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Swords, spells and Academy Awards?
Diablo II vies to be the first role-playing game to be sanctified by Hollywood.
By Jamais Cascio
[11/23/99]

Technology: View from the top
Tuned in to TV
Wink CEO and confessed TVaholic Maggie Wilderotter is not interested in interactive TV that pushes couch potatoes onto the Web.
By Janelle Brown
[11/22/99]

21st Challenge
21st Challenge No. 28 Results
Forward, march! Join the dance of the eternally circulating e-mail.
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
[11/20/99]

Word gamers
For some fans of text-based role playing, virtual reality is all in the mind.
By Etelka Lehoczky
[11/19/99]

Who controls free software?
Does Red Hat's aquisition of Cygnus give the company the final say on free software's future?
By Andrew Leonard
[11/18/99]

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Being digital isn't new to Bowie -- as proprietor of BowieNet, a Web site and community for his fans, he was one of the first mainstream artists to use the Net to his advantage. He has produced CD-ROMs and online art projects, and he has embraced the MP3 movement -- even encouraging fans to tweak his music and submit altered versions for his album.

Salon Technology engaged in an e-mail conversation with Bowie about his work with Omikron, stealthy BowieNet subterfuges and the return of Ziggy Stardust.

Also Today A soul-sucking parallel world Will you free the residents of Omikron's totalitarian regime or lose your self in the beauty of this game's futuristic city? By Janelle Brown

First of all, why did you decide to do a video game?

And it was supposed to be my year off ... I was sitting in the house, as you do, minding my own business, when a couple of French charmers and an Irishman [the Quantic Dream team] barged in and "decided" that I should go and look at this "game" of theirs in London ... and the rest, as they say, is history ... well, it could be!

... I liked what I saw, and I was given the freedom to musically respond to the images I was seeing and the story they were telling -- and Omikron certainly ain't no ordinary video game!

How would you compare the collaborative process of making a video game to that of writing music?

Well, for one, I couldn't be all shifty and secretive, they found all the little crumpled bits of paper with scraps of musical notation before I had time to swallow the evidence. I had to give in ... The scene was very "Reservoir Dogs," we were all huddled together in Paris, the room cut by the ominous violence of a cruel shadow ... Don't ever believe for one second that Van Gogh cut his own ear off -- mysterious strangers abound ...

Reeves [Gabrels, Bowie's collaborator] and I took all of this with good cheer, and re-watched our game footage for the umpteenth time, just to be sure we ... hadn't missed anything.

How did you decide on the themes of Omikron? Is this rather existential world of thought control, disillusionment and soul-snatching in any way inspired by some of your experiences in the entertainment industry?

We just turned left at the "Batman" theme, and there they were ... Seriously, the designers of Omikron had already laid down the story arcs, and established the protagonists, it was up to Reeves and I to reinforce their themes -- from the sweeping tumult of the revolutionaries, right down to the individual grief of a lovesick stranger in the Red-Light district. The satisfying part is having to conjure up a whole "world" of music, greater than the sum of a few solitary viewpoints. Or my solitary viewpoint, for that matter ...

Thought control, disillusionment and soul-snatching? I thought you'd got rid of all that in America?

Next page | "In Omikron it's your soul that's at stake"