The Press Box - Ep. 230: 'Achievement Oriented' on 2017 Trends and the Man Behind Marcus Holloway

Episode Date: January 6, 2017

The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh and Jason Concepcion recap their holiday gaming and talk to New Yorker contributing writer Simon Parkin about his book, 'Death by Video Game'; VR and psychology; end-of-year lists; and recent (and future) industry developments. Then Ben, Jason, and their colleague Justin Charity talk to actor Ruffin Prentiss about playing the protagonist of 'Watch Dogs 2.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Achievement-oriented Channel 33's gaming podcast. I am Ben LaBerg, and I am joined, as always, by my ringer colleague, Jason Concepcion. Hey, Jason, happy 2017. Oh, what a wonderful year. I'm so excited. Nothing catastrophic so far. No, no, there's still time, but not yet. Yeah, there's plenty of time.

So how did you spend your holiday gaming hours? Oh. Other than countless hours of Overwatch, I assume. I did play a lot of Overwatch. Watch, I played a lot of Hitman, which I found quite enervating and also comical in various ways. It's just one of the best, probably one of the most entertaining stealth games just because of the amount of things you can do. And when you blow a mission, you can just go on a murder spree and stab everyone in the town. Good, yes.

That's an essential quality of stealth games for me. Yeah. Yeah. I use my holiday hours as kind of like a catch-up for all of the holiday games. that we talked about and maybe dabbled in or played enough to know what we were saying, but couldn't actually finish just because there was a new great game coming out every week. So I finished the telltale Batman season. I started the new season of the Walking Dead, whose first couple chapters came out.

And then I went back and played Infinite Warfares campaign, which I had missed. It's really good, really good. John Snow, up in this, in space. He was not the best part of it. it, but really good game by the standards of a multiplayer shooter campaign. I enjoyed it. They took some risks, and I dabbled in Stardu, which you were... Yes, tell me how you found it.

Well, I'm still in the stage where I am intimidated, because as soon as you start playing it, you realize that you could play it forever. Forever. Yeah, literally. And ever, forever and ever, forever and ever. So I sunk several hours into it, and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface, but I've harvested some crops, and I've gotten to know everyone in the town, and I have gotten my bearings a bit. So I'm looking forward to building out the farm. Have you fished or checked out the mine? I have fished. I have checked out the mine. I've only gotten a few levels in. But, yeah, there's a ton to this game.

Have you gone to the community center yet? I've not done to that yet. It was many more hours ahead of me. I also spent some time catching up on Watchdogs 2, which I played a chunk of for our podcast about it, but hadn't finished. And I went back and still really enjoying it. And that was timely and topical because later in this episode, we are going to talk to the guy who played the lead, Marcus Holloway, in Watchdogs 2, Ruffin Prentice. And he happens to be the cousin of Justin Charity, another ringer staffer who would. on with us in the Final Fantasy episode. So we're going to talk to Ruffin and Justin, but before we get to that, we're going to do a little 2016 in review, 2017 in preview, talk about some of the

trends that we've seen and we'll see sometime soon. So we are joined now by Simon Parkin. He is a contributing writer for The New Yorker and The Guardian and many other publications you have heard of. He also wrote a book, Death by Video Game, Danger, Pleasure, and Obsession on the Virtual Frontline. which came out in the U.S. this past year and came out in England a year before that. I guess it took a year for the translation to remove all the Britishisms. That's right, yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about the book? You kind of chronicled people who maybe have, in some cases,

unhealthy obsession with video games. In other cases, maybe a healthy one. Can you kind of go through a few of the examples? Or if you've come across any favorite tales of obsession since the book came out, you could mention those too. Yeah, so basically the idea behind the book came about when I had read one of these stories that comes out probably every few months, usually from Southeast Asia, Korea or Taiwan or China, where basically someone is found in an internet cafe after a day or two,

having been playing an online video game without a break, and they basically die in the cafe through lack of motion. Right. And these kind of stories get picked up by the tabloid press, certainly in the UK and probably in the US as well, as held up as an example of why video games are so bad for us and such a terrible pursuit for young people to take on because, you know, not only do they rot our brains and distract us from meaningful pursuits, but also they wind up killing us in some cases.

So I really wanted to find out what was going on here, what were the reasons that people were dying and, you know, through their obsessive. But really, I guess that's just a jumping off point in terms of my book to then talk about all the other ways in which, you know, we dedicate our time and interest and two video games and the interesting things that we do within them that come out of those acts of obsession. So, you know, while it's kind of sold as a, you know, story that's, I guess, in some way, it's negative about the medium. In fact, it's really a celebration of what video games can be and do and the incredible things

that people do within them and what that appeal is, I guess. Was there any specific example that stood out to you as something that maybe on the surface looks like it would be harmful, but is actually maybe affirming or empowering experience? I guess one of the most memorable stories is this guy from Chicago who calls himself Kurt J. Mack, and he wanted to launch a YouTube channel a few years ago and was trying to come up with a conceit of something that would be interesting for him to do. He decided to go into Minecraft, load up a game,

and basically start walking in a single direction for as long as he could until he reached the end of the world. And in the version of Minecraft that he was playing at the time, the world was in fact finite. The current versions of Minecraft, they go on indefinitely. But the version that he was playing at that time

did have an end point that he calculated it would take him about 20 years of walking. King to reach. And so he set up this YouTube channel and every week kind of films himself, every day he even films himself kind of walking for like half an hour and hour and just chatting about what's going on in the world to his viewers. And, you know, on this quest to reach, they're called the Farlands and his YouTube channel is called Farlands or Bust. And I guess like on the surface, it's a, you know, this ridiculous quest to, you know, meaningless quest almost to

dedicate so much time and effort and energy to just trying to see the edge of the Minecraft world. But there's something about it as well. It's where it's a very positive thing. It's become this platform for him to speak to communicate with people about what's going on in the world. His takes, his life, share things that are going on in his life and build a community around it. So, yeah. I'm a big fan of your work in various publications in New York or The Guardian. You wrote a piece about the coming horror of virtual reality, which I found quite interesting.

I'm not sure if you've seen the latest season of Black Mirror, the episode Playtest in which basically someone is jacked into a extremely realistic survival horror game. And, you know, various academics in recent months and years have talked about some of the dangers that could be associated with VR and extended stays in virtual reality. What do you think of the medium and its coming effect on our psyches? Yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, it's such early days that we don't really, we don't really know what those effects were going to be. I spoke to a designer last year. He's been experimenting, you know, making his own little games and demos. And when he first started playing with some of these demos, you know, he would say throw a car at the player.

So you see this car hurtling towards you. And instinctively, you move out the way of it because you know that if it hits you, you're going to be injured. but then after like a certain number of weeks playing this, your brain readjusts because it knows that in this case, if the car strikes you, there are no consequences. And so like in this way, this demo that he created was subtly altering a very useful instinct that he has to get out the way of very fast-moving objects approaching him.

And it was dulling that instinct for him. And I thought that was just quite an interesting, very small example of the way in which VR can, slightly alter our brain in ways that are probably not that useful for our survival outside of the virtual reality domain. But yeah, like in the example of the horror games that I was writing about in that story, some horror game developers found that when a player was playing their game, if they were approached by a monster that was any larger than a dog, your brain goes into an authentic fight-flight mode where you just think this thing's going to kill you. And it shifts

from that kind of roller coaster sense of, well, this is perilous, but I know it's not real. So I'm enjoying the high of being scared while I've still got that subconscious knowledge that I'm not actually going to die in this situation. And it kind of steps over that line. So your brain is now, no, I really am in mortal danger. And so for them, they, you know, introduce this policy in their designs that they wouldn't have any monsters approaching you that were larger than a certain, you know, size. And certainly for, you know, horror developers in VR, there's a, there's a kind of moral and ethical question for them to contend with, I think, in terms of, you know, jump scares and those kind of things, which when you experience them in VR are not that pleasurable because they just feel like jolts of adrenaline in the bad sense rather than in the video game sense.

And you wrote something at Nautilus just recently about how video games satisfy basic human needs and sort of the psychology of why we play. not VR games specifically, but any games. And you kind of came up with some maybe counterintuitive reasons or not the first reasons that you would think. What needs or cravings did you find that video games satisfy in us whether we realize it or not? Well, there's been some academic research in the last few years, kind of looking into what is it about video games that we find so compelling when ultimately we're not really achieving anything in real terms, right? you might progress the story or whatever, but you're not, you know, if you spend three hours in a video game, you're not coming out of it with something tangible. And while I guess most of us would say we play video games because they're fun or it's a good way to unwind or something like

that, what these researchers have found is that particularly in online RPGs and things like that, we get to try on these different identities, particularly for, I guess, teenagers and people in the in the early 20s help people to test or try out identities that they might want to be in the real world. So you might choose to be a healer in a in a kind of magic RPG because you have a caring temperament or you want to see what that's like or you might choose to be the tank, which is the you know, the class that takes all the damage from from the monsters while the other kind of attackers can get on with it. And so yeah, there's this kind of part of video games where you get to narrow the distance between who you are and who you want to be that these academics

have discovered, which is certainly quite interesting. An interesting aspect of VR, I think, is going to be first-person shooters. Although I've seen some mixed results, people obviously dealing with nausea and things like that with a lot of the head movements, but I have a friend who demoed a game, and I don't know what the name of it was, but he said that after a certain amount of time, he got, he started to feel really bad. And so just would shoot at the car because it was kind of like this on-rails shooter. And you've written extensively about a first-person shooters.

I think the one that I found most interesting was from the perspective of this 18-year-old kid in the Middle East who plays Battlefield-3, how will virtual reality affect violent video games that really put you in the driver's seat of these kind of like explosively violent materials? Will developers react by making things less realistic, more realistic? At what point do things become too realistic? Yes, good question. I mean, to demonstrate just how realistic VR combat situations can be at USC, the University of Southern California, and there's a unit there that's been working for about 10 years with Vietnam veterans who are still suffering from PTSD, and more recently with Iraq veterans.

And what they do is they interview the veterans. and say what was the incident in combat where that kind of triggered your PTSD now? What was the very traumatic thing that happened to you? And through this interview, they kind of take notes on what happened, the location it was. You know, say they were driving along in an armored vehicle and there was a roadside bomb or something like that. They find out, you know, how many people were in the vehicle, what else was happening on the road, what the street looked like, whether it was in a town or, you know, in a rural setting. and then they build in a 3D engine, they build a recreation of the exact scene and then put

the veteran into that situation again so that they can kind of relive the trauma but in a controlled environment and it's a technique called exposure therapy that psychologists have been using with war veterans for a long time but they found that in the case of virtual reality is so effective because they can bodily put people. back into the incident again and then allow them to go through it in this controlled way. So I think that gives you a pretty good idea of quite how powerful the medium is in terms of the authenticity of these combat situations. And working back from that, you can see the responsibility that video game developers who are making first person shooters for entertainment

reasons need to, the caution they need to take in doing this kind of thing. So you recently put out your best video games of 2016. list the obligatory end of year exercise, although you went with the top nine instead of a top 10. And it's a very diversified list in terms of genre and platform and length of the experience. Richard Brody-esque, one would say. Yeah, perhaps you've got Last Guardian at number one. You've got no man's sky on there despite the vehement backlash. So is there any kind of connecting line you can draw between some of these games or between the experiences that most appealed to you in 2016? Yeah, I mean, lists are interesting, aren't they? I think in the last few years,

video game end of year lists have changed dramatically. Even as like recent as three or four years ago, most of the video game sites would have very similar top 10 lists and it would generally be the blockbuster titles that kind of all shared similar positions. And then really in the last two or three years, I think, the lists have diversified a lot to reflect the fact that the video game industry is diversifying. Part of that is because the democratization of video game development. So it's now anyone that has a laptop or a computer and a web connection can download something like Game Maker or the free version of unity and learn how to make their own game. And then they can put it out on the Apple App Store or on Steam or something like that. So, you know, in the last

five years, we've just seen this explosion of new kinds of games coming out. And a lot of them are very rough and ready and they might not, you know, they haven't been made by experienced developers, but what they do show is this diversity of experience. And whereas before that, we was, you know, video games were made generally by much larger teams. They were large financial risks for the, for the, people financing them. And that just led to this conservatism in terms of the types of games that we were getting and they were very, very iterative along small lines. And you still kind of see that with the blockbuster games that are so expensive. But yeah, because we just had this explosion of creativity and new kinds of, new kinds of game come out. So that's made end of year lists more

interesting, I think, in the last few years, because you can go to one site and get quite a different list to another one. For me, when I, when I put these lists together, I like to champion games that are not just iterating in small ways on ones that have come before. So, you know, while I think, say, FIFA 17 is a fantastic football game, or, you know, I might think, I don't know, the new Battlefield 1 is a load of fun as an online shooter. They're not games to be held up for me as like, in 10 years. I don't think people will be interested in FIFA 17 or Battlefield 1 because that year they'll have their new iterations of those games.

So I'm never going to put those on a, you know, New Yorker.com end of year list because you're kind of writing hopefully for the long term, right? You know, I want people to look back in 10 years at the games I picked and gone. Oh, yeah, that game did something really interesting that was novel and inventive and, you know, wasn't then just updated again the following year. So that's, I guess, one of my criteria. And probably another is just games that don't waste your time necessarily. and that seems a ridiculous thing to say about video games, which are, in essence, time wasters. But I think there are certain games that just pad out the experience

because there's an expectation with consumers that, you know, if I'm paying $60, I need this game to last 60 hours. So that puts pressure on the designers to pad it out with, you know, loads more encounters or, you know, just stuff that doesn't need to be there. So I kind of, I'm attracted to games as well that are, that are short, I guess, but also kind of lean as well. And where, you know, for example, the last Guardian, which was one of my favorite games last year, is not a short game.

That's a very substantial game. But it's not indulgent, I don't think. There's no, like, bits there. Everything that's in there is there for a reason and is working towards a final point. And that's not true of very many games at all that come out, where there's just loads of stuff that you're repeating over and over again without much consequence. Trying to identify trends in video games is often a Mug's game. Last year, it seemed like there was a story, mobile video games, to be the biggest medium of video games.

And then all of a sudden it was actually PC is now the biggest. And then you look at the console charts at the end of the year, and it's clear that, you know, console is not going away anytime soon. But beyond that, if you were to look ahead at trends, whether it be design trends or business trends, What do you think is coming for video games in 2017-2018? There's definitely a business trend that is closely tied with hardware in terms of we saw Sony release PlayStation 4 Pro, which is kind of a supercharged PlayStation 4. And then Microsoft is doing the same this year with its Scorpio, which is a, I guess these

are basically 4K enabled versions of their previous consoles. But that is, that's definitely a new thing that we haven't seen. Obviously, PC owners have been upgrading their graphic cards, you know, every few years, ever since PCs have been around. And Nintendo has done it with, with its handhelds for the last 10 years or so. You know, we had the Nintendo DS and then all these different variations. And even before that, with the Game Boy as well. But in terms of, yeah, those, the PlayStation and Xboxes,

this idea that we've got a new load of televisions come out or virtually, reality headsets are coming out. So we're going to release a stopgap machine that still runs all the same games that the people that own the older hardware can, but also give some benefits for those who have invested in the latest supporting technologies. That's a new thing. And it will be interesting to see how that develops over the next five years, whether they're doing this every 18 months or so bringing out a new iteration that's not just smaller and cheaper, but is also in some way more powerful. So we've talked about VR's dystopian future and we've talked about hardware manufacturers making us spend much more money. Is there anything hopeful, optimistic that you are

particularly looking forward to or just developments in 2016 that you found gratifying that we haven't touched on yet? I think in 2016 we certainly saw some excellent Japanese games come out. And for the past kind of decade, it's been general wisdom that the Japanese industry, which was once the beating heart of the video game industry has been in decline. And, you know, we saw the last Guardian come out, then Final Fantasy 15 came out, a game that, you know, has its problems, definitely, but had been, you know, many people had just given up on it ever coming out. And then Super Mario run. And we've got the new game, Neer, from Squared, and platinum games coming out early this year.

So that's gratifying to see because I think the medium benefits when the Japanese side of the industry is in health. So hopefully that will continue. This year we've got the Switch coming out, Nintendo Switch. And it's always interesting to see what Nintendo does. There's that old Maxim never discount Nintendo that pretty much every Western executive has said a version of over the years. And, you know, it remains true.

And I think the company has had a rough few years and, you know, posted lots of losses. And then, you know, part of Super Mario run coming to iPhones and Android phones is the company trying to reinvent itself, I guess, or find new ways to sell the things that it does that are magical to new people and new audiences. And we'll see what happens with the Switch as well, which I guess is brave in its own way. All right. So you can find all of Simon's writing at Simonparkin.com or on Twitter at Simon Parkin. And his book is called Death by Video Game, Danger, Pleasure, and Obsession on the Virtual Frontline. Simon, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks very much.

And we'll be right back with Rough and Prentice from Watchdogs, too. Today's episode of Achievement Oriented is brought to you by the Ringer MLB show. I know that podcast. Every Monday during the winter and twice weekly during the baseball season, Michael Bowman and I break down baseball. ball's biggest and sometimes silliest stories, mixing in interviews with other ringer writers and media members and insiders from the front office down to the dugout. We've had players, we've had GMs, we've had a guy who plays a ballpark organ. So like achievement oriented, it really runs the gamut. You can subscribe to the ringer MLB show on iTunes by going to iTunes.com slash the ringer

or finding it wherever you get podcasts. So we are joined now by Ruffin Prentice, who plays Marcus Holloway in Watchdogs 2, and let the record show that I praise his performance. in this game before we learned that he was related to the ringer's Justin Charity, who has been on this podcast before and who rejoins us now for some family action. So hello, Justin, and hello, Ruffin. Hey, baby. Which one of us is Mark is? That's a good question.

Justin, I'll be you, you be me, and let's get this thing going. You be trying to be me your whole life. That's right. That's right. just following in your footsteps. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. This is a really good game, and you are really good in it, and I gather just from internet stalking you that you are a gamer,

which is not the case of a lot of people who do voice acting for video games. We had Jennifer Hale on. She's one of the most prolific video game voice actors ever, and she's great, but I think she was doing it for a decade before she actually tried to play a game she was in, and it looks like you didn't waste any time popping in watchtucks too when you got the chance I'm not going to lie to you guys I am like a a re-ignited gamer this has thrown me back into the realm but as Justin can test like we grew up playing games all the time so there was no way I was not going to play my own game like that's that's

you know something you dream of as a kid and uh once it came out I went to uh GameStop I live in Manhattan and I went to the GameStop on, I think it's 86th Street. I know it well. I've been there many a time. I think it's maybe the second biggest one. I went there for the signing and there were a couple fans there. The cool thing was my Uber driver, he sees me get into the car. This is on the way there. And he sees my shirt and he's like, you're going to GameStop. What are you going there for? And I was like, for the release of the game. He was like, yeah, see, you got the Watchdogs two shirt on any specific reason. I was like, well, I play Marcus. And he kind of like turns back in the car.

and like is looking at me instead of the road and I'm like dude hey man just get it's there and so like we get there he's super excited he's like man I'm not going to buy this thing until Wednesday because I'm waiting on a check to come through and I'm like I totally get it and sure enough I thought he pulled away I'm in there signing a few copies and he just comes in he's like man I can't I can't not get it with you here I got to get it signed so it was a pretty cool experience to see you know my Uber driver like I'm pausing this money that I'm making and I'm coming in here to get this copy which is pretty cool. Yeah, in the game, you would have had so many options in that situation. You could have

hacked the car and driven it yourself. You could have just gotten out and hijacked the thing. So you're really limited in real life, I guess, which is disappointing whenever I go from watchdogs to regular life and lose all the abilities that I have in that world. It is a humbling experience. Yeah, I was thinking about calling a gang on him, but, you know, didn't really work out the way I thought it was like. So what kind of gamer were you, Justin was telling me that you guys back in the day would play Mortal Kombat, like in your first life as a gamer? A lot of fighting.

I played Star Fox a lot too. Oh. Oh. And we played a lot of golden eye. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah, a lot of shooting each other. Justin and I shot each other a lot.

We were shooting and fighting each other a lot. It's very like biblical familial violence, man. It's very... What were the go-to characters in your fighting games and in Golden Eye? Who'd you pick? Mortal Kombat? I never like getting, like, the main character. Like, I'd probably go with, like, oh, my gosh, now I'm blanking on his name.

No, you were always Scorpion. You were always, like, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. I swear that this is true. I remember this. You over here blanking. I remember. I did like... I like Sub-Zero much more than Scorpion.

But what's the guy's name with the blade for the hat? He looks like a cowboy, but like a goth. I forgot who it is. The cowboy got off with the steel rim on his hat And he'd throw it at people And he had a goatee It was very 90s Kung Lao

Kumlau, that's right Oh Kuhlau, yeah You know, he had the blade on the hat And he would throw the hat at it And cut you up And then, you know, for the finish him He'd cut your head off Real

Real That's it Back it up, sitting at home And then GoldenE I mean, I like to just play as Bonn Yeah Looking good in the suit and everything Trevalion was better. Travalian was better because he was slightly shorter and that's like super important for that game.

Right. Because you mess up people's sense of like how to aim. I'm telling you man, Travalian. Travalian, that was like the perfect character. Because he wasn't like odd job short, but he was short enough. See, I always pick Robjob. I don't care. People get mad about it because you can get the head shots, but he's the only Asian dude in there. I'm picking odd job. They weren't really having like the intersectionality debates. No, they weren't doing that at that time. Although Greece, you know, Greece, In a video game, give it up. Props. Oh, gee. Well, we'll get to that because that's something that Watch Dogs 2 does really well.

But I want to ask how you got involved in this game because just browsing your IMDB, you've been in a bunch of shows, just, you know, an episode here and there, elementary and power and Madam Secretary. And suddenly you are playing the lead in one of the biggest games of last year. So, and as far as I know, this is your first video game voice work. So how did this come about? My agent called me. You know, video games are like, it's like top secret.

It's like probably they go through the same protocol. Obama has to do talking to Trump about UFOs. Woo! It's super secretive. Did you just compare yourself to Obama? All right. All right. Okay.

All right. My man. You know, I got high respect for the man. So, you know, I try to look at myself through the same lens. Oh, yeah. No, but it's so secretive, man. So like I got a script from my agent. She was like, it's this video game project.

They want you to come in and read for it. And normally you just audition like in a booth, just doing voiceover stuff. But this was like they wanted to see you in person and see you act. So I was like, well, maybe this is some motion capture. So I got the script. And the script was completely random, secretive. The name of the character was, I think, maybe I'm not allowed to say it. I shouldn't say it.

But the name wasn't Marcus Holloway. And so I had no clue what I was auditioning for, but I knew I really liked the material. I thought it was funny. I also consider myself, like I said, I'm a reignited gamer, but knowing it was in the game world, I was just, I was super excited to be auditioning for it. And so I went in, dated. This was just with the casting director. And then Ubisoft, two people from Ubisoft flew down to New York for the callback.

And so I got to meet them and did the call back. And about a week later, they called and said, you got the role. And I was like, yeah, but what is it? And they still didn't tell me until I flew to Montreal for what they call your 3D facial scan. Once I was there, they like said, so this is Watchtops 2. You're playing Marcus Holloway. And they did the whole storyline. I had the writers and the creative director come in and just sit down with me and walk me through the entire game.

From there, I was just, I don't know, I was geek. I couldn't piece it together in my mind. I didn't understand the magnitude of what was about to happen. But it's been a great journey so far. Yeah. When we were talking with Jennifer Hale, she was saying that it's actually rare for them to tell you who you're playing, what the game is, what's going on. So they did tell you what game you were playing as soon as you got signed. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. You know, I think they, as you know, Watch Dogs won, the original. Yes. Had mixed reviews. I'll say that. And mixed reviews about the lead and how people loved them. Some people didn't. And so they really wanted to, this was something that they wanted to get right.

right because I think the second version of this game is the second Watch Dogs 2 is it had a lot writing on it in terms of where the franchise could go similar to I think Assassin's Creed where the second game really improved on what people felt the first game didn't and so they really wanted me as the lead character they wanted one the character to be likable they wanted him to have personality and so they really allowed me in on the creative end to contribute whatever I felt backstory, whatever it is that I needed to feel comfortable moving forward. So it was very collaborative. I really appreciated that.

What was the actual recording process like? Was a lot of mocap? Was it just in the booth? Did you get to do stuff live with your other actors? Yeah, we did a lot of stuff. So I was in Montreal for almost two months, just doing motion capture for all the cinematic scenes, some of the IOPs, invasion of privacies, a couple different things. And I've been back and forth since doing more mocap for DLCs and things of that nature.

And then outside of that, I also had like a solid, I'd say three weeks in the booth of just recording lines. But you don't record those with the other actors. So it's pretty miraculous when the dialogue actually flows well because you can't hear what their performance is. So it's pretty cool to see that it actually works. But the mocap, we all were in the room together. And I think that really contributed to the dead set camaraderie. That was your first mocap experience, right? What was that like?

Oh, yeah. Well, you got like this helmet on your face. That's the biggest thing. It's like, the suit is one thing. It's like, man, have I been working out enough? Am I embarrassing myself right now? Walking in this room in this suit? Is everyone staring at me?

Look away. But eventually you get over that. But the helmets are the tough thing because you've got to act with someone who also, has a helmet on. And when you're doing a, not to say an intimate scene, but in proximity, because there were no intimate scenes in Watchdogs, too, for Marcus. Well, some of the invasions of privacies, though, I don't spoil anything, but they... Yeah. Right. Exactly. You've got those. But just in terms of, like, being close to another actor, it took a while for us to get used to our depth perception with these helmets, because we would

knock into each other all the time and be like, can we cut? Can we cut? Because I just, I blinked really hard because I thought I was about to die. Here's a This is like a little inside Basketball knowledge I was hanging out with the guys That make the 2K game NBA 2K

And it's a similar thing With the mocap You know There's always these scenes In the my player portion of the game Where you know You might be shooting

Hoops with your high school coach And because of the helmets The Arkon dude shots Is always just bizarre If you really watch it Like they're holding the ball Like really high Over their head

And it's It takes them getting used to The crazy thing was I don't I like to call it like the Denzo Washington stare. If you look at a lot of Denzo Washington movies, I love it because I even try to do it sometimes. It's very powerful. He'll very rarely tilt his head up when he talks to someone.

He kind of like keeps his head tilted down, even if they might be taller than him. It's like he's talking down to you when you could be six, seven. But that gives you all the power in the world. And so it's very powerful. but I felt like the helmets forced me into that because I had to look over this bar. So I was constantly talking down like Denzel, which to me is one of the most, he's one of the smoothest guys in the world. I don't think Marcus came off that smooth. But if there's ever a moment where I wanted to be Denzel Washington, I was doing it right then and there.

And how well did all the capture stuff transfer in your opinion? I mean, obviously your voice is your voice. But when you're looking at the face and the walk and the running and all the motions, is it like looking in a mirror? or is it like kind of an uncanny valley version of you? Well, Mark is, I think, you know, they had it down to like a science. He's like 80% me. And then they take like other features and change things around. And I'm like, so it's kind of trippy watching someone who I think the movements are very accurate.

Even the facial expressions are pretty accurate, even though I like to think sometimes I'm more expressive. But I was like, man, that's all I did there. trying to think back to my performance. But, you know, I think it was very accurate in terms of everything that it captured. I think the technology is super efficient. But it's just weird looking at someone who's very similar to you, but not you. It's been a fun journey. I was watching some of the cutscenes.

I was showing my mother some of the cutscenes the other night because I'm home right now for the holidays. And she was like, oh, this is what you did, but that's not you. I was like, yeah, mom, you know, video games deal with. likeness, you know, they have this whole likeness thing. It can't be 100% you. But it kind of looks like me. And she's like, yeah, but it's not. Such a, such a classic mom comment. Such a lack of positive reinforcement. That is exactly what my mom would say. He's like, mom, either you are really proud of me or like, I don't know what else to tell you. This is what we did. No, but she, hold on, don't get me wrong. My mother's very happy, very proud. But yeah, I think she was

just taking it back, like, but it doesn't look like you. You did all this stuff, and it's not, it's not exactly you. But no, I think, you know, the technology they have is, it's so efficient. The crazy thing is, I worked on a pilot this year, and one of my buddies on the pilot, he played Michelangelo in the teenage Mutantin Ninja Turtle movies, the new ones. And so he was showing pictures of their mocap suits, and they could shoot it outside, which is like, they actually have a mocap shell in everything, which is pretty good. cool to see, man. So, like, that's my next goal is to be in teenage meet a Ninja Turtle. So you spent months playing this character. So you mentioned being able to throw in some bits of

your own history or just your own suggestion. So what kind of stuff could you incorporate into the character? Could you just add lib or how closely were you bound to the script? I mean, in terms of plot, I definitely couldn't change any of the plot or storyline. But in terms of just vocabulary, Larry, like, I didn't do it too often, but I know, like, in the Bay, they say, or in California, they say, hello. Yeah. Hella, like, hella cool, you know, whatever. I would try to throw that in, and, you know, the writers would be like, is that a, what is that?

You know, some of the writers would ask, because we'd always have a writer on, in what they called the volume that day. And so, you know, they were always there to check. And we'd check and be like, hey, is it cool if I say this instead of this? But they were very free, just mostly, it was mostly colloquialisms, you know, slang, per se, that they let me just, just run rampant. And I ended up cursing a lot, too, for no reason. But, you know, to me, I think it worked.

How soon in the process did you get to, like, play yourself? Did you get to see what it was going to look like as a finished product? Oh, late, way late. The only thing I got to see was that, so basically the suits have those sensors on them. And then they take them up to a lab where they look at just your data points, just your movement. And that's the only thing I got to see. like I could see a scene acted out through my points. Like these points are Marcus and these points are wrench and watch the scene happen that way.

But I didn't get to see a, I don't think I got to see a final render of any scene until maybe a couple weeks before the game came out. One of the directors of the mocap had the game, the beta. And so I got to play it. And that was the first time I saw any of the game rendered. So it was quite a long time. That was maybe July. And we started in January.

And so you mentioned the sort of mixed reviews for the first one. and the second one got much better reviews. The consensus was that it was a really good game, and I agree. And is there any way for you to sense that as you're working on the game? Or are you just kind of reading your lines and doing the best you can do with your part and just hoping everything else that is out of your control comes together? I think we definitely felt the cast and I. I think we all felt like we really had a genuine connection.

We would hang out out of work, you know. And I think that contributed to the, relationships that that showed throughout the game. And with that being said, I think we definitely felt we had the right energy. We also had John Tinch, who plays T-Bone, who was a part of the first game. And John, you know, he was just telling us the energy that we had was in the right vein. And he felt like this was going to be a positive step forward for the franchise, just from his experience with the first game to the second one. So that was really all we had to ride on. And of course, the directors who helped out with the first game and were in charge of this game. And we're in charge

of this game and we're able to tell us, no, this is like the way we're shooting this or the way this is written is going to move the story along and change the tone of the piece of the franchise itself. So they were very positive in their reinforcement, but there was no way to tell how it would turn out. Because essentially, if the mechanics of the game aren't good, nobody really cares about the acting on the story. Right. So I think they did a great job in listening to the fans and changing some of the things that fans wanted to see, upgrading the driving. And I think the mechanics, the hacking, some of the hacking options were upgraded as well. So it was a lot of fun to see the final product.

Have you gotten any, like obviously Justin waited a while before telling us, oh yeah, by the way, my cousin is in Washdog, too. Have you gotten any reactions from people that you know that had no idea that you were in this game? And then all of a sudden they played this game and they're like, wait, that voice sounds familiar. Oh, no. Because you told everyone you know. You told everybody. I told everyone. And I just want to point out, Justin is the second family member who's just not all that impressed with what I'm doing.

That is not. No. Justin is the older, though. That's not true. No, because I just haven't gotten a chance to play, and I want to play with Rothman when I do play, ideally. I don't know if I could take that criticism. Listen, I've never been critical in my life. No, but I told everyone.

I told everyone. Yeah. I was so, so excited. And, like, also, you know, you start doing, like, voiceover for, like, the TV spot that ran before Christmas and stuff or right before the game came out. And so when I got to see the TV spot, I was even more excited. And all the trailers that were coming out was like, this, this thing looks real. And, you know, it's just, it's hard to believe that I was a part of this process. But, you know, I definitely think this is by far the biggest credit that I have so far. So, you know, as you said earlier, looking at the credits on IMDB, you know, I've done a couple of episodes. those here and there. And I did shoot a pilot this year, which was great, but it didn't get picked up by NBC. But that was my first time playing a series regular on a TV show. So with that and the video game, I was like, everyone needs to know. Everyone. So everyone knew beforehand. But real quick, so like speaking of people recognizing you, like, can you talk about the fan art? Because I keep, I keep going to your Twitter feed and seeing that the likeness of Marcus Holloway all over your

feed from people who have drawn stuff or mean stuff. I don't know how I'd react to that. If people were taking this character that, again, like you said, looks mostly like me, but it's a different person, but it's kind of the same person. And they made art as like in tribute to me, man. What is that like? I'm drawing a picture of you right now, Charity. Oh, my God. He's actually doing this too. He's not even running. You know, the fans are really wonderful. I love the fan art, but the thing that, uh, really blew my mind was like right after the game was announced at E3s, what I saw was some of the developers were going to different gaming conferences all across the world. So I think they went to

Germany. And there were people dressing up as Marcus, like literally three, four days later after E3s. That blew my mind. The fans with this game have been so loving and like just positive. I think the cool thing is I'd say every week I probably get at a minimum five or six people that just right, hey, I just finished the game. I loved your performance. And, you know, that makes it completely worth, like, the entire experience. And to see the level of artistry, like, I think these people need to be designing games, need to be doing graphics. Like, they're so, the art that they create is top notch. So the fans have just been great, man. It's, it's a little, it was a little overwhelming at first, but then you see your, like, your Twitter followers going up and you're like,

oh, this is kind of cool. Maybe I'm, maybe I can get verified. Is that your, that's your, that's your in-game with all this is to get that's my end game so so justin if you know the way i mean listen make the calls call the proper channels we'll make it happen listen oh yeah my other question is your younger brother done any marcus holloway fan art or cosplay that's the real has that happened yet or has he played the game he he does own the game but my brother his name's landin and he is obsessed with the idea that Marcus has a younger brother named Darnel Holloway. And I don't know. So he keeps telling me to tell Ubisoft that if there's any room for Darnel to make a couple

cameos in some DLC stuff, that he's ready, willing. Darnel Holloway is the most R&B name I've ever heard in my life. That's what he can bring to the game. He can bring some good tunes. Yeah. Some live tunes. Yeah, I'm looking at some of the, I'm looking at your Twitter feed right now. And the Dead Set branding is really cool.

Like, the logo stuff they did in the game is just really compelling. Also, kind of like a really underrated part of this game is the clothes are pretty dope. Did you know anything about the look at all? Did you have any input on that? Or is it just like, you saw the finished product? Because it's like, the look of the characters is very distinctive and really cool. So, you know, they had like basic character renderings when I got there. So the way you see Marcus on the posters, they might have changed a couple of details since the beginning.

But that's been the generic. That's what they want Marcus to look like to sell. And then they told me about halfway through that they were going to have all these clothing options. And, you know, I didn't understand until I played the game. But, I mean, it's almost limitless. There are so many options you can make him look as cool or as weird or he can go around in boxers all day if you want. You know, like, it's pretty miraculous what they did to allow the player to have complete control over how they want to move through this world and how they see markets. I think it's really innovative.

It's a lot of fun. The FYI for the fan artist, though, is that the Rio Ruffin wears cream, sweaters, and turtlenex. So that's just for all the deviant art pages. That's the artist guidance that I will drop on this podcast. And also sings R&B songs. Yeah, for sure. Do you think you play the game differently because the avatar is 80% you? Like when I'm playing, I take some crazy risks with this character because you can play in all kinds of different ways.

You can play stealth. You can just kind of do run and gun. Do you play more conservatively because you don't want to see yourself die? Yes. Yes, for sure. And you know, like anybody who's got the game and been like, hey, man, I'm about to open this up. I'm like, please don't kill me too much. Please don't do it.

But like, like the cool thing is I had this conversation with one of the, one of my Twitter fans, one of one of the deadsec, I call them dead sec members. One of my dead sec members on Twitter tweeted me about what was my favorite mission. And I think, what did I say? I probably said New Dawn at the time because I just finished playing it. But we talked about how we did it differently. And I, you know, I was telling them I, I didn't use my gun until something tragic happened in the game. I don't know if you guys played it all the way through. But no spoilers.

Something tragic happens. But because of how I felt shooting the cinematic scenes related to that mission, that was the only time I felt necessary to go out and murder people. Wow. But outside of that, I definitely play it all stealth, but all of that's based on, like, my character development

and what I did in preparation for the role and how I viewed Marcus. So it's kind of, it's strange to me to know, like, somebody was like, yeah, I've just been running around guns blazing the entire time. Like, that's not Marcus, but that's their Marcus, you know. And that's the beautiful thing about video games is that you get to take control. Yeah, I was going to ask, because you have a demo reel up on IMDB, but there's no watchdogs in there yet.

So you need to update it. And I'm wondering what you would put in if you had to pick a scene or gameplay video or something to represent your performance. That's really tough. What would I put in on that? I don't want to give any spoilers, you know. I think there was one scene with dude. Shon Nimick that I really liked, where he kind of has the upper hand. It's in the middle of the game where Dead Set kind of has their morale busted, if you will.

And I really like that scene. The actor's name is Chris Jeko, the wonderful actor. And I think we shot, we had more takes of this scene than any other scene in the game. Because we did it one way and we thought we got it. And then maybe a week later, they were like, no, we want to change the tone a little bit. So we were both actually kind of frustrated by the end of shooting it because we were like, what do they want? But eventually, I think the final scene turned out pretty good.

So that's maybe one that I would have on there. That's the one where I get to throw a punch. And I'm, you know, I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm a fighter. As Justin said, I wear turtle necks and sweaters. So I'm not much of a fighter. Obviously, hacking has been in the air as of late in a variety of ways, whether it be entertainment and politics and life. general. So I mean, like, I know, you know, obviously everyone communicates by email, but I know so many people

now who, you know, when you use email, you're, you are basically writing something that you are aware that will, it will somehow come out at some point. You have that in the back of your mind. How has, has watchdogs being involved in this process and then watching, you know, the various things that have happened in the news of late? Has it altered your, your, the way you think about hacking and all? Hmm. Well, I will say this. My immediate fear was like, some hacker who plays this game is going to want to hack me. I was instantly, just thinking about the game coming out, I was like, well, that would make sense,

but I hope that I pray it doesn't happen. But it has kind of changed in terms of privacy, like in preparation for the role, I watched a couple things. There was a documentary about Anonymous that I watched. And, you know, of course, they do things for the lulls. They're trolling a lot of times. But when it gets down to like really in terms of the government's range of what they can do in my research and especially I watched like an interview on Edward Snowden and like what he put out, which either you feel he did a justice or he's a traitor. I don't think there's any gray in between.

But what you do see is that the potential reach of the government is far and vast. And so I think the game dealing with that really has kind of at least open my lenses to be like, oh, these are these are things that I should be conscious of. Thus, I don't think I'll buy an Amazon Echo. I think that's what it's called. Or the, I don't know what the Google one is called. But I'm like, these things have to be sending information right back to Google and Amazon. Roughen, Ruffin, you sound like, you sound like Will Smith at the end of the enemy of the state right now. I'm talking about who are the watchers.

You got to put your cell phone in a bag of potato chips. Yeah. That's right. It's going to block the transmitters. I built these. Gene Hapkins is with me. have something they want. So a lot of the conversation surrounding watchdogs, too, obviously had to do with issues of representation and diversity in video games.

And it's an incredibly diverse cast. And historically, there's been a big lack in video games of characters who look like a lot of the people who have historically played video games, which is a problem and seems to slowly be correcting itself. but there's still relatively few high profile big budget releases that kind of go out of their way to rectify that in the way that it seems watchdogs too does. So was that important to you? Have you heard from a lot of fans about whether that was important to them? Absolutely. You know, the cool thing was I'm going to forget this guy's name and forgive me, my friend.

But he reached out to me. He's a student at Stanford and he's studying computer programming. and he wants to work in Silicon Valley. And I had read an article about the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley right before shooting the game. And so when he saw the game come out, he reached out to me and just said how cool it was to see a representation of someone that was close to him. And essentially, the crazy thing is when the game was announced, I tried not to read too much into it, but there were some chat rooms and stuff where people were like, no black hacker lives in San Francisco. Francisco and this isn't believable based on population numbers and things of that nature. And to me, it's like, all it takes is one person to tell a story.

Even if the numbers don't suggest it, all it takes is one person to represent that to tell the story. And so I've had fans reach out and just say how important it is to see someone that looks like them or someone that represents, you know, even with the character Josh who's dealing with autism, he has Asperger's. Even Josh, you know, characters, fans are reaching out to him. to the guy that played him, his name is Jonathan Dobsky, and just telling him how important that character is to them, to see someone represented in this gaming world that they love so much,

but to finally see someone that's like them. And so I think Watch Dogs, too, did a great job with opening the spectrum. And of course, this year, you know, Mafia 3 came out with another diverse protagonist. So, you know, it's interesting to see where gaming's going. And it's just becoming more universal, I think. So lastly, this big role kind of fell into your lap, and it sounds like it's been a great experience. So are you hoping career-wise that this is a springboard to more TV slash movie roles, or would you be totally content if you just became primarily a video game voice actor and just kind of

went from game to game? You know, I think I want to do both. The cool thing about the fans of video games from video games is that it, you know, You know, they are, I think they're the most passionate of any fans in entertainment. And that's because they literally sit down every day and play hours upon hours and listen to hours upon hours of your voice and performance and take control of that. And so with that, there's an ownership that happens with video game fans and that I love. And so like this community, I call the Dead Set community, they feel like family.

And so I got to give a big shout out to the fans. So I would love to continue to do video games. And, you know, if watchdogs wants to bring Marcus back, I'm not opposed, but we'll see what happens. But of course, I also, you know, I got my training at Rutgers University. I got my master's there. And I grew up watching movies and television and my trainings in theater. So, you know, if in any way this can affect my career, I wanted to affect all lanes and just make more things possible. Of course, I want to be, you know, on your TV screen, on the movie screen.

and then when you get home, you can play some watchdogs. And that would be awesome, man. It would be the awesome combination of goals to be reached. Ruffin, if I could ask one more, like, embarrassing family-related question, yes or no? Did you audition for the forthcoming Power Rangers movie? That's all I want to know. Did you audition for Power Rangers? I think I'm too old, man.

They wouldn't let me in. But you got the muscles and stuff. Oh, come on, man. You're fit. So unlike Marcus, I can't do all the flip. Like, they brought some other guys in. These guys, like, the stunt guys that worked on Watch Dogs 2 are legit ninjas, legit. Like, they will throw a smoke screen down and disappear in a second.

And I'm like, how did you disappear in that tight mocap suit? But they are the things that they could do and the way that they could pick up the fighting choreography and the parkour so fast, it was mind-blowing. So all that to say, I don't think I could do the flips and things that are required by a Power Ranger. But if Zordon calls, I'm going. I've literally flipped you before. I've flipped you before. You can flip. I believe in you, Robin. Well, how about this? If Power Rangers call, I'm just going to have a writer in my contract that says, I need Justin Charity to flip me in all flip scenes.

I'm there for me. And we can put you in like a green screen suit so like no one can see you'll just like disappear into the background. Does that work for you? For sure. I was listening to the podcast about video games. turned movies. Yeah. It was very fun. Thanks. Very fun.

I was thinking, I was like, what about Mario Brothers? And then you guys brought it up. You know, it's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun. Fun in a bad way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. That's a tough category.

It's a tough, tough category. Very tough. A lot of losses in that category. I think they announced that E3s that Watch Dogs 2 is the next Ubisoft series. that they want to do that too. Hey, here we go. Or not watch dogs too, but watchdogs, the franchise. So we'll see.

What's up? Are you going to be the lead? Can we break news right now? Yeah, right. I got to be Michael B. Jordan or something, man. Oh, man. All right. Everyone can find Ruffin on Twitter at Our Apprentice 3.

That's Roman numerals. Help him get verified. Thanks for coming on, Ruffin. Thanks a lot, Russin. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you, guys. And Justin, thanks for the hookup. Yeah, no worries. Okay, so that is it for this episode.

It's a little harder to plan ahead these days, since we can't look at the calendar and see a gigantic big-budget AAA release every week. So we're going to get a little more creative. We're heading into the part of the calendar where we can talk about some indie stuff or talk about some gaming subcultures and have some interesting people on.

So we don't know what we'll be doing next week, but we'll find something to talk about. There's always something. We can just talk about hit men in ways that you can hide bodies when you are discovered murdering someone in the back of a fashion show. I think that's going to be next for me.

All right, so we will be back. Same place, same day next week. Talk to you then. See ya.