- If you've consumed any media
in the last 70 years, there's a good chance
you've heard this voice. [Wilhelm scream] - This sound--"man being eaten
by alligator--" was recorded for "Distant Drums"
in 1951 for a scene where
a guy randomly drowns all by himself. - [screams] - This recording
then became part of the library
of sound effects people at Super Warnier Brothers used. Another scream
from that recording then appeared in 1953's "The Charge
at Feather River" where a certain Private Wilhelm
g
ets shot by an arrow. [arrow whistles]
- [screams] - They also use it, like,
two more times in the same movie. [gunshot]
- [screams] - [screams]
- Sound designer Ben Burtt noticed this reuse
and started reusing it himself in student films because
he thought it was funny. As a silly little joke, he hid it in the background
of a B-movie he was hired to work on. [John Williams' "Main Title"] - Oops, looks like culture's
been changed forever. [lasers blasting]
- [screaming] - Burtt had accidentally
started
a career-long running joke. - [screams] [crashing]
- [screams] - [screams]
- [screams] - [screams] - [screams]
[lightsaber whirring] - [screams]
[blasting] - [screams] - In his big cameo in "Jedi," he does an impression
of the scream when he gets killed by
an OSHA-violating guardrail. - [grunts]
- [screams] - Then other people
started using it, too, and now it's everywhere. - [screams]
- [screams] - [screams]
- [screams] [all screaming] - Wilhelm! [clattering]
- [screams] - Getting in
on
someone else's in-joke kind of risks ruining it, but I wouldn't know anything
about that. - [screams]
- And there's a bunch of other iconic screams
like this. - [Howie scream]
- [Howie scream] - [Howie scream] [birds chirping] [mouse clicks] [beeps]
- [Howie scream pitched up] - Oh, Jesus Christ! - Like with Wilhelm, the source of these sounds are usually well documented. That scream comes from a popular
sound effects library, and while we're ruining things, those sheep-slash-goats
screaming li
ke a human videos you love so much?
- [screams] - Yeah, they're all fakes.
That's just a sound that comes free
with Apple's software. - [screams] - But for over a decade, one sound's original source
was unknown; this one. - [child grunting] - This is all over
internet video nowadays, but where's it from? Most people under a certain age
are yelling "Roblox" at the screen right now. "Roblox" is a free online
game-slash-platform people can make additional content
and games for and they can even mon
etize what
they make for, uh, a pittance. According to YouTube journalists
People Make Games, Roblox developers receive less
than 25% of the money from sales of content they make.
This has led to the Roblox Corporation
attaining a net worth of roughly seven
quadspillion dollars, and one of if not
the most iconic things about this game
is its death sound effect, also known as the "Roblox Oof." Videos of just this sound get millions upon millions
of views. It has its own
separate existence as a me
me across thousands
of videos and one video claiming
to be its origin has 117 million views, shockingly close
to the lifetime views of my entire channel. - Oof!
- This sound effect is a phenomenon, but it's not from "Roblox,"
and this child is a liar. [sound pitched down]
- Oof! [multiple Wilhelm screams
synched with intro music] - Now, I--
[coughing] I haven't played "Roblox." I play mature games
for grownups like "Fortnite." [gun cocks] [gunshot]
[all cheering] When I was
the age "Roblox" woul
d have definitely controlled
my life, it was instead being controlled
by stop-motion animation and then later
by "Garry's Mod--" a game which did not monetize
its content in increasingly horrifying ways, transforming its community into
a digital sweatshop, but I'm sure the new way
is fine, too. So, no,
I haven't played "Roblox," but I have played "Messiah." [upbeat rock music] ♪ ♪ - [shouting] - "Messiah" was released
in the year 2000 and developed
by Shiny Entertainment. They made "Path of Neo"
so they're insane and I love them. You play as a cute little cherub named Bob who gets blasted down
to Earth to help out. This is the best opening
cut scene ever. Bob has no combat
abilities whatsoever. - [grunts]
- Instead, though, he can possess other people. - You know,
in real life, a huge portion of the angels who come to Earth end up
in the bodies of police officers.
It's true! Google "40% cops." Bob can possess basically
any living thing, including rats when
the developers feel like maki
ng you save scum. The player
is constantly switching bodies using their different abilities,
credentials, and weapons. The pacing is breakneck because
doing so doesn't slow you down. I played "Messiah"
in the mid-2000s when I found it in
a Christian charity shop. I assume they didn't see
the words, "Sex, religion, possession,
death," on the cover, and then I threw it away. I bought this copy on eBay
to use as a prop. I have to get this out
for the rest of the video now. Then a decade passes
and
in a random YouTube video, I hear a familiar sound.
- [child grunts] - People tell me it's
from "Roblox" but I swear I've heard it
somewhere else. Obviously I immediately
forgot about it and moved on with my life
until 2019 when someone else figured
it out. User "plasma-node" on reddit
was watching the ending cinematic on YouTube
for some reason and noticed
a very familiar sound. - [screaming]
Oof! Ah! - He posted his discovery
on reddit along with a clip from the ending, someone stole and repos
ted
his clip on Twitter, a large "Roblox" YouTuber made
a video about that tweet, and then journalists started
picking up on it, although the articles do credit
the wrong person with the discovery because
their one source is a video that got it wrong. Why did the sound get
so popular, anyway? Well, if TV
has taught me anything, children being injured
is just universally funny. Let's not think about what
that says about us. Here's an interesting fact
which I hope justifies me playing the entire g
ame
in preparation for this video. Everyone involved seems
to think the sound effect is specifically in the ending, but it's actually all over
the game. You can fly around and flap your little wings
to float, and whenever you slam into
a wall, Bob makes a noise,
and that's one of the noises. It's also in
the opening cut scene, too. - What? [screeching] - It's kind of funny it was discovered in the ending-- the last possible place
you would hear it if you played the game. Interestingly enough, th
ere was proof in "Roblox" the sound was from "Messiah"
all along and no one thought to check. You see, sound files have
this thing in them called "metadata." It's extra information
that comes with a file. You know, album art,
lists of the artists, and people who worked on it,
and so on. You know those pirated
Weird Al Yankovic albums your friend gave you when you
were 14? Uh, that's why the album art
was in there. It was in the metadata. I think that anecdote might be a bit too specific. The "oo
f" sound in "Roblox's" game files-- "uuhhh.wav--" has metadata in it saying
it was made in 1999 while "Messiah" was being made
with the engineer listed as Joey Kuras." Joey Kuras
is an extremely prolific video game sound designer. He's worked on
"Tony Hawk's Pro Skater," "Spider-Man,"
"Gears of War," and even "Fortnite." That clip I showed earlier, that wasn't just me showing off
my sick skills. That was a clever setup
for this bit. No, it wasn't, actually. I wrote a "Fortnite" joke
and then it
turned out he'd worked on "Fortnite,"
but still-- and here's Joey on page
ex ex ex vee eye of "Messiah's" manual as one
of the sound effects guys. S--See? Look.
See? I--I don't have
a camera person this time so I--I'll have to cut
to a close-up that I shot later. Uh, Rachel stopped responding
when she found out what the video was about.
So there we go. We know where the sound effect
was from. We even have a good idea
who might have made it. Mystery solved. We can all go home
to our families. Jus
t kidding.
There's more. That's only the beginning
of the story, you worm! [laughing] I can't--can't say--
I can't say that. We haven't even talked about
who owns the sound effect yet! It doesn't belong to Joey. It belongs to the company he
was working for when it was made--
Tommy Tallarico Studios-- along with its owner
Tommy T-- I don't need to say his name.
[stammers] He named his studio
after himself. - Are you--are you--
are you ready? [synth music] Yeah! ♪ ♪ Ooh!
- Tommy Tallarico is a ver
itable video game
industry icon, according to the first line
of his biography on his web site. I wouldn't personally go
that far but he was a fairly
well-known musician and composer for video games
in the '90s and 2000s. His most notable soundtracks
include "Earthworm Jim," "MDK," and "Advent Rising." His company was involved
with the sound effects on lots of other games
from this period, too. That's why if you're my age
or older, this is burned into your brain. [exciting music] - Tommy Tallaric
o Studios. - He was also on TV on
the shows "Electric Playground" and "Judgment Day--" some of the earliest shows about
video games, reviewing new releases
and interviewing developers. If you were around
for a certain era of game history, you remember Tommy from TV
or played something his company worked on. He also co-founded
"Video Games Live" which produced
symphony performances of popular
video game soundtracks. "VGL" is universally recognized
among gamers as a thing they think they
remember
hearing about that seems nice. Through royalties
from his company's work over the years,
Tommy's doing pretty well for himself and he spent
his money on living in a very interesting house. It has themed rooms, a Spider-Man room full
of all the original comics-- - Probably have about $50,000
in your hand right there. - Giant statues of Lara Croft
and "The Fifth Element" lady, an ancient Egypt-themed
dining room-- the list goes on. - The first thing I--I built in my house when I bought this
was a
seven-foot waterfall, but it--it kinda sucks because
at night sometimes I--I have to go
to the bathroom. - And Tommy is proud
of his insane mansion. That's why I've got
so much footage of it. He's given numerous tours
of the place over the years and it was even
on MTV's "Cribs." He's so proud of that, he re-uploaded it to his own YouTube channel
years later. He's very happy about the fact
he was specifically on MTV's "Cribs." He says it a lot in interviews
and that's what he calls the video he u
ploaded onto
his own channel, and there's no way he would tell
an obvious lie like that. Would he? Foreshadowing is
a literary device in whi-- he also re-uploaded
an old UK show where the presenter clearly hates
his house. - This is absolutely hideous. You've gotta sort yourself out,
Tommy. You've got too much money.
- [laughs] - This is silly. It's not right, Tommy.
- It's--no, but it is. - There's children starving. - And if you're the sort
of person who's impressed by Guinness world records,
Tommy has a huge stack
of them leaning up against a cabinet in the corner of his awards-slash-
Indiana Jones nook. The big one is "Person Who
has Worked on the Most Video Games
in Their Lifetime." - I actually have
the Guinness world record for the person who's worked
on the most video games in their lifetime. - He's such a big deal, he was handpicked
by Shigeru Miyamoto to work on "Metroid Prime." - "Metroid Prime"
with Shigeru Miyamoto. I worked with him for, uh,
many years. - And he was also
the first American to work on the "Sonic
the Hedgehog" franchise. - I was the first American
ever hired, uh, to work on
the "Sonic" franchise. - Can you believe that? Can you believe that? Do you really believe that? Tommy's been kind
of resting on his laurels doing "Video Games Live"
for a while now. He hasn't done much new music
for games since the late 2000s. One of the last things he did
was donate music to "Super Tofu Boy--"
a game made by PETA. It's a really bad
"Super Meat Boy" clone inte
rspersed
with quite good music and interesting meat facts. Listen, Peter, I've eaten
a lot of tofu, but meat doesn't scream, either. If it did, people would probably
stop eating it. Tommy is a vocal PETA supporter, doing an interview for them
in the Egyptian wing of his house about cruelty
to animals and put out a statement
on Facebook responding to criticism of his involvement
with "Tofu Boy." It's the only press release
I've ever read that has emoticons in it. [tense music] We can't really tal
k about Tommy
without talking about what he was doing while the oof
was being discovered. Tommy is most
well known nowadays for what has become known
as "The Amico Disaster." In 2018 Tommy acquired
the rights to Intellivision-- a game company from the '70s
and '80s-- and announced he was making
a brand new console: the Intellivision Amico. Amico aimed to be a truly
family friendly games console with low age ratings
on its games and the bonus selling point
of, uh, not having online play, apparent
ly to get people playing
in the same room together? "Together again."
Ah. Some people would tell you
online play is one of the best features
of modern gaming and a nice option
for people who can't easily be physically next
to each other, and to that,
Tommy's reply was, "No." - When I was growin' up
in the '70s, '80s, and even when I was working
in the game industries in the '90s,
you know, we didn't have the internet,
right? - With this pitch in hand,
how did the Amico do? It didn't.
It was dela
yed, supposedly due
to the global pandemic, but then it was delayed
many more times and it still isn't out
two years after the intended launch. It seems less like unfortunate
supply chain issues and more like management
underestimated how hard it is to make
a new game console from scratch. As CEO, Tommy made the decision
to open two company offices in Irvine, California
and Salt Lake City, Utah-- two really expensive places
to open offices-- in the middle of the pandemic. In his video tours,
the
large, expensive spaces
are mostly empty and unused with the money guy
in the back looking like he's working overtime trying
to keep this operation afloat without
a finished product. - This is where
the magic happens. - [laughs]
- Tommy wants money. This is--this is--
in this box is where it all happens. - As the money started
to run out, they turned to crowdfunding
investment web site Fig. Tommy produced a video
in his Spider-Man room with other company leadership
in his Egypt room and "Tomb R
aider" themed
movie theater room claiming the console just needs
a bit more money to get going and release
is just around the corner. - The rocket ship has been
built, we are on the launchpad, and we just need the fuel
to take off. So strap yourself in because it's gonna be one hell
of a ride. - They raised 7 million
more dollars and the Amico still didn't
come out. [booming]
So they tried again, turning to second crowdfunding
investment web site Republic. They even used
the same pitch video. Co
me on, guys!
The rocket ship just needs a couple more million dollars! [pitched down]
- Strap yourself in. - They raised over 11
and a half million more dollars so they could continue
to not release a console. [booming]
They tried a third time on a weird, shady investor web site
that pretends to be a live stream
but is clearly prerecorded. - The rocket ship is built,
folks. We are on the launchpad.
We just need a little more fuel. - And then they turned
to yet another crowdfunding web site for m
ore
and canceled it part way through when it became clear there's
no one left to invest. When internal documents
leaked revealing the console's internal hardware
was cheap, old, and rubbish, Tommy threatened people
who reported on it with legal action, and when another
journalist asked what the reporters had done wrong reporting publicly
available information, he deleted all the tweets. The Amico's difficult
non-launch, gleeful tossing
of investor money into two large holes-- - There's not
too m
any people here in the office, uh, yet. - And its CEO's increasingly
aggressive behavior towards people trying
to report what was happening netted the company
and Tommy some criticisms. Tommy did the responsible thing
and started messaging people to call them names. He defended the Amico
on internet forums, calling detractors "morons,"
"idiots," "mentally unstable," "narcissists and cowards," comparing criticism of his business decisions
to racism, eventually settling on calling his detractors
"
gaming racists--" the funniest term
I've ever heard. - But these elitist--
they're racists. They're literally
gaming racists. - He did this while following
a bunch of actual racists, white supremacists, and far right personalities
on Twitter. This caused people to check
for his other hot takes and discover his opinion
on people who kneel for the national anthem. Apparently racism is bad, but protesting it
is for douche bags. - Hey, somebody just said
I sound like a social justice warrior. Uh, yo
u couldn't be farther
from the truth, and I'm the most un-politically
correct person on the planet. - Don't call me an SJW!
You have no idea how racist I-- - People are saying I
got triggered? No, I'm just havin' fun
and bein' passionate. The folks in there that are--
that are-- that are peein'
their pants right now-- - Things just got worse
from there. It hit the point where Tommy-- the CEO of a family friendly
games console company in desperate need
of investment-- would only give interviews
w
ith an ever-dwindling group of die hard fans
who completely agreed with this behavior--
the kind of normal person who'll wear a serial killer mask
while they interview you. - My wife told me
to cancel my Amico, and I still did not. - This is one
of the last people Tommy was willing to speak to. - And then if you want
to hear me, um, uh, pwn some noobs and, um--
and--and punch back at some haters,
follow me on Twitter-- tommytallarico,
and, uh, you know, I don't mind punchin' back
to some of thes
e losers. - He has since stepped down
as CEO with his replacement announcing
the company's entering a "quiet period," which is a hell of a subtweet
if I've ever seen one. The Amico still isn't out
and a lot of people want their money back. In the middle of all this, right before the first big delay
before things got super bad, back when Tommy had
a reputation to burn, the "oof" discovery was made. Due to his contract
with Shiny Entertainment, Tommy Tallarico Studios owns all
the sound effects he
and his employees made
for the game. Shiny could use them
in "Messiah" but they belong to Tommy
and he can use them again or sell them if he wishes, and when Tommy found out
a sound effect he owned was being used in "Roblox," oh, boy,
did the butter begin to churn. Tommy stepped up to the plate
and did a stream on YouTube called "Talking about the Roblox
'Oof' sound and controversy." It's hard going back
to this stream because he spends a good chunk
of it pitching a soon-to-be-released
game con
sole that still doesn't exist. - We're actually coming out with a brand new
video game machine. It's called
the Intellivision Amico. We actually don't allow
online play. - It's weirdly anxiety-inducing
watching a man in January 2020 right before
a global pandemic pitching a console whose central feature
is trapping people in a room togethe-- - Everybody can kinda
come together and play in
the same room together. [unsettling string music] - But when he wasn't pitching his scam-adjacent
business v
enture, Tommy was demanding "Roblox"
give him $100,000,000. [techno music] - Tommy wants money. ♪ ♪ - Okay, for legal reasons, I'd like to specify that
was a joke. He didn't ask for that much. Probably. He didn't say how much
he wanted. Almost like he
was embarrassed to. Tommy made it clear he didn't
want "Roblox" to remove the sound. He wanted them to keep using it
but to pay him for it, and if they didn't,
things were going to court. - They may think that, um,
you know, I'm trying to get
the s
ound taken out of the game.
I'm not. They may think that
I'm currently suing "Roblox." I'm not.
Currently. But it's also not fair to me that I don't get compensated
for--for this. - This situation is--
legally speaking-- very funny. Allow me to pretend
I understand it for a few minutes. A key point here is-- at least as far as I can tell,
so probably wrong-- Tommy isn't owed
any compensation. According to "Roblox," the "oof" came on a CD
of sound effects the original creators purchased
when they
were making the game in the mid-2000s. If this is true, they used the sound
with the reasonable belief they had the right to do so
at the time. Whoever took the sound out
of "Messiah" and sold it on a CD could be
in trouble, but the two guys
who started "Roblox" in 2006 didn't
do anything wrong, apart from create "Roblox."
[rattling] Okay, I've spoken to a couple of lawyers after filming
this bit-- should have done beforehand,
really-- and they clarified something
I think I should add here abou
t them
not doing anything wrong. They did still technically
do copyright infringement. If you use a sound effect
you bought from someone and it turns out they stole it
and lied to you, you're still guilty
of copyright infringement. However, if this actually went
to court, there is something called the "innocent infringer"
defense. If an infringer can demonstrate
they had no reason to believe they had committed
copyright infringement-- and it looks like "Roblox" might
be able to do that-- the cou
rt can reduce
the statutory damages to as low
as $200 per infringement. There are other types of damages
like actual damages, the losses suffered
by the owner as a result of the infringement,
but that's something that could only be answered
in a court room. As you're about to see, however, "Roblox" directly told Tommy
they don't think they owe him anything, so it sounds like they think they have a good defense
if things go to court. [clicks]
In these tweets a few days before the stream, Tommy se
ems a bit annoyed
that no one owes him money, although in his version, "Roblox" "feel like" they don't
owe him anything, which is a strange way of describing
a large corporation. I think what Tommy means
is "Roblox's" lawyers know what the law is but he still
would like to have some money. All "Roblox" are required to do
in this situation is remove the sound, and Tommy could send a cease
and desist and trigger that happening
whenever he wanted. - I could have sent
a letter very easy. Cease and d
esist,
stop using the sound, it's mine, you don't have permission
to use it, take it out of your game. - But Tommy isn't doing that, because he doesn't want
it taken out. - Tommy wants money. - If he can get them
to keep it in and pay him a license fee
to use it or just buy the sound
off him outright, he could make a lot of money. - I'd rather them just, uh,
pay me and them own the sound forever
so that it stays in the game. - Tommy cannot stress enough how much he doesn't
want "Roblox" to remov
e the sound, because that's how
he makes money from this. - Uh, I never asked "Roblox"
to remove the sound. I don't want it to be removed. I haven't told them to take
the sound out of the game. I wanna keep the sound
in the game, so-- - And "Roblox" probably want
to keep the immensely popular sound
in their game. However, they are a business. Their ultimate goal
is to keep as much of their money as possible. A majority
of "Roblox's" income comes from underpaying
the people who actually make the
game's content. How much do you think
they're willing to pay for .3 seconds of a child
saying, "ow?" Especially when they
could replace it for free. - Uh, "Roblox" could remove
the sound tomorrow if they wanted to. - So when Tommy approached
them asking for money, "Roblox" offered him less. - We approached "Roblox." We said, "Hey,
there's a situation, and we're gonna ask
for this much." "Roblox" said, "Eh, we think you should get
this much." [laughs]
So--so, you know, "This much is what we think
." - Just to put it
in plain English, the purpose of this stream
is for Tommy to complain that "Roblox" will not off him
enough money to buy a sound effect
they don't need. - I think they're--they're nuts
and disrespectful to me. - This is an all-time classic
Tallarico moment right here, complaining about respect
while calling someone nuts, and asking them for more money. It's just incredible. - I'm hoping that we
can come together, I don't know,
maybe somewhere in the middle, uh, to make everyo
ne happy.
[claps quietly] - One question really starts
to stand out in this 90-minute stream. He's very careful
to never say how much he thinks the sound effect is worth,
how much he asked for, or how much they offered him. - [stammering] People are gonna say, "Well, how much
did you ask for, huh?" Look, you have
to understand that is-- that it is not professional
of me to go around stating how much money I'm asking
and how much they are offering. - Just to be clear, unless there's some kind of
non-disclosure agreement, which he probably would
have said if there was, there isn't anything actually
stopping Tommy from saying how much he wants
for the sound effect. The Amico saga
has proven irrefutably that Tommy does not care
in the slightest about appearing professional. That excuse doesn't work. He's choosing not to say it and getting
increasingly defensive as viewers keep asking
and he runs out of explanations. - To be honest,
none of your damn business. No, no, I did--
[laughing] How
much did you say for them to pay for the "oof" sound? Okay, well, I've--I've already-- I've already gone over that,
that I-- I can't talk about that. - To an outside observer and the chat whose questions
he was dodging, it started to feel like Tommy
just wanted a embarrassingly large amount
of money for a single sound effect
and knew that it would make him look
really greedy if he said it. - People are never gonna know,
you know, what it is and--
and there doesn't need to be, uh, that knowledge
. - He's in the fascinatingly
awkward position of not being able
to say how much he wants even though that's what
the stream is about. - It would be unprofessional
to talk about that. Um, but I think I did describe
that it's, um, a lot more than what,
you know, they were offering which was... Barely anything at all. - I think it's worth asking how much "barely anything" is to a millionaire with
a dedicated Spider-Man room and an indoor waterfall
in his mansion. - Everyone should have
a seven-foo
t waterfall, I think,
installed in your room, but the thing that's kind
of bad about it is that at night I always have
to go to the bathroom. - Wait a minute. Didn't he already make
that joke? Later in the stream he started taking questions, and someone asked him to give the ratio how different
the counter offer was. - Tommy, percentage-wise, how far is "Roblox's"
offer compared to what you asked for? At least 100 times... Less. So that, you know-- if they offered me one dollar, I'm asking for $
100. So, you know--
[laughs] If they offered me $1,000, that means I'm asking
for $100,000, right? So that's how far it is off. - I find it very curious
that he will say how much he asked for but only in the form
of a riddle. Even more curiously, he uses very small amounts of money as examples. He chooses not to say,
for example, "If they offered me 50 grand, "that means I asked
for $5 million, "or if they offered me
100 grand--" okay, I can see why he didn't. - And I hope they come
to their sen
ses. And--and I know they're--
they're probably watching. I don't know.
Maybe they're not. It's Saturday morning. - So that was the situation
in January 2020. "Roblox" were offering
to buy the sound, Tommy wanted 100 times more
money than they were offering, and if things didn't go his way, he was threatening
to take things to court. - You know, I have attorneys,
uh, that--I have-- I have teams of attorneys. I easily have
about 20 different lawyers. We--it's just a difference
of opinion on wheth
er or not I help to bring millions
of people to their game, uh, or not
and what that is worth. - That last thing is I think why
Tommy thinks he can ask
for whatever massive amount of money he won't say.
In his mind, this one sound effect
single-handedly launched the "Roblox" franchise. - But the idea is--
is that this is a sound... That helped to create
the franchise, right? Some may say, then, that
the reason "Roblox" is as popular as it is now
may be because of the fact that
so many people sha
red this "oof" sound, so-- - Tommy, you don't need
to launder your arguments like that. You are the one saying that,
right now! - This is something that helped
to create the franchise itself. It's made the game "Roblox"
go supersonic. It was part of the reason. How many millions
of people found out about the game "Roblox" because
of a meme that had-- that used--
because of the sound, right? We think we're asking
for something extremely fair considering what it
has done for the franchise. - These
claims are hilarious,
exaggerated, but most of all,
wrong. Take the sound effects
from "Minecraft" that are really popular
and people use a lot in videos, too.
- [grunts] - They have a huge presence
online as well but they didn't make
"Minecraft" popular. They're popular because they're
in a game millions of children have played. The "Roblox" "oof" took off
in mid-2017 when "Roblox" was already
a pretty mainstream thing. The cause and effect
is completely backwards here. While it might not
be e
ntirely impossible for a single sound effect
to make a game very popular, I would like to remind everyone
that this sound effect was already in a game
and that game was such a massive critical
and commercial failure that no one noticed
a sound effect had been stolen for 20 fucking years.
Come on, bud. "Roblox" didn't become
a multi-billion dollar company because of a sound effect. They got there by being evil. Speaking of evil, "Roblox" eventually worked
with Tommy to turn all of this into a who
le new way of monetizing their empire
of nightmares. Instead of paying Tommy
for the sound, they're making the players pay
for it! In November 2020, "Roblox" announced
the "oof" sound was going to be removed
but they were updating their developer marketplace
so players could purchase sounds to use in their games, and once this update
was complete, the "oof" sound could
be purchased and used through there. I assume Tommy would get
a cut from this. Simultaneously,
Tommy announced he had produced
a
sound effects pack for creators to use
in their "Roblox" games, including the "oof." - I have done a brand new sound design library just
for "Roblox." - Creators could buy a range
of sound effects packs costing from 10 to $250 and use these
in the games they make. "Roblox" and Tommy agreed
to keep the sound in the game as is for a while so
the sound marketplace had time to get up and running
and no one had to go oofless in the meantime. But this functionality
still hasn't been added a year
and
a half later. Eventually in July this year, "Roblox--" citing
a licensing issue-- removed the sound
and replaced it with this one. - [high pitched grunt]
- Which is rubbish, frankly. But it might be bad on purpose
to incentivize paying to replace it once they get
the marketplace up. So, clever move, I guess. You bags of scum. Tommy also got to make
some official "oof" merch so that was nice for him,
I suppose. - I've created an "oof" T-Shirt. - It doesn't look like he got
the massive pay day he
wanted, especially since
the audio marketplace hasn't manifested yet, but at least he
got something out of it. So, there we go. Wasn't that
an interesting story? That's the end
of the video essay. Don't look at the run time.
D--Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
Ju-- if you came here
to find the origins of a sound effect,
you can go. Subscribe on the way out
if you'd like, but take care. Go play "Roblox" or something. And, uh, Tommy,
I know you're watching. I've seen you arguing
with pe
ople in the comments of videos with 100 views. You can go as well. Go do whatever it is you do
in your fun house. I'm just chilling out.
See ya. [relaxing piano music] ♪ ♪ Okay, I think they're gone. This video is being filmed
in an undisclosed location to avoid being traced. Also, Mom went on holiday
and she locked the garage so I can't get to my set.
And no, I have no idea why
the back wall of this room is also green. The last guy who lived here
had terrible taste. Anyway, I think he's gone. O
kay, we need
to talk about Tommy. This was where the video
was supposed to finish. So I was writing up the script
and doing a bit more research and then I rewatched Tommy's E3
2021 pitch for the Amico and I realized something. He takes credit for creating
the "oof" in a very particular way. - I'm even the guy who did
the "oof" sound for "Roblox." - Oof!
- He made the sound for "Roblox?" I thought I misheard him
or maybe he misspoke, but no,
that's how he says it. - The thing that you might
know
me the most from is the guy who created
the beloved "oof" sound for "Roblox."
That's right. - The sound wasn't made
for "Roblox." It was made for another game
and reused by mistake. That's what this whole thing
was about, Tommy. He said that one
in the commercial for his sound design kits
he's selling to put it back in the game. Why is he saying it like that? Well, obviously the idea
he made it for "Roblox--" this massive,
important corporation-- is slightly more prestigious
than the truth, isn'
t it? So he's slightly altering
the story to give himself a bit more credit,
and that's fine. Like, whatever.
Who cares? But then I though,
"You know, for a sound
with another guy's name on it, he seems pretty happy
to say he personally made it. From an outsider's perspective, it looks a bit like Tommy
is taking credit for something someone who worked
for him did decades later, and yeah, sure,
my script was almost done, but I couldn't let
that possibility sit unexplored. So I tried to figure out
who actually made the sound, and what I discovered
was interesting. And then a bunch more
other shit happened and now the video
is this long. I'm so sorry. [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ Yes, Joey's name is on the file, but that doesn't necessarily
mean he created it. If he did the final exporting of the sounds Tallarico Studios
made for "Messiah," his audio program would put
his name on them regardless of who recorded,
edited, or mastered them. Instead, let's look at how Tommy
talks about who made it
. Let's rewind the clock a little. Back in 2019, Tommy quote tweeted
that one video that was a repost of the thing
plasma-node put on reddit. He indicates that
his company created and owns the sounds used
for "Messiah" and that the sound effect
"was created by my lead sound designer
Joey Kuras." Notice that he specifically
doesn't say that he made it. He said his company created
and owns it, and then specifically
credits Joey, implying little to no direct
personal involvement. I believe this ver
sion
of Tommy's story is true. However,
soon after writing this, to put it bluntly, it looks like Tommy realized how popular the sound was. He said in many places including
the live stream that he didn't really know
that much about "Roblox" until he found out one
of his sounds was in it. So on a timeline, it looks like he wrote
that tweet, and then started looking
at the sound's presence online. In his next tweet
he says he's surprised to discover the sound has tens
of millions of views online a
nd then all of a sudden
it's a sound "we" created, and then--and he adds this
in parenthesis like he's trying to sneak it into the story
at the last minute-- "and I myself recorded." This is a bit of a change,
isn't it? It's also just a weird way of talking about something
you created. Like, if you found out something
you had made--you-- was in a huge game,
you would go, "Hey, I made that." You wouldn't go,
"As you can see, "my company created
and owns that. It was made by someone
who worked for
me decades ago." Oh, wait, the sound's
really popular. "I mean 'we' made it,
and I myself recorded it!" And to his credit, I think Tommy noticed
how this sounds, too, because 30 minutes later
he tried again. He started a second thread
where this time it's a sound he created,
Joey edited, and he owns. Note that he specifically used
the word "created" again. So he got his story straight
in the end at least. Good for him. But that does mean
this first tweet is a bit embarrassing,
isn't it? Now, yo
u tell me: what one thing would make Tommy
look more like he was trying to rewrite the history after
the fact here? Deleting the tweet, right? From my perspective, that would be
a very stupid thing to do, but I must be missing something
because he did delete it. It's gone.
I am not accusing famous industry veteran Tommy Tallarico of lying about who made
a sound here. I don't know for sure
who did what on this sound. But Tommy should. And if he's telling the truth, why did the truth change when h
e
was surprised by how popular the sound was? In a very short span of time, Tommy's version of history went
from Joey created it to we created it
to I created it and then later an attempt
to delete the fact he said Joey
created it. I know how it sounds. It would be weird
to assume someone just wants to brag about making this one sound effect
this badly, but he does brag about it! He put it in his Twitter handle, it's part of his pitch
for the Amico-- it seems very important to Tommy that he does
n't just own
the sound; that he personally created it. To most people younger than me, that sound effect could be
the most well known thing on his resume, which is a bit depressing,
really. And when he tries to describe
the process of creating the sound, things get even weirder. In the "oof" live stream, Tommy's happy to say
he made the sound but then he tries
to go into detail about how it was made. - I thought what--
first I would do is talk about how
the "oof" sound was created. - When he tal
ks about the work
that went into making the sound, he doesn't say he did anything. He says "we." - Then what we did
is we went through, you know, all the different lines. We did a whole bunch
of other stuff to it as well so after we pitch shifted
it down and then-- - Sometimes he accidentally
says "I" and then corrects himself. - I wanted to let folks know,
uh, how I created the sound, how we created the sound--
myself and, uh, my sound designer, uh,
Joey Kuras. - It just keeps going like this.
- We start to tweak the sound,
each individual sound so again in--in "oof" we might
have spent, you know, a half hour trying to figure out
exactly which way we should have pitched it down
and what thing we would have taken and this and that. - Oof! - This is a strange way to describe something you did. Far from being a sound
he created and Joey merely edited, whenever he has
to describe any specifics, all of a sudden it
was done by committee. Tommy isn't lying
about who did what here. Quite the
opposite, really. He's specifically avoiding lying
by being as vague as possible about something that would
be easy to talk about if he actually made
the sound himself. - So I--I--I took
this little girl's, uh-- we took the clip, right? And, um--and then what we did
is we edited it and we--we--we kept the length
of the sound. - He struggles to come up
with anything he actually did. Like his knowledge helped? - And, um, we'll say, uh, um-- I wanna say this right. I mean, it took a lot of, uh,
my
knowledge of audio to create this sound
and make it sound, uh, unique. Now that people know about me, they know about how I created
the "Roblox" sound-- - After seeing a guy
specifically avoid saying "I" and say "we" dozens of times
and then finish the story by saying, "So that's how I made
the sound," it just comes off
really disingenuous. One quick indicator
of what he could mean by "we" is at one point he uses it
to describe the act of exporting the sound out
of the program. - You know, compr
essing it
and making it all, EQing it and doing all
these crazy things to it, uh, before we ended up saving
it out, so-- - When he says "we" here,
he just means Joey. It only takes one person
to hit "save" on a file, and that's the one thing we know
for sure Joey did. Like with the money situation, it's hard not to read into why
Tommy's talking strangely. It starts to sound like Joey
did most of the work but then that would mean
someone else deserves the credit for creating
the sound so all of a
sudden this
.3 second sound effect becomes a team effort. That's Tommy's version of how the sound was made. He says "we" but sometimes when
he says "we" he just means Joey.
So, what's Joey's version? Joey's been pretty quiet about
all this, and good for him. His career's still going strong,
unlike some people's, and I'm sure he
has better things to do than litigate who made
an ancient sound effect, unlike me who apparently has plenty of time
for that shit. However, Kuras does have
a web site wh
ere he maintains credits
for every game he's worked on since 1993 and he's
still updating it today. Next to "Messiah," Joey puts "design
of all sound effects." After witnessing someone
claim Joey did it, change their mind,
delete the story, and then talk
in very vague terms about who did what--
- Um-- - Seeing someone just say, "I designed all
the sound effects," is like a breath of fresh air. This is another reason why
I find Tommy's first version of the story more believable. Not only is it un
tainted by
his later discovery how popular the sound was, it's also what the other person
who worked on the game said, but this really makes it look
like Tommy's stealing credit from someone else
who worked for him now. It was just a hunch before
but now I dunno. And here's when the fun,
easy video about the "Roblox" "oof" I
was trying to make ended and the horror
of my new life began, because while I
was on Joey's page, I noticed something else-- designer of all sound effects
for "Tony Hawk's P
ro Skater." This was very confusing
to read because Tommy's spent the last several decades
say he worked on "Pro Skater." - "Tony Hawk Pro Skater."
"Tony Hawk Pro Skater." "Tony Hawk Pro Skater." Uh, I was on the original "Tony
Hawk Pro Skater," uh, team. I was on the original
"Tony Hawk Pro Skater" team. - I'm not saying Tommy didn't
work on it. It's just some places seem
to disagree with him. Places like the credits
of "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater." [funky music] According to them,
someone else did
the in-game sound effects. I'll give you three guesses--
it was--it was Joey. It was Joey,
although the company he was at is credited as well. It's like they're saying
sound effects done by this guy from this company, but Tommy's acting like
he personally did it again. I'm starting to feel
a bit bad for Joey. Just to kind of add
to the mystery, he talks about how small
the development team was at the time to kind of add to the exclusivity of it,
I guess. - You know, being a part
of the original
, uh, "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" team,
you know, there was only about maybe 10
or 12 of us. - This means very
few people exist who could possibly
contradict him. How convenient.
[laughs] It does make it even weirder,
though, for such a small team
to leave his name out of the credits. I guess Tommy could say
his name is in there but only because his company is named Tommy Tallarico
Studios. So, who is responsible
for the sounds in "Pro Skater;" the guy credited for it, or his boss who says
he did it
now? In an older
interview-slash-house tour, Tommy got a bit more specific. He said he'd buy skateboards--
oh, sorry. I mean, "we'd" by skateboards. - And then Tommy would help this mysterious
other person record the sounds. He says one
of the pain sound effects-- ironically also
a kind of oof-- is his actual voice. - The actual sound
in "Tony Hawk" that you hear when the guy falls off
the skateboard and cracks his head open–
- [shouting] - That's me falling off,
cracking my head. - [groaning re
peatedly] - So Tommy might have helped
with some of the sounds, or at least at some point Joey
recorded him falling off a skateboard.
Strangely, though, while he says he was on
the "Pro Skater" team nowadays, at the time things
were very different. You see,
as I mentioned earlier, Tommy was on a TV show
about games while "Pro Skater" was being made. The thing about journalism is it's usually frowned upon to cover or review
a product you helped create without disclosing you worked
on it, and to h
is credit,
Tommy's very good at this. When he and co-host Victor
cover games he was involved with,
they make sure to say it. Take "Advent Rising," a game he composed a ton
of music for. - "Advent Rising."
- I'm not gonna-- I'm not gonna comment on any of the music in the game 'cause I am completely biased. - This is--
and I mean this unironically-- ethical gaming journalism. Also, you might have noticed
but Tommy kind of likes to brag about games
he's worked on. One time they reviewed
an "Aladdi
n" game and they brought up
that Tommy worked on a different
"Aladdin" game's music eight years before. - It was a great throwback to the 16-bit platformer days and I know you worked on
the original "Aladdin" game, so you must have felt like you
were coming home a little bit. - Deja vu!
- Yeah. - [laughs] - Tommy not only
understands disclosure, he loves doing it. If Tommy worked on a game
or a game similar to the one being reviewed,
you hear about it on this show. So what does it mean when Tomm
y
doesn't say he worked on a game? While "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater"
was being made, it was featured on the show. Tommy interviewed one
of the developers. Later when it came out, Tommy and Victor reviewed it and both gave it
a 9.5 out of 10. If Tommy worked on this game's
sound effects, he would have said so,
wouldn't he? Well, he doesn't. At no point whatsoever
in the coverage does Tommy disclose he worked
on the game. Tommy behaves like
a TV guy interviewing a game developer, which would be a bit
weird if he was also on
that development team, right? I can only think
of a few reasons why Tommy wouldn't mention
he worked on the game when he goes out of his way
to do so normally. One is he randomly decided not
to take credit for something which seems out of character
and pretty dishonest considering how hard he promoted the game, and he seems
to know better than that. The alternative is, while he had helped Joey out
a little, Tommy at the time didn't
consider whatever input he gave big eno
ugh
to justify telling people he was involved,
which is fascinating to me. There is potentially
a past version of Tommy who-- if he honestly thought
about it-- would choose not to say
he worked on "Pro Skater," which is cool of him. However, then "Pro Skater"
went on to be a really famous franchise
and it became very cool to say you worked on it. - I was on the original
"Tony Hawk Pro Skater" team. - And over the years
Tommy's story has grown a bit from helping with some
of the sounds to, uh, do
ing all of them. - I was on the original
"Tony Hawk Pro Skater Team" so I did all those, uh, sounds. Audio director on that.
Uh-- - Wait, now he's saying he
was the audio director? He--he's not even in
the credit-- Let's quickly look
at who did what on games Tallarico Studios
worked on. On the vast majority, Tommy is often credited
for music but he doesn't
do sound effects much. Sound effects--or sound design
as it was later called-- is usually done by Joey. A game Tallarico Studios
worked on al
most always has music by Tommy, sound effects by Joey
in the credits. Basically, when Tommy
and Joey work on games together, it's pretty clear who did what. In fact,
in the early 2000s, Tallarico Studios put out
a sound effects library you could buy and use
in your own projects with over 19 and a half thousand
sound effects in it. Tommy's the executive producer
so I'm sure he was involved in some capacity, but three other recorders
and editors are credited, along with the sound designer.
I wonde
r who it could be-- it's Joey.
It's always Joey. Joey credits himself
as the lead sound designer at Tallarico Studios
for 13 years. The thing he did
was sound effects. Even on "Electric Playground--"
Tommy's show-- Joey is credited
for additional sound effects, so maybe Tommy didn't say
he did the sound effects on "Pro Skater" because
he knew Joey would see it. Given Tommy's tendency
to take games his sound effects guy
is credited for and say he did all the sounds, what does that sort
of thing m
ean for his later claims
about "Messiah" and making the "oof?" Well, wouldn't it be funny
if Tommy also reviewed "Messiah" on TV,
and when he did, he again did not mention
he worked on the game? Wouldn't that be very,
very funny? Yeah, it is funny.
That is what happened. Even funnier,
on that same episode, they also reviewed
the Dreamcast version of "Pro Skater," giving Tommy
yet another opportunity to say he worked on it,
which he didn't. There's starting to be
a precedent for Joey doing things
,
being the one credited for it, Tommy reviewing it and not mentioning
he worked on it, and then years later deciding
he did. Coming back to how he talks
on the stream, "we" could mean,
"We both worked on this sound," but to be cynical, it can also mean, "Joey did it while working
for me." "Messiah" is one of the two
or so games I could find that Tallarico Studios made
where they are both credited for the sound effects at once, so potentially Tommy might
have been more involved with the sound ef
fects
on this than normal. So our candidates are a guy
who mostly did music and not sound effects, reviewed the game on television
and chose not to say he worked on it, and when he later decided he did and he made this sound, carefully avoided taking credit
for anything specific-- - Um--
- Or the guy credited for sound effects
on almost every other game who says he did it, who Tommy said did it before
he changed his mind the first time,
and whose name is on the file. In conclusion,
who knows? Co
uld have been either of them.
Maybe it was both. Art is really a collaborative
proce-- okay, that was written
as a joke about how heavily the deck is stacked here,
but let's be serious. I haven't found
any definitive proof here. I think it's interesting just
how much Joey is credited for sound effects
everywhere else and I think it's weird that Tommy didn't really
have any specifics to say about what he did on
the sound, and I think if he did work on
the game that closely, he should have said so
when he
reviewed the game on television, but none of that
is specific proof of who recorded or mastered
a specific sound effect. However, given all
of this additional context and information, I can say at least for myself that I have
some trouble believing Tommy when he says he made the sound, but when you decide something
a well-known industry figure like him has said is suspect, you start to ask,
"Well..." "What else has he said?" This guy's been around
for decades and he's said a lot of thin
gs. I started investigating some
of his other claims. I did it mostly to prove
to myself I was just being silly so I could believe him when he
said that he made the sound. I wanted to be able
to put this to bed and move on with my life. I just couldn't accept that
the first American to ever work on "Sonic"
would lie like that. Hey, wait a second! [drum roll] [percussive music] Yes, Tommy has repeatedly
said he's the first American
to ever work on "Sonic." - In fact,
I was the very first American
to ever be hired by
the "Sonic" team. Back in the day.
- [exhales sharply] Are you serious?
- Very first Amer--yeah. Very first American to be--
to be hired. I'm one of the first Americans
to ever, uh, be hired, uh, by Sega of Japan,
uh, for the "Sonic" team. Uh, I was the first American
to ever be hired to work on the "Sonic, uh,
the Hedgehog" series. - But if you don't take
Tommy's word for it and do your own research, by which I mean basically
Google "Sonic" for two seconds, you start to see
red flags. "Sonic" was being developed
in America as early as 1992 when "Sonic 2"
was being made in California. [glass shattering]
Americans are all over "Sonic's" game development
since almost the beginning. Which game did Tommy work on,
anyway? - "Sonic," uh--some of the, uh--
one of the "Sonic" games. "Black Knight," that might
have been in the 2000s. - So Tommy was about
20 years late to the party of Americans
working on "Sonic." Okay, let's be charitable. Maybe he means first American
to d
o music for the series, but if he thinks that, Tommy's been crushing
too many 40s. That was terrible. I promise to live
and learn from the--oh, fu-- but this "first American" stuff
gets even deeper. There are layers to this shit. One particular
American musician-- Michael Jackson--was rumored
for decades to have worked on "Sonic 3." This was seemingly confirmed
by Yuji Naka earlier this year, actually. This would make Jackson
the first American to do a "Sonic" soundtrack. Maybe there are some Am
ericans
who worked on one earlier. I'm not sure.
I'm not deep into "Sonic" lore. I'm no Harrington Splinby. Now, you could say,
"Well, sure, "maybe that means Tommy
is wrong about being "the first American, "but there's no way he could
have known that. We only found out
for sure recently." And, yeah, to be fair,
that would be true. Were it not for the fact Tommy
has also been bragging about knowing back
in the '90s that Jackson worked on "Sonic." - So I was really close
with the, uh-- the Sega f
olks back
in the early '90s. I don't know if it
was ever confirmed or not but, uh--but I can tell you
that he did do the music for "Sonic 3." - This was at a con in 2014, before he started saying he
was the first American. So either he knew he was lying
when he started saying that, or he made this shit up, too. Which one is the lie? At this point,
why not both? I don't trust
this story about knowing about Jackson either, frankly. I think he just made up a story
to seem involved with another impo
rtant piece
of history. That seems to be
his M.O. at this point. This is just one example of what we could charitably
call exaggeration, but realistically we call lies. The more I tried
to check things Tommy said to prove to myself that any
of it was true, the more it all came apart. Okay, so what about
the "Metroid Prime" thing? He said in a bunch
of places including the "oof" stream that he worked
on "Metroid Prime." - Uh, "Metroid Prime"
with Shigeru Miyamoto. Uh, worked on that for, uh--
for
a couple years. And I worked
with him on Metroid. Uh, "Prime," the first one.
- Mm-hmm. - And we worked together
for about--gosh, I wanna say four or five years. "Metroid Prime,"
I worked with that with, uh, Shigeru Miyamoto
for five years. I worked with Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of "Mario"
and "Zelda." Worked with him for five years
on, uh, "Metroid Prime." - He doesn't just say
he worked on it, actually. He says Shigeru Miyamoto
was a personal huge fan of his work and always wanted
to wor
k on a game with him. - We always talked
about working together. Like, "Oh, man, I really love
all your 'Mario' stuff," and he'd say, "Oh, man,
I love all your-- your stuff that you do." Like, "Oh, we gotta work
together sometime," you know? - I don't know if that part
of the story is true, but Tallarico Studios
was contracted to work on "Prime."
Not music, by the way. "Prime" already had a composer.
They just did sound effects. That might turn out
to be important later. But early in development
Retro canceled all their other projects
to focus on "Prime" and suddenly didn't need
outside help to get the audio done,
and his contract wasn't renewed. Tommy will confirm this part
of the story himself. - My contract was coming
to an end, was around the same time that--
that Retro's projects were all getting canceled except
for "Metroid" and they had
an internal audio department. - So he did work on it briefly,
but again with the exaggeration. For him to be dropped so easily
implies Miyamoto
wasn't as invested in working
with Tommy as he says. Tommy doesn't just say he worked
on "Prime's" sound effects for a bit and Miyamoto
was a huge fan, though. His story gets way more exotic. He tells people Miyamoto didn't
give him any direction or visuals or animations
to make sound effects to. He told him to just make
what he thought was cool and the development
team designed the weapons and animations
around his sounds. - "Give us a bunch
of epic weapon sounds "and then what we're gonna do
i
s I'm gonna give those to my artists and then they
are gonna be inspired "by the sounds that you make
and we're gonna inspire the art and the thing." Wow, so cool! - This is
an unprecedented amount of control
for an external audio contractor to have over a project. Plus it just doesn't mix
very well with the fact he left
really early in development. Did Miyamoto change his mind? Why didn't he make Retro keep
him on board if he had such
an important job? It also doesn't mix
with other stories fro
m Retro Studios'
actual audio department. He did an interview
for Shinesparkers where he told this story about
Miyamoto letting him design the weapon sounds first. However, Shinesparkers
then went on to interview Clark Wen,
"Prime's" audio lead, who came on board after
the other games were canceled and Tommy was gone. Wen is well-respected in the game audio industry. He's worked on a bunch of stuff including "Tony Hawk" games,
interestingly enough. According to him, they did sound effects
the no
rmal way, basing their work off
the art and animations. There's something amazing
about reading an interview with Tommy
where Miyamoto blessed the project
with a radical new technique where the sound designer had massive creative
control over the game and then going to the interview
with Wen where they say, "We interviewed Tommy
and he said you did this," and he goes,
"That sounds cool, but no!" Wen says one
or two weapon sound effects were done when he got there and he left them
mostly untouche
d. So a few of the sounds in
the game are done by Tallarico Studios
and they might have been done the way Tommy said, but his overall involvement with the game was very small.
How small? He left so early in development, they forgot he had worked on it
by the time the game was done and forgot to put his name
in the credits. A bunch of other audio
contractors made it in, though. They must have kept contracting
people after he left and not got him back. Weird.
I wonder why. After seeing Tommy repea
tedly
take credit for the work
of people under him, it's kind of cathartic seeing
a bunch of other people get credited and for him
to be forgotten. However, he's not the only one. Someone's missing
from Tommy's version of the story again.
Can you guess-- in a now-deleted page on
his web site accessible via The Internet Archive, Tommy wrote about leaving early
in development, although he still claims he did a lot of the main
sound design somehow. Funnily enough, he doesn't
say "I" too much. He sa
ys "we."
I wonder who the other per-- it's Joey!
It's always Joey! He shared a recent e-mail
from Retro's new audio manager to prove he worked on it
and he compliments the work Tallarico Studios did, but he says it like this. "My hat is off to you Tommy
and Joey!" What makes this story
even funnier is how, you know, Tommy was on
a TV show that reviewed games when "Prime" came out. Tommy didn't mention
he worked on it, which makes sense.
He was barely involved. But one fascinating thing
that hasn
't come up yet is Tommy just
has terrible taste. - "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?" The characters
are incredibly stupid. - He complained about
"Prime's" backtracking and scanning system-- stuff people love about
the game-- and absolutely refused
to let Victor get a word in edgewise. - I had to scan every little
thing in every room. - There's a great story
in there as well. I mean--
- And that's a problem for me, but the worst--
- I enjoyed all of that. - The worst problem about
this game-- - Yes.
-
Is the-- - He gave it a 7.5 which,
according to Metacritic, would be
the absolute lowest score any remotely professional critic
gave it at the time, even less than the eight
the guy who wrote the text reviews
for "EP" gave it. Tommy was not the biggest fan
of this game, but now
it's universally recognized as a masterpiece he can't wait
to tell you he was a huge part of it. It's kind of fascinating how
these two supposed industry professionals each talk
about their work. Joey doesn't mention "Pri
me"
at all on his site. Presumably he doesn't consider
his work a large enough part of the finished game
to go on a resume. Meanwhile, Tommy talks like
he worked hand in hand with Shigeru Miyamoto
for five years on "Metroid Prime." "Oh, come on, hbomb.
Be reasonable. He doesn't say it like that."
- No, he says it like that. - But he said on
his own web site he left early. He left so early they forgot
to put him in the credits. He knows he's not telling
the truth when he says this. Okay, look, ma
ybe I'm just
a gaming racist but is it okay at this point
to call this an obvious lie? - It must be very difficult
to work hand in hand with someone on a game they famously did not work on
very much. Retro Studios is based in Texas. Miyamoto was a distant producer
who occasionally gave notes. Several former Retro employees
have even suggested he gave "Metroid"
to a new company in America that hadn't made any games yet because he didn't like "Metroid"
that much, some insinuating he didn't
really
get "Metroid's" type of game play. Miyamoto pawned off IPs like this repeatedly, actually. He visited Rare one day
and made them turn a game they were making into
a "Star Fox" game because he had no idea what else
to do with "Star Fox," and we all know
how that turned out. It's actually pretty good.
People are just mean. "Prime" is great but it happened
because Miyamoto outsourced an IP he didn't like
to a bunch of Americans so he didn't have
to think about it, which gives
very different implica
tions to Miyamoto asking Tommy
to do the sound effects. So now almost every game
he's bragged about working on has turned out to be
a gross exaggeration. The only other games
he talks about are "Earthworm Jim"
and "Aladdin." I guess there's one more.
Uh, "Guitar Hero." - "Guitar Hero." "Guitar Hero," uh, franchise. Uh, did some work on, uh, some
of the, uh-- the first three
"Guitar Hero" games. You know, like some
of the games I've worked on. "Disney's Aladdin,"
"Earthworm Jim," "Guitar Hero." -
Are any of his songs on
the soundtrack? Uh, no.
Did he do sound effects? It doesn't look like it. Is he credited on any
of the games? On one of them, yeah. According
to a Joystick interview-- rest in peace, comrade-- he helped them get
an Aerosmith song on two because his cousin
is Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. He's in the credits
of "Guitar Hero 2" in the industry thanks section. His involvement seems--
I dunno--kinda small. It's mostly people
who championed the first "Guitar Hero"
when it came o
ut. You know, game journalists
and celebrities. And Wil Wheaton. Interestingly,
alongside Brad Shoemaker, Ryan Davis,
and of course Jeff Gershman, also in these credits
is Patrick Klepek who 15 years later would go on
to make him delete a legal threat by asking him
a basic question. This is the total extent
I can find of Tommy's involvement
with the "Guitar Hero" games but I must be missing something. The way he brings it up, you'd think he
was massively involved. - I worked on
the "Guitar Hero"
games-- the--the first three. Um, the third one
was "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith." Um, now you know why. - I want to assume Tommy
was joking there but at this point I don't know. The more you look
at Tommy's weird exaggerations, overstatements of credit, his use of "we" to mean Joey,
the more you see it. It starts
to take over your mind. You start to ask yourself
if even the stuff he couldn't possibly
be lying about is a lie.
Like, okay. Are those Guinness
world records real? I assumed even
if every
thing else was fake, they would be real,
at least. There's no way anyone
could get away with such an obvious lie.
It would be too easy to check. But it turns out if something
is easy to check, no one actually doe-- [techno music] ♪ ♪ Let's start with the big one. That's what he calls it,
at least. I--that's--I hold
the Guinness world record for the person who's worked on the most video games
in their life. My--my mother's very proud. The person who's worked on
the most video games in their lifet
ime. My mother's very proud. For the person who's worked on
the most video games in a lifetime, so that--
that was pretty cool. My mother's very proud. For the person who's worked on the most video games
in their lifetime, which is kinda--kinda crazy. Kind of a cool honor.
My mother's very proud. The person who's worked on the most video games
in their life. [cheers and applause]
But, yeah. My, uh... My mother is very proud. - There's several problems
with this one. Let's start with how the numb
er
of games he's worked on keeps expanding,
and not in the sexy way. By the time of his first
Guinness world record in 2008, he'd worked on the production
of 272 games. Around this time he stopped
doing music for games and started focusing
on Video Games Live. - Video Games Live is--
takes up such a huge part of your--
- Yeah. - Your time and your career--
- Yeah. - So have you ever considered
going back to, like, full time video game composing?
- No. [laughs] - There was this period
in the earl
y 2010s where the last game he'd officially
worked on outside of "Super Tofu Boy" was "Sonic
and the Black Knight." - The last game I composed for
was actually a "Sonic" game and that was a couple years ago,
yeah. - But somehow two years later he
had a record with over 300 games on it. In October 2017 he said
he'd worked on over 300 games. - In fact I have
a Guinness world record for the person who's worked on
the most video games in their lifetime--
over 300 games. - But by the time
of the "oof
" stream in January 2020--
just over two years later-- it was over 350. - And, uh, I've worked
on over 350, uh, video games. - He had a busy couple
of years there. - I read today, uh,
300 video games you've had your hands in. Th--That can't be a real number. - That--that's actually 350,
yeah. - Wow.
- It's up to 350 now. That I know a lot of people in
the industry. I've worked on two-hundred
and fif-- uh, 350 games in my career. - Okay, Tommy seems
a little confused himself how many he's done so
,
you know, just for his sake, we should probably
double check how many. So, uh, is there
a list somewhere? His Wikipedia page lists far
less games than he says he's worked on.
Fewer--goddamn it-- I used Wikipedia
for that visual earlier showing the games he'd worked on
in the early 2010s. Let's show everything else
he did afterwards. Nothing. He cameoed
in "Retro City Rampage" and that's it,
according to Wikipedia. His IMDb splits his credits into
a dozen different categories but not games, tel
evision,
and movies because it's a horrible web site, and the composer
and sound department credits have a bunch of games repeated
in both. [clicking] Wow, he's credited for some of them three times. Even "Messiah's" in there twice. [clicks]
"Earthworm Jim 2's" in there four times? But even adding literally all the video game credits together
including all the duplicates, you get less than half
the number he said he'd done 15 years ago.
What the fuck is happening? His MobyGames page lists
about
100. Uh, it's 6:13 a.m. right now
and my eyes went a bit blurry while I
was counting. It could be, like, 98.
Either way, it's a lot less than 350 and I'm not recounting
this shit. And that's counting a bunch
he's just in the thanks for like "Guitar Hero 2." It doesn't list "Pro Skater"
because he's not in the credits for that
even though MobyGames appear to have copy-pasted
the official biography from his web site
which claims he did. They somehow managed
to get "Pro Skater" to link to the corre
ct game page but not to get
the spelling right. Okay, none of these web sites
can be trusted. Thankfully, Tommy
has taken it upon himself to make his own list
of games on his web site. This list is larger, and I mean a lot larger than
the others, and since Tommy wrote it, there's some dubious names
on here. "Pro Skater" and "Guitar Hero"
are on there and so is "Metroid Prime." Obviously, he personally
held hands with the development team
while they made it. But so is "Prime 2," a game I've never
seen
any mention of him touching
anyone's hands on. Did they reuse some sounds
him-slash-Joey made, so that counts as working
on both? - And I guess I can now
add "Roblox" to that list off games. - If Tommy thinks he
can put "Roblox" on the list of games he
has "worked on..." Imagine what justifications
other games are on this list for. One of Tommy's actually
interesting contributions to game history
is early PlayStation One models came
with a demo disc to show what the console could do, and s
ome of his music is in the menus and titles. The first sounds ever made
by some early PlayStations would be music made by Tommy. This is kind of neat and cool, and it's also weird seeing
"PlayStation Demo Disk" in a list of games composed for. In general, this list has quite
a bit of what we call "padding." Tallarico Studios
did additional music for the first "BloodRayne"
so that's one game worked on, right? Well, it's on Tommy's list
five times as each console version along
with PC and Mac. I'm
not sure why you'd want
to give "BloodRayne" such a strong presence
on your resume, but each to their own. He also did the music
for "Earthworm Jim 1" and "2." An "Earthworm Jim" game
is on his list 18 times. "Super Tofu Boy--"
a free flash game PETA made he donated music to--
is on here twice. You can run flash games
on the Mac, too? Wow, that's an extra game
worked on. Fuck you, Tommy. But even counting all of this-- all the games he wasn't credited
for but still puts on his list, the multipl
e times the same game is counted across
many different consoles or computers or demo disks
as specific games worked on is still a lot less
than the number he says. If you decide to be a bit mean
and remove all the repeat games you get around 175, almost 100 less than his first
Guinness world record said 15 years ago. So either he stopped updating
his web site and IMDb, MobyGames,
Wikipedia, and everywhere else
also stopped tracking the games he worked on, or--Bob forgive me-- the first American
to ever work on "Sonic"
is exaggerating again. In an interview in 2010, he said he worked on
280 video games, which is a Guinness world
record. "Actually inside
the Guinness book "as the person who worked on the most video games
in their life." This sentence almost made me cut
my fucking head o-- Tommy isn't "actually inside" the "Guinness Book
of World Records" he's talking about here. Trust me.
I checked. He is, however,
inside that year's "Guinness Book of World Records:
Gamer's Edition." The
"Gamer's Edition" is full
of more game-centric records. Notice that
it's also much smaller and the print quality's
much worse, and generally it's
a lot less prestigious than being in the actual book. My producer, Kat, left a comment
on that line in the script saying, "it's a bit like saying
you gave a TED Talk when really you just gave
a TEDx talk," not realizing how
fucking funny she was being because Tommy has done
a TEDx Talk. My mother's very proud. - When his biography on
his web site call
s it a TED talk.
He is exactly that guy. She is so cool.
I love her. Tommy is at least featured
in the "Gamer's Edition." It's a two-page interview about
his career and Video Games Live. At the beginning
of the interview, the author claims Tommy
has worked on more game soundtracks
than anyone else. They don't say how
they verified this or provide the list of games. It seems a bit
like Tommy just told the interviewer this
in the interview and they repeated it
as a factoid assuming it was true bec
ause why
would someone tell such an obvious lie? Whatever evidence he
has backing up his claim is becoming difficult to find. Luckily this wasn't
too expensive on eBay. Uh, supplies are quite low but the demand is just me,
basically. I mentioned
how surprisingly cheap these were to MandaloreGaming
and he started bulk buying them to leave in Airbnbs
he stays in like a sort of Gamerdean Bible, so if they seem
more expensive now it's because he's
artificially inflated the price. Speaking
of artific
ial inflation, even if the amount
of games Tommy says he's worked on
was completely true, there are still people
who've worked on way more games. The record is just wrong. Even Guinness at some point
recognized this. They actually changed
the wording of the record at some point after
he first got it. It's not "person who
has worked on the most games in a lifetime," anymore. It's "most prolific composer
of game soundtracks." The Guinness web site
says that now and the updated versions of Tommy's
plaques say that,
too. So Guinness have done
their best to correct this mistake. Tommy, however,
has continued using the original name anyway
for over a decade. In fact, I own
the Guinness world record for the person who's worked on
the most video games in their lifetime. - Another one of those sweet little lies we've
become accustomed to Tommy using. Although I can kind
of understand this one, because the new name
is even more obviously a lie. I know for a fact Tommy has not made
280 video game
soundtracks. We need to acknowledge just
how bonkers this clip is. He's saying "most video games
in a lifetime" while showing footage
of the new record with a different name. Bonus points for the fact
the record says, "more than 300 games," but then it cuts
to a list he wrote with less than 300 games on it, and just in case it needs
to be said, no, Guinness are not a real record-keeping
organization. They're a novelty book company. It's already
a pretty common joke that most of their records ar
e just silly stuff someone
made up so they can have a record, like, "most baseball bats broken
in one minute." That's a silly one
I just made up now. Just kidding.
It's real. I don't really mind
if Guinness track a bunch of silly records.
It's just a bit of fun, really. But they are an utterly
for-profit organization, not just in terms
of sales of books but also sales of records. Guinness has
an entire subsection on their website dedicated
to business marketing solutions, promising they can help
with PR
and marketing campaigns complete with a case study section
showing over a dozen pages of companies
they got attention for by helping them come up
with a new record to break like Canon with its "longest
digitally printed photograph." If you have the money, you can pay them
to help you break a record. I have my suspicions a lot
of the silly record holders are independently
wealthy people. You know, some people just want
a record to call their own to give their empty lives
a sense of meani
ng. Guinness aren't purposefully
keeping track of who's broken the most bats
or wasted the most money on a "Pokemon" card. Having a Guinness adjudicator
on site to verify and give out the award on
the day is super expensive; at minimum $10,000
plus transport and hotel costs. This stuff gets expensive fast. They aren't a neutral party
tracking human achievements. They are a paid service
and many of their record holders are basically just customers. You'll notice that when
it became clear someone
else should have
the record for most games made in a lifetime, they didn't give someone else
the record. They changed it to one Tommy
was more likely to have. I'm curious how much they charge
for their service. Guinness's records
search function claims Tommy is involved with two more. These are for Video Games Live. What great marketing
these must have been. They are "most video game
concerts performed" and "largest audience for a live video game
music concert." Let's quickly appreciate
how snea
ky these records are. VGL haven't come close
to performing the most concerts, but most video game concerts--
now that's a record, and it's highly specific
so no one can challenge it. In fact, you literally can't
challenge it. The Guinness web site says
these records are not accepting
active submissions. This is a special record
only Tommy can get. And wouldn't you believe it? At his 357th concert, one of those prohibitively
expensive adjudicators turned up to hand him the latest version
of these
two records. But let's look closer
at "largest audience for a live video game
music concert for a second. Uh, the biggest symphony show
ever seen live, over 752,000 people
watching us live in Beijing, China. - This would
be pretty impressive. Would you be shocked
if I told you Tommy's story is inaccurate? Not all of those 752,000 people were watching in person
in Beijing. Some of them were watching
it digitally on a live stream
on a Chinese video web site. - Biggest symphony show
ever seen live
, 752,000 people watching
me live on stage. That was in Beijing. - It's a bit deceptive
to say they were watching you live on stage when they
were nowhere near the stage. How many people
were actually there? - Uh, the--the--the famous, um, uh, Bird's Nest National
Olympic Stadium. We played there. - I love that he says "outside"
when he means, "were watching a live stream." Like, is he trying
to imply hundreds of thousands of people stood outside just
to hear his show? But 100k people attending
a concert is still a lot. Still a lie, though! You know, I couldn't help
but overhear what venue he said this took place at. Bird's Nest National
Olympic Stadium. - The Bird's Nest
is a beautiful stadium and it must be amazing to play
in front of 130,000 people there. In case you're not familiar
with the Bird's Nest, allow me to read you
the beginning of its Wikipedia page. You're an hour deep into a video
about the "Roblox" "oof." You don't have anything better
to do. [clears throat]
"The Natio
nal Stadium, "also known as the Bird's Nest, is an 80,000-capacity stadium
in Beijing." [chuckling] I think I might have noticed a very small discrepenc-- during the 2008 Olympics
it hit its record attendance of 89,000 people. Tommy is claiming
he got better attendance than the Olympics
and can fold space, but because it's Tommy, there are layers
of mistruth happening here. You see, Tommy has the name
of the venue wrong. Guinness has an article about
this record, and they say it was set at the B
eijing
Exhibition Theatre which is a different place. At first I thought this
was just a one-off mistake. VGL have played both venues,
but the thing is, though, he always says it's
the Bird's Nest. - Uh, there was the Bird's Nest
in China-- Beijing National
Olympic Stadium, 750,000 people. - Now, maybe he just has
the names really mixed up in his head. They are both in Beijing,
after all. Although it is a bit weird
to forget where you set your Guinness world record,
but whatever. But is there ma
ybe a reason
he says the name of this theater while claiming
he played to hundreds of thousands of people?
Well, there's one. It would be even more impossible
to play to 130,000 people at a theatre
with only 2,700 seats. The Guinness article
also happens to mention the actual number
of people physically at the concert:
2,086 people. So even When Guinness
has the numbers, he still makes shit up! Tommy, anyone can check this!
What are you doi-- I don't trust that many people
were watching the live
stream, either. There's no easily
obtainable record of the live viewership from the Chinese
streaming platform this appeared on,
so we-- and apparently also Guinness--
just have to take Tommy's word for it that almost exactly
750,000 people watched this live, and considering
we just caught him lying about this exact thing,
I have my doubts. Even though he has a record with
a specific number written on it, the number keeps changing. In an interview in the 2017 "Guinness Book
of World Records--"
the "Gamer's Edition,"
of course-- he directly claims over
a million people saw that show live. I cannot stress this enough. He is literally lying
to Guinness about a record Guinness just gave him. I--I just can't fucking
believe it! [laughing] I can't fucking believe it. That's all three
of the records Guinness appears to have on file
for Tommy Tallarico. Tommy seems to know better,
though. His list of awards on
his web site says he has four, the fourth one being most
video game concerts in a y
ear, a record I cannot
find anywhere other than his list of awards
and other interviews with Tommy. So, I dunno.
Maybe he has four. Well, his biography says
he currently holds five, so, I dunno!
The numbers just keep going up! Can he at least get
the record straight on the number of records? Okay, to be fair,
he has recently updated it. Lately he started saying
he has... [paper flapping] Seven. - Um, I have seven-- seven Guinness world records for--for different things. So what are all the other
s? You know, for a guy who--
let's be frank-- fucking loves bragging about all
the shit he's done-- - I've worked with everybody. I was the first American-- - Tommy
is uncharacteristically modest about saying all these other
four records are. In a reddit AMA
a few years back, he said he has seven, but just
to avoid wasting people's time, he only listed three of them. Would you like
to guess which three? When someone directly asks him
to list the records, he sheepishly adds
"most game concerts in
a year," but that's it.
The others are like ghosts. Tommy, how many Guinness
world records do you have? - Um, that's--
so I have seven. Um, one of the ones I have
is the most symphony shows in a single year, but I would say there th--
there's three big ones. The three big ones
are most shows, biggest live show ever seen,
and then the--the, um-- the most video games. So I have a total of seven, but there's three big ones. - He doesn't even have a riddle prepared for this one. He just refuses to
tell people. He's so shy all of a sudden. Luckily for us
in Tommy's investor videos for the Amico, we can see at least five
of them. So let's just take a look
and find out for ourselves. In the center
we have most prolific composer of soundtracks.
Okay. Can't verify he's done
that many games, but we at least know that one. The two either side say
"most video game concerts" and "largest audience." Those are the three
we know he has. Now for the mystery ones. To the right we have, "the record for
the most
video game concerts perf--" This is the same record. This is the previous version. This one's from 2014
with 293 shows. Uh, what about the one
on the left? "The longest r--
video game conce-- Video Games Live which
has performed 216--" these are the same
three record-- it's starting
to look like there's a good reason
the other four records don't get mentioned much. In one house tour he gave
in 2017, he has them all laid out on
the floor where they appear to have sat for five years now.
Look at that dust bunny. And Tommy calls them seven different Guinness
world records. - There's seven of 'em. Uh, seven different Guinness
world records, so-- I'm not sure how these
can be seven different records if when you pause the video
and look, several of them are the same, and I think when people get
too up close and personal with his records,
they start to notice this, too. In this clip he talks about two
of them--ones we know-- and then this weird cut happens. - That was the first one.
- That was the first one. - Yep, and then, uh--
and then the--for the shows, and then there--where's the--
- Pretty jealous. - I didn't edit that in.
I swear. I'd love to know what happened
between these two clips. Here's yet another fun fact. Guinness charges separately
for the award certificate and the plaque it comes in. They have a unique design,
they don't change very often, and they're pretty expensive. When Tommy got these two
in 2014, it looks like he just bought
two picture frames from
a store. I guess when you
have so many versions of the same record already, you get sick of paying
full price for them. I'm not just bringing this up
to make fun of him, although I am, but it's actually
really useful data. You know how I mentioned
Guinness renamed his "most games" record? In this one tour
with the super awkward edit, another funny thing happens. Tommy reads out that record,
right? - This is, uh,
the Guinness world record for the person who's worked on
the most video games in a l
ifetime. - Wow.
- So that-- - But because he got a shitty frame for this one, we can check and see
the record he's reading from says something else. - For the person who's worked on
the most video games in a lifetime.
- Wow. - Tommy refuses to acknowledge
the new title and pretends it has
the old wrong name because it's a bit more prestigious. He's lying about the text
of a record he is literally holding
in his hands and pretending to read from. This guy's a fuckin' genius.
How has he never been
caught? I feel like I'm going crazy! You know how the concert records
say "videogame concerts?" If you've been paying attention, you'll notice Tommy always says
it's for symphony concerts or symphonic concerts. - Biggest symphony show
ever seen live. The most symphony shows
ever done. Uh, the biggest symphony show
ever seen live. Biggest symphony show
ever seen live. - Tommy knows his video game
concert record is extremely stupid
and out of embarrassment he calls it something else. Oh, maybe it
's not deliberate. Maybe he just got
the name wrong. No, I can prove it. Here's a time he does that while pointing at it and pretending to read it. - Here's one.
- Largest audience. 752,000 people. - We can see what
the record says in the previous shot, Tommy. Okay, let's wrap this up.. How many records
does Tommy have? Through a list of games
that cannot be found but keeps exploding, and by making up new definitions
of "concert," it looks like Tommy
has about three, but he owns seven plaques
of
them, so he tells people he
has seven different Guinness world records. And maybe he does have
a "most video game concerts in a year" one
and it's just never visible in shots of his records. Guinness only has three records
in their search, though. Well, had. Um, I was gonna move on
from Guinness at this point, but then there
was a new development in the search for Tommy's list
of games. After looking everywhere
for the list of 350-plus games Tommy's
+supposedly worked on-- or I guess "composed
for" now-- we realized there was one place
that would definitely have one: Guinness themselves. So we e-mailed them, and by "we" I mean Kat did it
for me. She did all the work. That's what people mean
when they say "we." They mean someone else
did it for me. "We" worked on the "oof" sound.
Yeah, right. I know this trick, Tommy. We--Kat--asked them
what evidence was provided for the record
and how it was verified. Guinness were really polite
and got back to us very quickly. Here was their respons
e. [belches] First off, this e-mail
provides me the incredible quote that the record
is "not evidence-based," which is just fantastic.
Thank you very much for that. This is one of the situations
where if you did the research you would have the evidence. This doesn't require
specialist consultation. It's a list of games.
On top of that, this implies Guinness
have never seen a list, either. The record was verified by
a consultant so someone somewhere says Tommy
has worked on this many games and Gu
inness believes them, but then something
even stranger happened. Previously when you typed
Tommy's name into Guinness's record search,
that record came up. One of the other VGL records
came up because he's mentioned by name
on that record. The other one doesn't. So those are
the ones that came up. This is a screenshot I took
in early September. Anyway, after we e-mailed them
asking how they verified it, I realized I needed
to take another screenshot because I'd scribbled
all over one of them, so
I went back... And the record didn't come up. Just the other one did. Right after we e-mailed them asking them where
their evidence was, and they said
they didn't have it, The record disappeared.
Did we... Did we just get one
of Tommy's records deleted? Oh, no!
[laughing] I didn't mean to do this! I just wanted
to see a list of games! Tommy, if you're watching this,
it wasn't me! It was Kat!
Please, don't-- [relaxing music] So now the breaks have come off
and this video is spiraling out of my c
ontrol. I've lost all hope
of figuring out what Tommy is doing or why. Doing the early research before
this all happened, it got kind
of nostalgic going back and rewatching ancient episodes
of "Electric Playground" and "Reviews on the Run"
and watching Tommy do his wacky boobery
and yell at Victor when he says normal things like
"Metroid Prime" is fun. I was trying to remember
if I ever found Tommy funny or if I was always just laughing
at him, you know? - [mocking voice] You know what I gotta s
ay
to you? I don't care what you think! - Even doing that level
of research, I fell back into
an ancient drama I saw unfold as a kid
and completely forgot about. Tommy's awful opinions used
to be a running joke on forums discussing
his show's reviews. People would bring up he gave
"Smash Bros. Melee--" one of the most beloved games
in human history-- a 2.5 out of 10.
It was a huge running joke. I learned about this because I
was a pretty big Mega64 fan as a teenager and they shot
some videos at
his house and even did an episode
of their podcast there. I remember watching this
on my iPod Nano on the bus. - Now we're
in another strange room. - This was shot just
as "Smash Bros. Brawl" had come out
and the gang made fun of his old review as well. - "Smash Bros." is now released.
- That's right. - Uh, Tom--uh, Tommy has gone
on record saying favorite game series
of all time. - There's this awful rumor
on the internet as-- as there always is--
- Mm-hmm. - That I gave "Smash Bros.,"
like, a
2.5 or something. So the reality is--is that we--
we never actually reviewed "Smash Bros." ever on G4.
- Oh, oh. - So people on
the internet who say that I gave "Smash Bros."
a low score-- - Yeah. - None of that.
- Bite--bite him. - Tommy is pointing
to the giant model dinosaur he has in his garden. Anyway, it's clear this rumor
really gets to him. In an IGN thread about
his "Mario Galaxy" review, this comes up
and Tommy T. shows up to defend himself because
he Googles his name and has nothing b
etter to do. He claims it's not true
but refuses to say what the real score
was because he thinks it's fun watching people
spout nonsense. So Tommy never gave "Melee"
a 2.5. That's just a rumor.
Leave him alone. Here's Tommy's review
of "Smash Bros. Melee." - What'd you think about
"Super Smash Bros. Melee" for the Nintendo Game Cube? - Well, you know,
I gotta tell ya, it's another Game Cube letdown. Another Game Cube disappointment
in my book. - 3 out of 10.
- I give it a two-and-a-half. - He s
aid this on TV.
People saw him. The footage exists.
This isn't speculation. When Tommy does something
people criticize him for, even something dumb
that doesn't need defending like a video game opinion, he just lies and says
he never did it. Like, why would you lie
about something so stupid and easy to check? I'm reaching the point where if Tommy says something, it's easier
to assume he made it up. His web site used
to have a page of famous people seen wearing
Tallarico Studios T-Shirts which is
a weird thing to document
in the first place but the thing is, though, every single picture on it
is Photoshopped. Like, what was his goal here? What is he even trying to do? Tommy's stratospheric levels
of clout-chasing have hit a point where
I literally can't tell if he's joking. He has a gallery page
with pictures of him performing and in magazines and so on, and there's
a celebrities section sowing off all the cool people
he's stood next to. Wow.
He's really proud of some of them because
he
keeps reposting them. This Jamie Lee Curtas picture
pops up on his Twitter when she's in the news
or it's her birthday. "She's a wonderful, kind,
and talented human being and a fan of
my Video Games Live show." But one of the pictures on here
is really strange. This one is of the Dalai Lama,
apparently. Before the Amico situation
deteriorated to the point he stepped down, he used to post
on the AtariAge forums and people were discussing the Amico's
"Karma Gaming Engine--" a feature Tommy later
admitted
he made up, by the way. During the conversation
about Karma, someone referenced
the Dalai Lama, so of course he reposted
that picture and said he met him in London
and he liked his music. The issue here
is this later turned out to be a wax statue
of the Dalai Lama from the Madame Tussauds
in London. This is an example
of what I've decided to call the "Tallarico
Event Horizon." Tommy has lied so much
about so many things, I can't even tell if this
is meant to be a joke. Is he doing a bit
? Is Tommy Tallarico
a CIA experiment to see how far you can get
in the liberal games industry by just making shit up? Is Tommy Tallarico just
a shadow on the wall of a cave? I--I started making this video
because I thought a sound effect was funny! I can't tell if he's joking
or if he genuinely wants to convince people he met
the Dalai Lama. Like I said, this was in a conversation about an Amico feature
it turned out he made up. - We have something that's
called our Karma Gaming Engine, and wha
t that means
is that everybody no matter what your skill level
can feel like you have a chance and that you're in the game. - I'm interested in
the fact that you're using the Karma Gaming Engine. Uh, where--
where did that come from? - Okay,
so the Karma Gaming Engine is just some shit we made up. - [laughing]
- Oh, okay. - Like, he literally made it up
to get people to invest and admitted it later. Everywhere you look, Tommy is trying
to build more prestige in ways that make no sense. Once Tomm
y had fled
the AtariAge forums after calling everyone
a gaming racist and stepping down, people started posting about how weird he was being and a guy told a story there about how he ran a display at the Houston Arcade Expo in 2018 showing off old Intellivision stuff right when the Amico
had just been announced. So he asked Tommy
if he wanted him to put out some business cards
advertising the Amico, which he did. His display won an award
at the show and when he mentioned this
to Tommy, he allege
dly asked him
to mail him the award. If this story is true, Tommy just assumed that
this award belonged to him. This is just an allegation. Normally I wouldn't bother
putting this in the video, but the problem is it tracks
so well with a lifetime of taking credit
for things he didn't do and making up awards, I find this story
too believable not to mention. Still, this doesn't mean Tommy
hasn't done good work in the industry or had any
legitimate achievements. To properly recognize
the good work
he's done, we ought to talk about G.A.N.G. The Game Audio Network Guild
is a group of industry professionals
dedicated to improving the craft,
helping people network, and recognizing
people's achievements with awards. Tommy has won a lot of awards from the guild over the years-- at least 16 by my count, and he's clearly very proud
of them because he puts them all up next
to his Guinness world records. Tommy Tallarico is also
the founder of G.A.N.G. - Recently, uh, I founded
a non-profit organiza
tion called the Game Audio Network Guild,
or G.A.N.G. - It's really funny seeing Tommy
give tours of his house in his G.A.N.G. T-shirt
and of his office with his G.A.N.G. desktop background, and then going to his web site
and seeing 16 awards from the group he founded
and was on the board of directors of at the time. - Tommy Tallarico,
composer and sound designer for video games, also the president
of the Game Audio Network Guild, also known as G.A.N.G. - G.A.N.G. even gave an award
for Best Sou
nd Library to that sound pack he made
with Joey's help. They've only given out
that award four times in their 20-year existence,
by the way. - And again, these are award-winning
sound effects. - At least we know the sounds
in the "Roblox" kit really are award-winning. Like, at this point, research for a video that
was supposed to be about the "Roblox" "oof"
has gone so far off course that I needed, like,
something that was base line obviously true to hang onto
so I could return to sanity. So I a
sked myself what I thought would be
the most obvious question. Was Tommy even on "Cribs?" - On YouTube,
like I said, there's a lot.
There's videos of your-- of your house and your--
- "MTV Cribs," I was on-- - And it's awesome, right? - You did an "MTV Cribs?" - Yeah.
- [laughs] - Yeah, they--they were
at my house. - Uh, didn't you have an episode of "MTV Cribs" back in the day? - Yeah.
- Like, he tells people it was "Cribs." He uploaded a video
to his YouTube channel saying it was "Cribs." So w
as it?
[laughs] No!
[snickering] "Cribs" is, you know,
a TV show. It has lists of episodes. You can just check! It was obviously a lie
the entire time. I don't know how no one
called him on it. Do gamers just not know
what "Cribs" is? "Cribs" went to the home of massively successful
musicians like Snoop Dogg and Maroon 5, or other really big celebrities
like Tony fucking Hawk. They did not go to the home
of the guy who might have made some
of the skateboard sounds for his game. Absolutely no nor
mal person watching MTV in the mid-2000s
is gonna know who Thomas the Tallarico Engine
even is! He did the soundtrack
to "Earthworm Jim." He's not a celebrity. Nobody gives a shit about
his fucking fountain! - The waterfall here. Which makes me wanna pee
at night, oddly enough. - "My mother's very prou--" "Cribs" had very specific
motion graphics and they always showed
the same factoids at the beginning
every time using the same visual. This video just has
a wall of text. MTV had a very specific
vibe
with its backing tracks. This thing uses easily
identifiable stock music. So identifiable,
YouTube flagged it. But if it wasn't "Cribs,"
then what was it? Someone in the comments says
they saw this on a disc that came with
a gaming magazine back in the day but I think
they're thinking of the other times he did that. Because Tommy's
a massive narcissist, his web site has
a video section with a meticulous collection
of his appearances and links to them on YouTube, some of which
he uploaded h
imself. He links this one and calls it "MTV Cribs" here,
too, along with two of his "PlayStation Magazine"
appearances. But here's the thing: Tommy's web site is ancient
and has several much older versions preserved
on the Internet Archive. On the versions from 2004
before YouTube was a thing, he would just put the videos
on his own site. Many of the videos
on the old site ended up as links to YouTube videos on
the new one. The "PlayStation Magazine"
house tour and interviews are here, along wit
h this "Around
the World in 80 Games" thing. There doesn't seem to be
a "Cribs" video on the old version of the site, which is a bit
of a red flag. Additionally,
there's one house tour that didn't seem to make it
to the new one done by Gamer.tv. The video itself on Tommy's site
wasn't archived, but Gamer.tv was a show
from the UK about gaming hosted by Sam Delaney. One episode had a feature
on ways to make money
in the game industry. Professional gamers,
voice actors, and of course
a certain com
poser. Hey, I'm Tommy Tallarico, composer and sound designer
for video games-- - Hey, wait a second. - Hey, I'm Tommy Tallarico composer and sound designer
for video games-- - So this episode is using
a cut-down version of the version we saw
in Tommy's video. So now we know who really shot
this footage. Gamer.tv used to have
a web site, gamer.tv. Oh, that's clever.
It's down now, but in archive's it's clear
the site used to have a video section
with extra stuff. One of the extra videos appears
t
o be about a gamer with a Ferrari
and a luxury home. I think Gamer.tv met Tommy
and toured his house, used clips from this
in their show, and uploaded
the entire house tour as a bonus feature
to their web site. The video linked here
is sadly not archived, either. At least,
not directly. It was preserved if, say,
Tommy downloaded it and put it on his own web site
and then later moved his video archive to YouTube. This is a kind of cool act
of video preservation except for the part where
it someho
w ended up being called "MTV Cribs."
How did that happen? I mean, the file on his web site
was named correctly. This would be a difficult thing
to get wrong unless he did it on purpose. - "MTV Cribs," I was on--
- It's--it's awesome, right? - Is Tommy just, like,
a pathological liar? Does he have to lie
to sound more interesting no matter what? Like how he went from saying he did some sounds for "Prime" to saying he worked on it
with Miyamoto for five years? Or how he went from being one
of the
voices in "Pro Skater"
to the audio director? Or how he went
from doing three songs for "Sonic and the Black Knight"
in 2009 to being the first American
to ever get to kiss Sonic on his little mouth? Every time something
comes up again, the lie has to get bigger. In that newer house tour
I showed, the guy asks Tommy about
if it was featured on "Cribs" and he says it
was on there more than once. - Tommy Tallarico has invited me
to his MTV crib. - [laughs]
'Cause this has been on "MTV Cribs," righ
t? - Uh, a couple times, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Why is he like this? Why are you like this? I know you're still watching,
Tommy. Explain yourself! What are you doing?
What are you fucking doing? [intense orchestra music] ♪ ♪ So... Yeah. Maybe every single thing Tommy has ever said is a lie. Maybe some of it is true, but bear in mind that even
if Tommy has lied, that isn't, like,
a crime. You can just lie to people.
Watch. I am a trained helicopter pilot.
See? You can just say things.
No one
can stop you. However, there are times
when lying does become a crime, and Tommy would know
this intimately because it cost him $100,000. In 2009 after putting on
a Video Games Live event in Brazil, Tommy returned to America with over $100,000 in cash
on his person. When you enter America
with more than $10,000, you have to declare it
for money laundering and trafficking reasons. Tommy knew he had to do this
but for some reason he didn't. His business associate who
was also his brother filed a
customs declaration
on their common behalf denying they were bringing that
much money into the country. Tommy knew this was false. When he was caught
at a TSA checkpoint with a bag with 100 grand in it, there were some
serious questions. He quickly made up a story
to explain himself. He told them he didn't need
to declare the money because he had distributed it among
his band members during the flight in amounts less
than $10,000, and then took the money back
once they were through customs, so n
o one needed
to declare anything. Tommy thought he
was being clever but he had just
accidentally confessed to the crime of structuring
where you deliberately avoid regulations by pulling stunts
like this. Structuring is a federal felony
with huge fines and up to five years
in prison attached to it. Later he came clean
and told investigators he lied and made up that story
and actually he just took the money over
the border himself. So when I call Tommy a liar,
that's not just my opinion. There is
also a legal document
signed by him admitting to it. Looking deeper into
United States v. Tallarico-- that's its name--
Tommy pled guilty, was placed on probation
for a year, forfeited the $102,000 seized
by customs, and had to pay a $1,000 fine,
plus a $25 assessment fee. America.
["Star-Spangled Banner" plays] There's a really interesting
lesson here. In the game industry
you can just lie about what games you worked on,
what sounds you made, and whether you worked
on "Cribs" and the only real
repercussion
is people finding you unpleasant but if you try that with
the TSA while carrying a large, unexplained bag of money,
there can be consequences. There are other ways lying
can be a crime, too. For example, if you lie
to potential investors to get their money. During one
of Tommy's many attempts to find investors
for the Amico, he told the exact kind
of Tommy-esque tall tales you would expect from him, but in a situation
where doing so can get you in serious trouble. In February 2021,
he recorded this video
for potential investors and lists the team of so-called
"Avengers" working at Intellivision,
one of whom was Cara Acker, a former marketing manager
at Mattel on Disney Princesses and especially "Frozen," which would be a great find
for the company, and thinking she
was on board might well have helped convince investors
to part with their money. If we scroll slightly higher
on her LinkedIn, though, we can see she actually left
Intellivision... In 2020. But here's Tommy tel
ling people in 2021 after she was gone
he has her on board so you should definitely invest. - Our VP
of Global Marketing used to work at Mattel as one
of the Global Brand managers over there, right? And she was in charge of the Disney brand
within Mattel so that's a double bonus there. - Um, is there a word
for lying to people for money? If this convinced people
to invest, they have grounds to say they
were lied to about the status of the company. You can't just pretend people still work for you
. On their Republic
crowdfunding campaign, which raised $11.5 million, the pitch video
for these investors featured Acker heavily
in Tommy's disgusting Egypt room as VP of Global Marketing. She was front and center as one of the intended draws
to investors. She was basically
the company's pharaoh. She's also still shown on
the list of team members, including, ironically, a link
to her LinkedIn which will tell you
she's actually gone. This crowdfunding campaign ended
in 2021. There was a period
o
f four months minimum where people
were investing based on a video and information
which was not accurate at the time
and never corrected. The Intellivision web site
listed Acker as VP of Global Marketing as late
as July, 2021, according
to the Internet Archive. Did the guy who ran
the web site quit, too? Investors using this web site
as a source of information would have a hard time
confirming who was actually at the company. - People don't give-- investors don't
give you millions of dollars un
less
you have hardcore facts. - I certainly hope there's
some facts I missed here. People gave this company
millions of dollars. Like, seriously,
I hope for Intellivision's sake, Acker just put the wrong date
on her LinkedIn, or there's gonna be
some questions. In fact if you click
the "Invest" button on the Intellivision web site, it takes you to the same video
with Acker still in it. - You know the Avengers, right? "Marvel Avengers,"
you know, they're the super team
of super heroes, ready to s
ave the world. - Also on Tommy's list
of Avengers was J Allard, the co-founder of the Xbox
and Xbox Live. This would make the company look
like it was on the right track and had some really
good minds attached to it. However, Allard decided
he wasn't a good fit and left the company. In 2020.
- Here's another one. How 'bout the guy who co-founded
and co-created the Xbox, right? When Tommy was saying Allard
was on the team in this footage to get people's money,
Allard was already gone. He was gone
to such an extent, he didn't just change
his LinkedIn to say he wasn't at
the company anymore. He removed it
from his page completely. Allard un-worked
at Intellivision, and after this happened, Tommy was shooting
a new video telling people he was in the Amico Avengers. - I mean, this guy
doesn't even need to work anymore, but he loves our idea
and concept so much that he joined the team
and has been making huge, huge contributions. - This particular comment
is incredible because on another inv
estment platform--
remember Fig? Tommy had previously bragged
about Allard's involvement in that investor video, too. He was actually at the company
when this one was made at least, And Intellivision's share
offering documents on Fig also claimed Allard
was involved, and that he was
the Global Managing Director. A while after Allard had left, the SEC noticed
Intellivision's Fig was still advertising he
was there. Investors were technically
being deceived. Also, a major member
of staff like the G
lobal Managing
Director leaving could be causing problems
with making the product they were promising
to investors, you know? So they asked Fig what
was going on, orally. Someone at a government agency
physically asked someone at Fig what the hell
was happening at Intellivision. Fig asked Intellivision
to clarify. Intellivision panicked
and said they would change the documents
and product development was unaffected by
his leaving because-- to quote Fig quoting
Intellivision-- he has not played
a
material role in product development
considering his contributions. - He joined the team
and has been making huge, huge contributions.
- Uh-- this is footage
of a CEO right before his company tells
a major government agency Allard is gone and hadn't made
meaningful contributions telling people he's on the team
and has been making huge, huge contributions
to get their money. I'm not a lawyer.
I'm just a helicopter pilot. But I don't think
it gets worse than this. - You know, this is the kind
of
thing that's, like, really, I mean--
talk about a slam dunk. - The people working
at the company are the main pitch
for the Amico. "Invest in me.
I don't lose. I have the best team." - I've been a winner in this
industry my whole career. I don't lose, and what I've done is packed
our team with other people who are winners. - Several of his key
team members weren't working there anymore
when he recorded this. One of them had even scrubbed it
from his LinkedIn. I don't think this
is giving potenti
al investors an accurate impression
of what they're buying into. This is the exact kind
of thing Tommy normally does but in this context
it's really bad. And this brings us
to the real question at the center of all this. The big thing
we've been avoiding for the last hour
while we circle the drain
but we can't avoid it anymore. Remember when that was the point
of the video? When we look
at the sum collective of all of his claims-- the Tallarico Totality,
if you will-- and we put it in context wi
th,
uh, reality, when Tommy says he created
the "oof--" this might just be me, but I don't believe him. Although at this point
if Tommy confessed I would assume he
was just trying to be cool. I'm sure if I was
a more reasonable person I could say the evidence
is all inconclusive and Tommy could have worked on
the sound maybe, but right now all I know
is Tommy is a huge liar and I hate him
and he made me forget what this video is about! [deep drumming] I promise you when
I started making this vid
eo my goal was to make
something short for once, take a break
from my longer projects to make a quick video quickly
so people knew I was alive. I did not expect while I
was doing research for a rabbit hole
to open beneath my feet and to fall
Wile E. Coyote style into an abyss of lies and madness
and seemingly getting one of his Guinness
world records sent to the fucking Shadow Realm. I didn't choose this! This happened to me
and I'm not happy about it. I wanted this to be
a story about how in ou
r modern age
we don't take ownership of artists' work
seriously enough through the lens of a sound effect that had been reused
without credit for over a decade, but the people
not being credited in this story are the hardworking folks
under Tommy who he has taken credit
from over the years and the original voice actor, none of whom will see any
of the money Tommy makes from selling their sound today. It is incredibly easy
for hard work to be exploited by corporations, and one
of those corporatio
ns happens to be called
Tommy Tallarico Studios, Inc. But that's really
a structural problem and we already
all know capitalism is bad. Statistically your most
formative memories are of a global
financial crisis. You don't need that lecture
from me. I think the unique lesson
of this story is about, well, records in multiple senses
of the word. What's really at stake here
is history-- how these events and people
will be remembered. Tommy has cultivated such
a reputation that when I asked about
th
e origins of a famous punch sound effect on Twitter, someone independently
brought him up and said they assume he must
have done it. He seems
to have done everything. At least,
he says he has. The man has successfully
inserted himself into conversation
about sound effects he didn't even make while
the people who did the work attributed
to him evaporate into namelessness. No one knows who Joey Kuras is and he made the sound effects people think Tommy did. He worked on fucking "Fortnite." I've hea
rd his sound effects
as they blast my Silver Surfer into dust. It's not right for him
and people like him to be forgotten. Games have always had problems crediting authors correctly. Early games were seen
as products first and creative work second, so credit wasn't
taken seriously. Creators used to not be allowed
to put their name on the game and had to hide them
in Easter eggs. Mark Cerny--ironically another
good candidate for "first American
to work on 'Sonic'--" wasn't allowed to keep any
of
his work or design documents when he
was working at Atari, and his games were considered
Atari creations, not his. His source code,
notes, and documentation
were only preserved because someone got them out
of a dumpster when Atari closed the office and threw it all out. This problem
has especially contributed to the perception
of women working in games. Yoko Shimomura--one
of the most well-known video game
music composers today-- a veritable industry icon,
one might say-- composed all but three
of the tracks on the original arcade version
of "Street Fighter II," but due to Capcom's
crediting policy at the time, she was credited via
a pseudonym. For her music's appearance
on console releases and updated versions
of the game, she was not credited
for her compositions at all. All credit was given
to the people who translated them
to the new formats. Her contributions
to game music history are only recognized properly
decades afterwards because her early career
was rendered invisible, musi
c she wrote
often being credited to someone else. This was widespread
at the company. The Capcom sound team throughout
the '80s and early '90s was almost entirely women. Just think about that
for a second. An extremely influential group
of female early game composers all credited through pseudonyms
or sometimes not at all and with the ports
of music they composed credited to someone else. Maybe one
of the reasons game development is perceived
as a male-dominated industry is because all the women
who've
always been here keep getting left out
of the history they wrote. If you're interested in
the topic, I recommend
"The Street Fighter Lady" and "Female Credit"
by Andy Lemon and Hillegonda Rietveld. I've linked them
in the description and plagiarized them heavily in this section of the video. But even when people
are credited, the recognition can easily
be minimized. Joey did some of the music for the "Terminator"
Sega CD game but as you can imagine, this information
has been rendered obs
cure thanks to a much larger musician
making sure his name is remembered first. The official CD release
of the soundtrack has "Tommy V. Tallarico" stamped
on the front. Its booklet says,
"Composed, Produced, and Performed
by Tommy Tollarico," and calls Tommy
a "veritable video game industry icon,"
of course. The half a dozen people
who collaborated with him and wrote the other half
of the songs only appear on the back of the case
at the bottom as footnotes with stars corresponding to which songs
they actually made. So their names don't
get noticed quite as much. Joey's song was so good, Tommy saw fit to put
it on another album with his name and face on it: "Tommy Tallarico:
Virgin Games Greatest Hits." Joey's name is even smaller on
the back of this one. It's not difficult to see why
Joey's contributions to game history
are being forgotten. Reuploads
of the full "Terminator" CD soundtrack onto YouTube
just say, "Composed by Tommy." There's a re-upload of specifically Joey's song,
too.
The uploader--who
understandably missed the tiny note on the back
of the CD case-- credits it to Tommy. The top comment
is a guy called Joey Kuras, explaining
that he actually made it, but also thanking people
for their kind words. We're at the point
the actual composers have to explain they made the song in
the comments of re-uploads of their work misattributed
to their old boss. This extends back into
the regular music industry as a whole,
of course, but also into material
we covered here. "Mi
chael Jackson's"
long-rumored, now semi-confirmed work
on "Sonic 3" isn't all it's cracked up
to be, either. Like a certain other composer, Michael had people
who worked for him. According to Brad Buxer--
an American keyboardist and composer who did a lot
of work with Jackson and actually is credited
on "Sonic 3," Jackson basically made him
do most of it. Once you're
well enough established, it only gets easier
to exploit the talents of people working for you
and build up your own status on the
back of something
you made someone else do. The industry
is still constructed in a way that treats
individual creators-- usually the biggest names
on the project-- as the true authors, attributing a game's success
to them and not the many people
who did the work. Things are so bad even
the recipients of this praise
have called it out. To quote one
of the worst articles ever written: The journalistic attitude
to credit in gaming used to be so awful, it's not even clear
who wrote this. The article
is credited
to "IGN Staff." Basically all success
and appreciation pours directly into selected
industry figureheads even when they're
actively trying to stop it from happening, and a lot of them aren't because
even if it's a problem, it's a problem
that benefits them. You can tell a lot about
an industry by how it treats the people who actually do
the work. In terms of the scope of time, the average game developer
is fucked. The hundreds
and sometimes thousands of people who work
on games now
throw away years of their lives and so many of them go
completely unappreciated. Meanwhile,
the most assholish men in the industry continue
to promote themselves off the back of the efforts
of the people working for them. Imagine making
great sound effects for years and years only
for your boss to tell some guy.
in a Halloween mask on a live stream
with 100 views that he did it. We don't recognize the work
and achievements of people who make games. We recognize the people who
exploited that work
the best. It's so easy for history
and credit to get wiped away. Case in point, we could have never learned that the "oof" was from "Messiah" and assumed "Roblox"
made it forever, but it's not even
the "Roblox" "oof." In my household we call it
the "Messiah" "oof." There are thousands
of people whose good work on games will never
be properly credited, who we might
have already forgotten about. Gaming is still a young medium
but already the sands of our history
are spilling through our Monster E
nergy-sodden
fingers. Entire games are at risk
of being forgotten, never mind the human beings
who created them. The most valuable
contribution Tommy has made to the story
is mentioning that the voice actress
was the daughter of someone who worked
at Shiny Entertainment at the time. - Her father worked at Shiny Entertainment. The girl whose voice
was the "oof" would be close to 30 now. She might even have heard it and not even have known it
was her. She might not even remember
recording it. The
people who know who this was and the parent who worked on
the game, those people aren't
gonna be around forever. We have a limited time
to learn who this was. The thing about history is, it happens and then it's gone. If we don't work to preserve it, eventually
it becomes impossible. To quote a famous Nintendo
quit screen, "Everything not saved
will be lost." And just as a kicker how hard it is to remember things
accurately, the popularized version
of the quote is wrong. It's actually,
"Anything
not saved." I'm not trying to be a pedant
for once. It's kind of poignant how easy
it is for things to shift like that. If we don't set a prescient of taking people's work
and the accuracy of records of who did what seriously, we leave it to the liars
and opportunists of the world to make up
that history to the spin off of a beer company
to tell us who did what, and it honestly on
a spiritual level fills me with immense grief
thinking about the people who made
the things I care about dying unre
cognized
for what they did and being forgotten. Gaming is just old enough
that we're losing that first generation. Tommy got the rights
to Intellivision because he bought them from the estate
of its last president when he passed away. The name,
the branding--it's his now. The original Intellivision
YouTube channel with some of the final appearances
of its former president-- one of the world's first ever
game designers-- along with the original
Intellivision web site with its beautiful
Web 1.0 hi
story of the company are now relegated
to obscurity under another name while Tommy continues
to use that name to advertise a product
that doesn't even exist. The damage to a history people
are at real risk of forgetting whose main characters
are dying might already have been done. What history will look like 20,
30, 100 years in the future is being decided now. Now is the time to decide
if Tommy Tallarico made the "oof" for "Roblox"
or if Joey Kuras made it for "Messiah," and Tommy has already p
ut his finger on the scale-- decided how he wants all this
to be remembered. If you buy his new sound pack, the metadata
in the "Roblox" "oof" has been changed
to say "Tommy Tallarico." Those who fail to learn
from history are doomed to repeat it. That's a quote
commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, but he was actually probably paraphrasing George Santayana. That was me being a pedant.
Old habits die hard. But here's a corollary
I came up with all by myself. Those who let huxters write
the h
istory they're trying to learn from are doomed
in some other horrible way. And, for one, I don't think history gets
to be written by a guy who wasn't even
on "Cribs." It wasn't even "Cribs!" [exciting video game music] [tense orchestral music] ♪ ♪ Oh, hello there. Thank you for watching
this 30-minute video and accompanying
feature-length meltdown. The boom mic is slowly, uh,
peeking into frame. [rumbling] Anyway, thank you all so much
for watching all of this, and, uh, I hope you had
a good tim
e and I hope to see you again soon
for once. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ When I bought this, uh,
"Gamer's Edition" on eBay, you know,
when I was flipping through it, a bookmark fell out. This is a bookmark
for Alexander. "Well done
for all your hard work "in year two this year,
from Miss Dunne. Goodbye." So Alexander, uh, I've no idea who you are
or where you are now or if you'll ever watch
this video. Um... I hope you made
Miss Dunne proud. I've no idea how old
you are now. This book came out in,
like,
2008. I'm not gonna do
the maths on that. Um, but if you want
your bookmark back, e-mail me and I'll happily
send it to you. Please do e-mail me,
in fact, because I can't throw this out. Like, that would be wrong. So this is just gonna be in
my life forever until someone claims it, so please take this back.
Comments