Post-Mortem: Making a Game Last Forever

Traditionally, I don't edit any videos with video…

…until all the audio is mapped out first.

I'm extremely picky about music, and I have personal goal of never repeating music in videos, unless it just can't be helped.

I learned years ago, it's much easier to place down music and commentary first, and tweak things based on the footage used, rather than the opposite. Altering entire timelines to music is not just annoying, but sometimes, can destroy the sequence, and have you rebuilding it essentially from scratch.

So, the copium I huffed during this project, while having an entire timeline down of footage with no music, was "it's okay, because this is an official project, and I'm restricted to music that doesn't put GOG in any jeopardy, it should be much faster to put down."

And to be fair… it was.

'Cause I put it all down in four hours, one day before the Rough Cut deadline on March 18th.

I'm amazing, I'm the fastest, I'm a go-Fuck.

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Everything began on January 19th.

Virgile, my GOG contact I've known for a while now (he helped me setup a Creator Page, and attach sales to Metro & Stranglehold when I covered them) out of the blue, DM'd me to ask "if you were proposed to be a producer for a documentary about the re-release of Alpha Protocol, would that be of any interested to you?"

To which I replied with that surprised blink meme and said…

Yes.

Just the week before, I'd told my therapist I was looking to add a little more chaos into my life, a little more dynamism than the day in day out tedium of staring at a 3fps timeline of Premiere for the rest of my life…

Next day, I'm talking about going from consulting or producing to writing, directing, interviewing, recording, editing, rendering, and uploading this entire thing on my channel with a professional film-team from CDPR, graphic artists from GOG, a hefty budget, and flying out to Poland early February…

They say, be careful what you wish for.

And I certainly got all the chaos I could've wanted.

Immediately, I was imagining a notable uptick in production value for this video, the chance to pour everything I'd ordinarily save for a Years Later, but all packed together in one fifteen minute all-out assault.

I imagined filming this in live-action as a Presenter, what would I want to do in that scenario? And that's when the Lord of War parody came to mind. I'm not willing to do on-camera stuff yet, but I then immediately knew what the next best thing for that opening would be…

One of the things discussed in the call with GOG is that while this video was going on my channel (their idea), and would be directed by me, I did want them to be happy with it, and was totally open to feedback; I remember the notes for my old COGConnected reviews… I can be rather direct at times.

So I wrote up the opening to test their outline, and I had this all written down by January 23rd.

No complaints.

I was expecting to get push back from my original line about being able to have the game run off a thumb-drive even in "Bumfuck Egypt's underground UFO base."

Yet there was none.

Things were going smoothly, but I couldn't write anything more than what you see here, because we hadn't done the interviews yet, and I definitely didn't want my subjects to be fed lines of dialogue to match a pre-written script.

I wanted them to be natural, unscripted, and direct. Obviously, the best way to ensure that, is being there in-person.

While going to GOG's offices had the bonus of selfishly getting a peek behind the curtains in a Country I've never been to, interview quality was the priority.

I remembering being in the call with Virgile watching him book my plane-tickets, as I knew, after all the conversations, this right here was my last chance to make a definitive choice, whatever was decided here would demand commitment, and there were two big problems…

• Cost
  Though I was given a hefty budget, the way this worked is that whatever was left of it by the end would be my pay, and because all of this was setup very rapidly in days rather than months in advance, the flights were top dollar, at $1900+ USD, and that's before including the hotel or equipment costs.

• Time
  While I had most of the Ubisoft video written and filmed, it was still unedited by this point, and I knew spending a week minimum in another Country with no ability to edit (without then spending another few thousand on a decent Laptop while jet-lagged and doing back to back interviews), would make releasing it before the GOG one impossible.

And I knew that juggling these two projects would delay my Ubisoft video, and in-turn, my already vast gap in uploads even more. If nothing was uploaded prior to GOG, this video about a niche game in every sense of the word, would be even more difficult to be seen, both by my audience and the algorithm.

So I made the hard but right call to tell Virgile to cancel the flight, and I'll do the 4am Interviews over a call, starting February 14th.

Specifically, I talked to:

• Bartosz Kwietnieswski

• Adam Ziolkowski

• Patrick Mills

• Marcin Paczynski

• Maciej Golebiewski

All in three days back to back. We were originally scheduled for a 6th interview on day three, but that cancelled last minute, which to be honest, I was kinda relieved about…

I naively thought I'd just change my schedule for the 4am interviews, but by Friday, I was wiped. However… my fear of not going to Poland wasn't a complete waste, as work on the Ubisoft video started Saturday/Sunday, instead of me arriving from the other side of the Atlantic.

The plan of uploading my Ubisoft video by the end of February didn't happen, but I had it to a near finished level by March 10th (available on Patreon), and I wanted to build a week+ gap between the two videos, which I felt was doable. The GOG video had its bulk of commentary and audio mostly completed, and just needed footage placed before being refined...

...by March 13th, I was in a Therapy Session I forgot to cancel, after not sleeping from anxiety, and said "it's not coming together."

The gap between "Ubisoft Isn't Bad… It's Infuriating" was me spending hour after hour bashing my head against the wall for the GOG video. I had rough cuts, but they always had something I didn't like about them, yet couldn't put my finger on.

Whether it was a limp conclusion, drawn out interview, clips that didn't connect, useless references… but the main thing I accepted in that therapy session is that this video isn't going to be what I hoped it would be.

I wanted to redo the entire narration I recorded.

I wanted more interviews and more ways for them to be featured.

Slick graphics and sound effects for every detail or transition.

Montage TV style editing of gameplay clips.

Split-screens with bespoke animations.

To re-use the CG opening as a call back.

Animated backgrounds.

Re-purpose the Alpha Protocol Years Later opening.

Free-cam shots of the game environment.

None of that was gonna happen…

Eventually, I made the judgement call to sit down and spend the day making the refinements to that Ubisoft video, for if I didn't do it then, I never would, and the GOG video would be uploaded first.

And then I really fucked up March 16th…

My sleep schedule had been gone since the interviews, which was fine, I was getting the sleep I needed, just waking up at 11am as opposed to 9 or 10am. However, I ended up staying late on the 16th, not going to bed until 3-4am, which would've been fine, except since the inception of my channel, every time I upload, I wake up ten minutes before its scheduled with no alarm.

And this time was no different.

I haven't felt that much like a Zombie since I binged Carrot Cake Edibles.

So here I am, entering deadline territory, with no proper conclusion, no proper opening, and no fucking music, while effectively being high, drunk, and caffeinated at the same time…

So at least the music came together right?Fuck.

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I said I wanted more chaos in my life, and I got it; this was easily the most stressful project I've worked on in years.

On March 18th, the deadline, Stoofer's intro was still being rendered on three separate computers across the world (one of them being at GOG's offices).

I was re-doing the music from scratch, with exactly what I didn't want to resort to spamming (the game's soundtrack with stems).

I was re-cutting interview clips, the entire section with Chris Parker talking about his five minute conversation about music licensing during development, that was completely last minute.

I was swapping content creator quotes for the opening.

I contacted LHudson to do the zoom in transition for Spec Ops The Line.

And during all of this, we legit did not have a name for the video, which is why I've been referring it as "the GOG video" this whole time, as that's what my brain labeled it as during almost the entirety of making it.

Yet; I'm really happy with it.

For a whole bunch of reasons.

The main anxiety I had going into it was simple.

Every time I upload, I think "this is going to be the one that makes people hate me," and this is my first, for all intents and purposes, sponsored video. I've now worked with corporate. I've worked with a Sister company of one that was at Gaming Controversy Central.

And I instead I just got people saying "Wait… you uploaded twice?"

Don't get me wrong, the sellout accusations or "this is an ad" were posted, but not as much as I expected, and having previously talked about wanting to enter a new "don't give a fuck" era, this video was rather therapeutic.

Especially when early on I knew GOG were truly living up to their word of granting me full creative control. Not once did they ever object to me bringing up Spec Ops, or the concerns I brought to them regarding their ability to keep a game up and running forever.

In-fact, I think that is what makes the story more potent.

Also, their feedback was good!

The music in this early cut did not fit, and for all my reluctance to spam AP's Soundtrack due to personal bias of "wah, I've used it before", it worked much, much better.

I also resisted the opening content creator quotes throughout the whole project, at one point, deleting it entirely (much to Virgiles dismay), and yet, not only does it work, I got quite a few positive comments about it.

And lastly, it was just awesome to work and talk with all of these people. Spending an hour talking to 7+ people from the games industry, of all backgrounds, experience levels, cadences, and personalities, was the best trial by fire an interviewer could ask for.

It was a pleasure to stand back and watch the CDPR Video Crew's professionalism speak for itself, staying up late nights chatting with Virgile about work and life, and of course, watching Stoofer kill it with the opening.

No, this video isn't everything I wanted it to be, but that's okay, to do something like what I wanted to on this video, I just need to be a better problem solver, and if there's anything this video did… it's that.