair company that is doing very well. It's an on-going challenge and I enjoy what I do. I still game a lot, PC and online. I still live about 5 miles from NOA and drive by a lot on my way to service calls. I smile every time too.
Anyway, didn't mean to ramble. Get me to talking and it's hard to get me to shush.
Rob Budrick: It's great to hear from you. The "rambling" is great. I encourage it! The NWC was one of the greatest moments of my childhood, and meeting you was the icing on the cake of those memories. Most kids I knew thought being a GPC was the greatest job in the world. I was 12 years old at that time and quite caught up in the NES era of gaming, so as far as Kev (my buddy you had the Tetris match with) and I were concerned, you were a celebrity! I know, it may be cheesy to some, but the NWC was better than Disney World to us back then. As a kid, videogames basically consumed our lives. I suppose they still do in a way, but the NES era was the golden age, in my mind. My buddy Kev and I bring up that Tetris match every blue moon or so. I had a blast there, and I actually wanted more than anything to be a Nintendo GPC when I got older. :-)
There are a lot of questions regarding the NWC that many people have wondered about. Some of them I sent to Nintendo at one time, and they basically wished me luck, but didn't know the answers to (or wouldn't answer) my questions.
BS: I have to admit it was cool living the "celebrity" life for a few weeks. God knows I was just some average guy who happened to get on as a GPC at Nintendo and was in the right place at the right time and got to go out for the NWC.
I'd have to say those were the best ten weeks of my life. There was a lot of excitement, a lot of emotion, and a lot of people having a lot of fun. Nintendo had just reached the pinnacle of its new fame, having recently brought back the home video game industry from the ashes. Being in the videogame business was still very new and a novelty and getting paid to play videogames while you answered calls from other gamers could only exist in a dream.
There was a lot of energy at the events and I think that's what kept us going.
RB: Please tell me about yourself. I'd love to hear about your life before Nintendo and how it led you to NOA.
BS: My life before Nintendo? I'm actually writing a book. One of my clients is a published author and he is helping me. I wish I could say it will be all about Nintendo, but it's not. :-) That could be good, that could be bad. Lol...who knows?
You have to remember, I'm 43 years old now. I was 28 at the NWC. I am pre-Pac-man. I spent hours playing Asteroids and Pac-man and all the older arcade games. Wish I had all those quarters again.
In 1988, prior to working for Nintendo I was working in Sacramento, CA driving a semi-truck delivering to major grocery stores in the area and Reno. I had always loved video games and had bought an Atari 5200 a few years before. They went out of business not too long after I paid a lot of money for the system.
I was in a rental store looking for a good movie to rent when I saw a Nintendo NES system for rent along with a few games. I had to give it a try. I rented the system and I think the game I rented was Super Pitfall. I didn't know about secret codes and I kept playing and playing it until I finished it. Only after I started working at NOA and had access to all the game codes did I know there was an extra man/continue code. I was fascinated and couldn't put it down. I kept that system for over a week until I was able to finish the game.
(Note from Rob: Super Pitfall beaten without continuing?! My God.)
I returned the system and saw a game called Zelda for rent. They guy behind the counter said I had to play it. So I rented the system and Zelda, and I was hooked. This was an entire new style of gaming. Not just pointing and shooting and jumping, but you had to think. There were puzzles to solve. It was still a new concept, not only to me but to all of us.
I got stuck and called the video store to see if they guy could help me. He hadn't gotten very far in the game but he told me to call Nintendo in Washington State and they would help. I located the 800 number and called. They gave me the 206 number for what they called the Game Play Counselors.
"What? What is a game play counselor?," I thought. I called and spoke with a guy named Rich. He answered my questions. I asked him how he got a job doing what he was doing. He said you had to be 18, live in the Seattle area and love to play video games. Hmmmm...2 out of 3 I thought to myself.
After talking with my wife I discovered she had an ex-stepmother in Redmond,
Washington. Hmmmm....
So we packed up and moved to Redmond. I started working for a local company driving ready-mix and sand and gravel trucks for 16 bucks an hour. My sights were on Nintendo the entire time. I remember when I drove up and parked. I looked up at the dark windows on the second level of the big white building and envisioned myself working behind them some day. I went in and asked how I could apply and was told they did all their hiring through a temp agency and she gave me their info. I went there and submitted my app.
At that time, everyone who started at NOA started as a temp. You were assigned an NOA employee badge without a picture on it. When you "made" NOA you were given a badge with your picture on it. Not too many people walking around NOA at the time with pics. Those who did wore them with a lot of pride and sometimes looked down upon the temps.
I was working nights driving trucks, being paid double time and a half (union job) when I got the call from the temp company with an offer to work at Nintendo. The only catch was it would be in Production, which pretty much involved cleaning controllers and packaging stuff. I told them I wanted to be a GPC. They said it would be best to take the production job and work my way up.
I reluctantly agreed and reported to work the next day. It was horrible. The lead treated us like children and I sat there all day cleaning controllers with a rag and rubbing alcohol. Not good.
I went to lunch, and when I returned I removed my jacket and placed it on the back of my chair. I was immediately and sternly told that I had to wear my jacket or put it in a locker. Well, I hadn't been assigned a locker and it was too hot to wear my jacket. I still don't know the reason for that rule.
I was a little sparky at that time in my life so I had a few words for the lead and she had some for me. I gave in and wore the jacket and was tormented the rest of the day. Here I was on the edge of my dream and it was turning into a nightmare.
I talked to some of the other employees about getting on as GPC. They laughed and said it wasn't going to happen. Some of them wanted the same thing and had been in production for months. They said it was a little white lie the temp company told everyone. Most of the applicants wanted to play the games but there were a lot of other jobs that needed to be filled.
Now I really wasn't happy. I went home that afternoon, then went to work at my driving job and thought about things all night. I knew there was no way I could make it through another day cleaning controllers, yet I didn't want to give up my dream to be a GPC. What to do?
I figured I had nothing to lose, so the next morning I called Nintendo's personnel department. I spoke with a very nice gal named Debbie. I explained to her I was hired to work in Production and that I felt I was wasting my talents down there and I wanted more than anything to be given a chance to be a GPC. I just wanted a chance. I told her the temp company had lied to me and that I just didn't belong in production and had a lot to offer to NOA. She listened patiently then took my phone number and said she'd get back to me.
I got a call from her a couple of hours later. She said I was no longer in production and that I should report to the call center the following Monday morning where I would begin my GPC training. Man!! In an instant my whole life had changed. Imagine the feeling I had when I heard that? I don't think anything has ever given me a rush like that, not even losing my virginity or skydiving.
I was told I would start as a temp at $5.50 per hour and it would be full time. I would train from 9a-6p and after the training was completed I would be assigned a shift. The NOA call center was open from 4am-Midnight at that time. This means I had another big decision to face. I was making a lot of money driving truck and it would mean quite the reduction in income. But it really was a no-brainer. I called the trucking company and told them they should replace me a.s.a.p. Dammit, I wanted to be a GPC and nothing was going to stop me. :-) I knew it would be a good career move anyway. I wanted to get into a corporate environment and get out of what I was doing. I finally got my chance.
RB: I can only imagine what it was like when you got that call, it having been my dream too. So are you still playing games?
BS: Yes, I still play a lot. My buddy Bob from Oregon and I play Tiger Woods and NASCAR online a lot. He's in his early 60s and I knew him in California a couple of years before working at Nintendo. We used to spend hours at the bowling alley arcade. We've been gaming together for over 20 years now. My girlfriend runs a TFC server and she worked at NOA for a short period of time as a tester. We do a lot of gaming together. She schools me in Dr. Mario but doesn't stand a chance in Tetris. I've been playing a lot of BF Vietnam too. Love that game. Haven't done any console gaming in a long time though, only PC.
RB: Were there any games you remember helping with testing, development, and acquisition that were never released?
BS: I got to see quite a few games that never made it out or games that came over from Japan that Nintendo was evaluating. I also had good contacts at Enix (the Dragon Warriors) and SquareSoft (from Final Fantasy 2 and up). They'd let me play early copies of some of their stuff. I can't think of any specific titles, except for Final Fantasy 2 for the NES that I played that didn't get released. When you're in the business it gets to be routine and everyday stuff and sometimes I lost sight of that fact. But I never ever, even for one day forgot to remember how lucky I was to be living a dream that a lot of people had but would never get the opportunity to live. I was lucky in a lot of respects. I got on there early, at the right time while they were experiencing tremendous growth and they were fighting to keep up with it. I got a lot of opportunities that just don't exist for your average person walking in off the street. I took advantage of every opportunity that was available to me there and I worked my ass off. I feel like I made a difference, hopefully mostly a good one while I was there.
RB: The jacket your boss wouldn't let you take off.were those jackets the
silver ones the GPCs wore? Still got yours?
BS: The jacket my boss made me keep on was a Honda Racing Team jacket I wore at the time. That was my production lead. The call center was much different than production.an entirely different atmosphere.
Ben's GPC Jacket. Looks like the one I saw him wearing back in the day. Heeeey! It's the black version. Slick. It must be for formal occasions.
RB: It wasn't even a Nintendo Jacket? Sounds like she was a real jerk! You mentioned the company Mega, Inc. before..the company that staged the event for Nintendo. I noticed Mega, Inc. is mentioned on the 6th page of the scans of these docs I obtained from an NWC contestant named Adam Misosky, one of the 90 finalists who came very close to winning in his age group:
http://www.planetnintendo.com/thewarpzone/misosky.html
On the 8th scan, on very similar letterhead is a company known as EMCI, also from New York, NY. Any idea what the correlation was?
BS: If I remember right, EMCI and Mega were one in the same, or partnered for the event. I remember a lot of the crew was from New York. They were certainly different. Nice but different. My journal mentions it a couple of times. I had never been around people like that. It was a great experience. Most of the planners and the people who ran the event were show-biz style. The rest of the crew, the workers were cool. Most of them had done tours with rock groups and pop groups and this was just another gig to them.
RB: How many GPCs were on the tour in total?
BS: I don't remember but maybe I can offer a general idea. We started with two GPCs, then added two more for the first leg of the tour. There were supposed to be four GPCs and four CSRs (consumer service reps, the ones who did system hookups and troubleshooting and setup repairs etc) per city. I'm thinking that there were probably about 16 GPCs that got to do the NWC, give or take a couple. I think 4 of us were sent for the finals in Hollywood. I was flattered to be asked to go. I Had a great time there too. I'm going to have to get my pics out and dig up old memories and get them on paper.
RB: The 90 finalists in the competition each received a copy of the NWC cartridge used in the competition. These are considered highly valuable among collectors, with the grey carts given out at the competition fetching an average of $1500 or so nowadays. The 26 or so gold cartridges given out in Nintendo Power magazine in a contest I've seen fetch from $3000 to near $5000. The grey carts were individually numbered and some were labeled much higher than 90, even over 800. Although only these 116 total NWC carts were ever known to make it into the public's hands through the contests, many have wondered just how many of these carts were actually manufactured (grey and gold). Any idea how many of these carts were made? If more than the 116, what happened to the rest of them?
BS: This seems to be the million dollar question. To be honest, I don't have any idea how many carts were made. I never gave it any thought and it was before I was receiving and burning games. Sorry to disappoint you. However, there's a very good chance that many of the carts that were made for the competition were recycled into testing carts for other games after the NWC. I honestly don't know. I remember the EEPROMS and other components for the carts were expensive at the time (a lot of memory chip shortages going on then) although I don't recall a specific dollar value.
RB: How did you find The Warp Zone?
BS: I love Dave's sight. It brought back a lot of memories and it's been fun communicating with you guys and reliving it. I can't believe it's been 15 years!
I recently had my business website redone. I was checking the search engines to see which ones it showed up on and where. I did several searches on it and found one that listed my site and a reference to Nintendo. I thought "hmmmm"...so I did a Google search for Ben Smith and Nintendo and found a link to your story on Dave's site. I was floored, as the meeting with you and Kevin was one of the few specific incidents that I remember from the NWC.
Reading the article made me wonder if I still had my copy of the competition pak. I checked my gaming cabinet and sure enough there it was. I'm pretty sure it was the same one I used to practice with. I really don't remember.
RB: So NOA gave you a NWC cart to practice on? I guess that's probably the cart I saw you holding at the NWC.
BS: Yes. I don't remember who gave it to me but I know it was one of two people, both long gone from NOA but with the proper authority at the time.
(Note from Rob: This proves the existence of a 117th cartridge. At least we now know for sure there were indeed more than 116! Glad that part of the "great NWC cart mystery" is solved!)
Ben's NWC cart. It is the 117th one known to exist.
RB: Why were so many made if only a few could play in the competition at once?
BS: They had to have plenty on hand for the practice pods and the competitions. I really wish I had more specific info for you on the carts.
RB: I mentioned this in my previous article about when I went to the NWC, but I remember when I first met you some 15 years ago, you had one of the grey NWC carts with you and I jokingly asked if I could have it. You said what seemed jokingly back that "Maybe if I had $3000," I could, indicating that's what they cost to make. Is that what the manufacturing cost was for each of these cartridges, or was it a guess? If they did cost that much, did Nintendo really spend $348,000 on 116 carts to give away to contestants? If so, that is extraordinarily generous.
BS: No, lol...that was just a joke. When I looked at you I figured a 12 year old wouldn't be walking around with 3 grand in his wallet so I figured I was safe. I had someone offer me $500 for my GPC jacket in one of the cities. No way! :-)
As far as cost, no, they didn't cost anywhere near that. I'm thinking it was around a couple of hundred bucks or so per cart. I could be wrong on that though.
RB: It is said by some finalists that the grey carts were not going to be distributed at all to the finalists until some pleading from some of the finalists took place. As the story goes, Howard Lincoln, NOA's President at the time did not want to give these out to the finalists (I believe) since there weren't many to go around. I don't believe actual cost was mentioned, though it was indicated they were also too expensive to give away. It is said that a finalist brought up to him in rebuttal that a bunch were being given away in a Nintendo Power Magazine contest, and Mr. Lincoln considered this and generously agreed later that day to hand these out to the finalists. I was hoping I might hear someone from Nintendo's side of this story, since it is such an interesting tale. Did you hear anything about this?
BS: There was so much going on at that time. I remember hearing some talk of it and I remember thinking they all deserved to have one. I don't remember the rational for the decision. Howard Lincoln is a good guy. I have a lot of respect for him.
A quick story about my first meeting with Howard Lincoln: I had a friend who owned a video store. Back then, Nintendo wasn't keen on video stores renting games out and there was a lot of litigation concerning it. My friend called me one day and told me he had a copy of the Tengen Tetris and said he'd give me first chance to rent it. I drove over there immediately and got a copy. I was still very new to NOA and wasn't aware of the Tetris rights battle (which is very well documented in the book Game Over by David Sheff) and so I took my copy of Tengen in the next day. We played games while we took calls. It got easy to do after a bit. That's when we learned new games. I fired up my copy of Tengen Tetris and showed a couple of people. I played it all morning then went to lunch. I got back to my desk and there are a couple of ladies standing there. They introduced themselves as working in NOA's legal department and said Howard Lincoln would like to see me and would like me to bring my Tetris game. I didn't know who Howard Lincoln was. I was still trying to learn the NOA food chain. I followed the gals downstairs and they led me to Howard's office and introduced us. He invited me in and offered me a seat. He then asked me where I got the game from. I told him it belonged to a friend of mine. He told me he needed it. I told him I couldn't do that, it wasn't mine to give up.
Now at this point he very well could have exerted a little authority and probably have confiscated it or something. Instead he smiled and asked me if I could get him any copies. I said I'd call my friend and check. My friend said he had three he would sell. Howard had a check made up and asked me to go pick them up and to make sure to fill out an expense check for my mileage. It wasn't long after that Tengen was ordered by a court to stop making Tetris and to pull them off the retailer shelves. I still have my copy. :-)
I was impressed by Howard! Working in the industries I had always worked in, nobody handled things like that. Later, after I found out who Howard was I was even more impressed. But that was the whole philosophy of Nintendo and how they treated their employees. It was as laid back as could be for a corporation and they really, really took care of us. If you screwed up they'd try to work with you and get things on the right track. It was a great company to work for.
RB: Howard Phillips (who wore the bow tie and was the gaming icon of NOA) was rumored to be a legendary Tetris player. Any chance you could tell me more about this?
BS: Howard was a very good Tetris player. I got to do a local mall event. We had a small booth set up. It was a little boring so we broke out some Gameboys. That was the great thing about working for a video game company-you could play games when there was nothing to do. I squared off against Howard a few games. I think he had a slight edge on me. I remember the first game I beat him I thought "Wow! I just beat Howard Phillips at Tetris!" I was stoked. He was good but wasn't awesome. I saw some awesome Tetris players at the events. They were definitely better than me.
RB: You mentioned in an email the linked pic below is you at one of the NWC events. I always thought this pic was you, but wasn't sure. Thanks for confirming! I believe it is from Nintendo Power magazine.
Would you care to send a recent pic? Also, if you could contribute any pics you may have of the NWC or items you have from the event, that would be extraordinary.
BS:. A recent pic? LOL...OK, but remember you asked for it. Gained a little weight and gotten older. Still a hell of a gamer though. For now, I attached my Nintendo Power GPC Profile pic, it's pretty fuzzy though, and my passport pic from 1995. I look like a felon in that pic, but I'm not. :-)
Paul Lange had an AWESOME mullet back in '89.
Ben's passport pic circa 1995. Now, you can ask him in person if you see him on the street how to find level 7 in Zelda.
What Ben used to prove he wasn't a groupie to get backstage with Mario at the NWC.
RB: Any idea who that horrible rap group was that played on the stage that I mentioned in my previous article? They were hilarious!
BS: LOL...yeah that rap group. I know who you're talking about. We'd disappear while they were performing. You only had to hear it a couple of times. We...well...3-4 shows a day, 3-4 days a week.
(Note from Rob: Unbelievably, my friend Kev, mentioned above, actually remembered the name of this group and even had a tape of them. It seems he lost it. The group is Daughter Brite and the Soda Pop Mikes. Kev pointed out to me that he noticed you can buy their material from Amazon.I placed an order and received the CD. Wow! This stuff is CRAP!! It's awesome! I can't help but crack up even more whenever I think of them now. I'll send some MP3s to Dave when I get a chance.).
RB: When the GPCs answered questions on stage, were they really reciting by memory the answers, or were they being prompted somehow?
BS: It was all from memory. You have to understand that we took call after call after call after call while on the phones, for 8 hours a day. I think the average was 200-250 calls a day per GPC or something like that. We had paper manuals filled with "quickplays" (aka "walkthroughs") written by whichever GPC had finished the game and liked to write. And sometimes 30 percent of your calls would be the same question depending on which game was hot.
We'd write up Common Question lists on games and they'd be posted in the cubicles. You learned to memorize the answers so you didn't have to pause the game you were playing and pull down one of the big manuals and brief through it hoping to find the answer. I definitely knew my game play questions and was never stumped during Q&A.; My knowledge was better than my game playing skills. :-) I was a pretty decent player but there were some guys at NOA who I didn't stand a chance against. Since the other GPC Rick was a lead, his knowledge was pretty limited. I usually fielded the majority of the questions and referred the ones I knew that Rick knew to him. One time I referred a question to him that I knew he didn't know just to screw with him. LOL...I think he BS'd his way out of it or the kid won a t-shirt or something.
We were always trying to crack each other up or make the other lose composure during a show. Why? I don't know. One time when Terry the MC was hiding in the torture box, (he had to be in there for about 3 minutes during the magic show, talking on mike as Ganon) Rick sprayed some canned fart up the escape slide into the box. Terry maintained quite well. We were surprised. When he dropped out of the box he had this look of like "who the hell died?" and he still had commentary to do. As he was standing there speaking into the mike, Rick help up the can of canned fart and Terry started laughing. That was the only time we made Terry lose it on mike. We had tried for a long time.
RB: I'm absolutely amazed you kept a journal of this time. How long is it..eight to 10 weeks worth, or was it just for the making of the stage act? I can think of a lot of people who would be thrilled to read such an accounting of those events, should you ever decide to transcribe or scan it.
BS: I just checked my journal. It's about sixty pages and includes the entire time I was on the road. Me being wordy? Nah, can't imagine that. No entries for the finals. I can't believe I didn't make any for the finals. There are notes from every day though. Some days nothing more than a few sentences. I plan on transcribing it and it will probably be in my book. I'll send you some portions if you're interested though.
RB: I'm definitely interested!
BS: OK. Here are a couple of entries from my journal:
"Sunday 3/4/90 - Dallas, TX
...Worked on the scripts and reviewed the tapes and walked thru show (rehearsal) until about 6. Then 8 of us, the magician Jerret, Zelda and the other "cast" went to dinner. It was strange being around these show biz people. They are definitely a different breed. We got lost trying to get back to the cc. The director Jeff was driving the van, running red lights, arguing about the show and trying to find the cc. It was hilarious. Me and Rick were in back giggling all the way. Got back and tried on our monster costumes for the magic show."
"Wed 3-7-90 - Dallas
...Had a VIP show tonight. Only about 1000 people. We were smooth on the Power Show but the crowd seemed kind of bored after awhile. Quite a few left. I also fucked up the SMB 3 1-up trick. Did it perfectly all day long. But when it counted I couldn't do it. Magic show went well. Went out to dinner with Howard Phillips, Bill White, Rick and the Nintendo techs. Relieved some anxiety. It was good to be with normal people.
We ate at a place called The Border. As we were walking in some lady walked up behind me and seeing my jacket asked "Oh are you with the NWC?" I said "yes." She was really excited and asked me to come over to her table and she'd buy me a drink. I hesitated and she said she wanted me to meet her husband. We talked for a few and then our table was ready so I excused myself and joined the others. Fun dinner. Joking and stuff. Never heard Howard cuss and let loose like he did. I had two drinks. Finally they chased us out about midnight. Everybody else wanted to the Hyatt so I reluctantly joined them (Bill went back to the hotel). Stayed till 2:00, only had 2 more drinks though (proud). We decided (again) to change the Power Show, cut it in half. Also agreed to let Bill get us out of the magic act, which will reduce the workload and pressure tremendously. They're trying to make us act like actors and we're not. It was fun at first but very frustrating and too much b.s. at this point..."
So there's a quick peek inside the first few days before the NWC started.
RB: Tell me about the ELMO system at NOA.
BS: ELMO was the solution to the big manuals at the desks. With so many games released and being released it was a challenge to get new GPCs up to speed on the games and it was getting harder for the experienced GPCs to stay caught up. Each desk had 4 big binders full of typed and printed and handwritten notes on the games. With over 50 stations, you can just imagine the challenge to keep all the binders updated. We need to get a system in place that allowed us to offer consistent and accurate information to our callers. It was a nightmare and it was getting worse. My GPC team lead, Geoff Mahaffey, was a computer nerd. He and a customer service lead got together and came up with the idea for an electronic information system. While trying to come up with a catchy name, they decided to use ELMO, Electronic Manual Organizer or something like that.
As soon as I got wind of the ELMO project I knew my next goal. I was already writing quickplays on my own time and loved doing it. I was getting burned out on the phones and was looking for way off and knew that this ELMO project had fun written all over it. I worked hard and worked closely with Jeff and it was a very difficult transition but we finally got ELMO up and running. ELMO was based on a program called Folio Views. It was pretty much just a web page with links on an internal system. This was before web pages though and the rise of the Internet. You'd have a main menu with options like, Weapons, Levels, Common Questions, Codes, and you would click on one of those items to open another menu with more info.
I finally became a full time writer for ELMO, then Jeff's assistant and when he left I finally became the supervisor and responsible for the GPC information for the ELMO system. It was considered an elite project for the reps that were selected for the team as they got to be off the phones and play the new games not out yet. It would take us months sometimes to write the quick plays for games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior and such as our goal was to have any GPC be able to answer any question on any game even if they hadn't played it. It took us over two years of hard work and dedication to get ELMO caught up. It was an awesome project. Hope that answers the ELMO question.
RB: And last but not least.honestly...did you let Kev win at Tetris? Just curious, heh heh. We've both always wondered in the backs of our minds. Well, at least I did.can't speak for Kev! I'm honestly completely surprised you remember this match, as you mentioned in your email and earlier in the interview! Anything in particular you remember about it? My memory is somewhat hazy too.
BS: I remember you guys approaching me. I think it was right at closing time though I could be wrong. I think we chatted a minute then Kevin challenged me to Tetris.
Did I let Kev win? Let me put it like this. I'm sure I could have taken him. When we started I was convinced I could (cockiness on my part? Maybe/probably...lol). Tetris was my game. There were players better than me, but I was pretty good. Heck, I'd beaten Howard Phillips. I wanted it to be close though as I wouldn't feel right blowing a 12 year old out of the water. It got closer than I thought it would and he won. He was a very good player and I underestimated him. What I remember most about that encounter was the look on his face when he won. I wish I had a picture. You could tell it made his night and probably his week, to beat a Nintendo GPC at Tetris. It made my night as well and made me realize that was why I was doing it. I still smile when I think about it. His feet didn't touch the ground on his way out. I was glad he won.
Hope this answers your questions and hope it's not too long and rambling. Thanks for the opportunity to share and relive what has to be some of most fun times of my life.
RB: And thank you Ben for allowing me to do the same! You've answered a lot of questions and given insight to things I have wondered about for most of my life. To me, that is priceless.
(Note from Rob: Kev and I were actually on our way out the door to go home when we ran into the GPCs Ben was with. At least, I think he was with some other people, maybe not GPCs though.memory is fuzzy. I spoke to Kev about the match, and he said he remembered that he got three Tetrises in a row just toward the end of the match. I do remember he won by a hair.)
Thanks so much Ben for spending some time with us! You've once again made my day, 15 years later! Readers, you can reach Ben by clicking
here
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