knocked Joe’s coffee mug out of his hand. “Sorry I’m late. My kid projectile vomited Cheerios all over the kitchen and I had to get an emergency babysitter.” She met my stunned stare and waved at me. I wasn’t expecting Kat to be here. What a relief. A familiar, trustworthy face.
Joe said, “I asked Kat to join us for three reasons. One, she is a core team member of the Ultimate Apocalypse project and is integral to its success. Second, there’s a leak at this company so I want to keep our circle of trust to just us. Kat knows a lot of people here and might be able to help HR home in on the culprit. And third, she’s a chick. I mean . . . a woman. Er . . . female? And she’s been in the gaming industry for a long time. We could use her advice and street cred to aid in digging us out of our hole.” I scanned the room for any dissent. Nope. None. Even Ian nodded in agreement. If I went down in flames, it wasn’t just my career that would be destroyed. Seventeen Studios and Ian MacKenzie would go down too. Ian’s life and mine were intricately intertwined. He had all the incentive in the world to make this situation better.
Ian cleared his throat. “Okay, can we focus here and get back to my question? Isn’t this game inevitably going to fail, with all this bad press?”
This was my chance to jump in. “Well, I worked in advertising for a few years, and what I do know is that this game has gotten a ton of buzz in a short period of time. It’s gone viral. There have been over five thousand mentions of the Ultimate Apocalypse game in the last week, most within the past two days. I say we take advantage of this.”
Everyone asked me in unison, “How?”
“I don’t have a ton of ideas right now, but with a proper brainstorm, I bet we could get more. The first thing we need to do is to collect newsletter sign-ups on our company website and create a game website to allow people to sign up for a newsletter there, too. We can send exclusive updates, announcements, and insider scoops to all the subscribers. Even if people hate the game, and they hate me, they might subscribe just to share the intel, so they seem ‘in the know,’ and they’ll still buy the game just to play it and complain about it.”
Kat raised her eyebrows. “Hmm, this is something we’ve never done before. It’s a good idea. Remember, there are also a ton of nonhater people who will want to buy the game to support women in gaming too.”
I chimed in. “Yeah, this morning on my drive in I was trying to think of ways to turn this situation around. Make lemonade out of lemons. Polish a turd. You know.”
All eyes swooped over to Ian, who had gotten up to stride in a loop around his office. I had nothing more to add. Neither did Kat. We waited for his verdict on the newsletter idea.
Ian stared at me, and then at Joe. “The marketing team’s pretty stretched as it is. But hold on.”
He picked up the phone receiver and punched a four-digit extension. “Can you come by my office?” A beat. “Now, please.”
Within seconds, Nolan burst through the doorway, panting heavily. Trying to smooth out the untucked gray-checked shirt he wore the other day, he asked Ian, “What’s so urgent?”
“Nolan, I need you to set up a marketing newsletter, and get a game website spun up this week. Drop everything you’re doing.”
My face fell instantly at Ian’s suggestion, just as Nolan sent me an excited look. There was no way he misinterpreted my deep frown of disappointment. But I had good reason: Nolan had zero marketing experience outside of his MBA coursework. Damn it, why’d they assign my marketing idea to an intern? I steadied my breathing, pushing down the anger rising within my chest.
Nolan glanced away from me and met Ian’s authoritarian stare. “But you asked me to clean up all the PowerPoint slides for the board presentation.”
Ian let out a huge exasperated sigh, one that could fill up an entire balloon in one blow. “I’m asking you to pivot.”
“Pivot?” Nolan repeated. “But isn’t the board presentation really important?”
“Yes, but shift gears.” Ian looked at Joe. “Try to reschedule the board meeting. It’s probably too late but there’s too much