In essence, the tenets on which you founded GodGames, and on which you founded Gamecock, were there, when you went to Ion Storm. And I'm sure a lot of that was stuff that you learned, and formulated, and thought about while you were at Ion Storm. So, in a sense, people see Gamecock as a reboot from GodGames, but there's a continuity to those days; and all the way to the things you were thinking about, and the kind of publishing group you wanted to form, going into that situation.

MW: Just for the record: I was ousted from Ion Storm. But it was because I refused to let go of the idea of starting our own publisher and to play nice with Eidos, and pretend to make games for a couple more years. I refused to do that, and thusly, it was like: "Well, you can either do this, or you can go." And so I went. It was still a little early. Like, we weren't quite done with our plan of putting our partners together for GodGames. We had a limited amount of time, because we weren't wealthy guys, but we really felt like the time was right to get this thing together that we had been planning for a year. But it was like: "OK, it's now or never." So we actually started the company with a press release in January of 1998. So that's what started the company. J.C. Herz -- Joystick Nation. It was obvious from the immediate reaction in the press that we were doing the right thing at the right time.

The proper name was Gathering of Developers. That's what we were; six founding developers owned over half the company. To keep us honest, because even then I didn't trust myself! I was like, if I'm going to become a publisher, we'd better have some checks and balances, because I don't want to become one of those guys. You know, it was such a rewarding thing -- even though we didn't have any money yet, or an office -- to have the New York Times writing about us, and then after that, everybody else. And we really only had a few months to raise a lot of money -- and unfortunately it was during the dot-com boom, so it was very hard to raise money if you were not a "dot-com."

We're like: "But we have a real business, with games! And we're going to ship them to stores, and people will buy them!" They're like: "Whatever, man. Sell me some futures." So it was a rough go. And fortunately, this devil... crook... bastard... genius, named Ryan Brant, who started Take 2, believed in us. He saw the press, he knew the story, he knew that it was all right. And he had a small and insignificant enough publishing company to be able to wrap them around our philosophy -- or at least ostensibly so -- and bet their whole company -- which wasn't even listed on NASDAQ yet -- on our idea.

And he wrote us a check, you know, for five million bucks, that got us started. They had no games and no money. I mean, the five million dollar check that Brant wrote us was bigger than their IPO. He bet the farm, you know, and he believed. And it ended up making them a hell of a lot of money. And it got them some inertia, and they started Rockstar as an internal label, modeled after us -- you know, a boutique label that only does, hopefully, good stuff. They were guys from the music scene, and they wanted to make game culture cool. Which is still a fine goal to have.

We ended up -- Take 2, because they didn't have any money at the time, they were pre-GTA -- we were always a little under-funded with GodGames. Actually a lot under-funded. But that just reinforced the sort of, "Let's work harder, and get more out of less," mentality. And that's when we really went all-out, with, you know, the wackiness. And people really like it when we have fun.

That lesson was really learned out of that; out of not really having any money, and having no choice but to be loud and obnoxious. You know, a PR office, and we didn't have any money for marketing! Again, as long as you're honest about it, as long as it's not an image you're projecting -- you know, a photo session, or whatever -- it's really who you are and the way that you're running your company. And it's true, that it resonates, you know? And we still do that. So that's another lesson learned from being an under-funded independent publisher!

And at the time, you gotta realize, Take 2 gave us money for the rights to distribution to our games, but they didn't have any distribution! They used our games to get their distribution. So, again, more lessons. We learned though all that; going through all of those meetings, to learn what it took to get established with all the retailers. To learn the ins and outs of distribution, and collections, and all that dirty stuff that nobody wants to think about, we learned from Take 2. 'Cause they didn't have any money, either; they were scrapping, too!

And also busting some myths, because the conception is that those distribution channels are closed, and controlled by the bigger publishers, but what you learned there is that they're not.

MW: They're actually wide open, and for sale. They're "closed" like real-estate, Tom.

But not to everybody! The big retail chains are willing to open their arms to you, but you have to have something that maybe some of the other, bigger publishers that they deal with don't have.

MW: Well, you have to at least have a lineup that's worth caring about. And again: As much as these retailers are jaded, and don't necessarily -- a lot of them aren't gamers. They could still feel passion. Like when you come in, and you're pitching, and you care about it? It still feels very different from the guys that come in, nine times out of ten, with a list of fifty titles. "And these are the three that you should pay attention to! Nevermind the other forty-seven; if you could take a hundred of each, that'd be great."

So, we learned that, yeah, you come in with some kind of passion, and some games you care about, and you still have to have the money to buy the shelf space, just like all the other guys.