THQ spent years working on an Avengers video game. This is the story of how it was torn apart.
First there was a bang. The sort of noise that comes from steel-on-steel impact. An unfamiliar sound in an office used to the peaceful clatter of mechanical keyboards. Still, no one batted an eyelid.
Then came the second bang. A third. A fourth.
People began to take notice. One ear at a time, the headphones peeled off. Hordes of men and women, peering over office dividers like confused meerkats. What was that noise? Where was it coming from?
Slowly, it became clear. A full-grown game designer, enraged. He'd picked up the nearest blunt instrument, an umbrella, and began rhythmically battering it on a filing cabinet.
For Charles Henden, who witnessed the incident, this wasn't out of the ordinary. This was game development.
"You know, we've all been there," says Henden. "We've all beaten up a filing cabinet with an umbrella at some point in our careers."
Henden, like everyone else watching, was a game developer, working at the now defunct THQ Studio Australia in Brisbane. In high-pressure environments like this, with incredibly tight deadlines and huge financial stakes, meltdowns were almost common.
"I could probably, from each of the projects that I worked on, give you a story that would just blow your mind," says Rex Dickson, who also worked at the studio around that time.
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