How Did I Get Here (6 page)

But I wanted to jumpstart the game, so I brought an idea to Activision that had been rolling around in my head for a few years: make a skateboard-shaped controller that people could stand on to control what they see on screen. The industry was already moving in that direction, with motion-based controllers like Nintendo's Wii and peripheral-based games like
Guitar Hero
and
Garage Band.

I ran the idea by Dave Stohl, now the company's executive vice president of studios. Dave jumped on it. He put a new Activision development team in charge—Robomodo in Chicago—and we hit the reset button on the franchise. I knew it would be risky, since nothing like it had been tried before, but I figured it was like learning a new skate trick: if you want to progress, you have to be willing to slam.

With the new direction, we had to go back to square one with almost all facets of the game. The first and most important task was designing the controller. We went through many incarnations, and Robomodo now has a hilarious graveyard of prototypes in their office, some of which are downright embarrassing. My favorite was a blank skateboard deck with trackballs on it to slide your foot across. It was almost as hard as real skating and would have definitely thrown people on their asses. We settled on a device that resembles a skate deck (a little shorter and thicker than the real thing) and responds to motion via two accelerometers and four infrared sensors. Only after they settled on a board design did Robomodo get to work on the software, which had to be customized for this strange new controller. We decided to name it
Tony Hawk: RIDE.

The announcement of my latest game,
Tony Hawk: SHRED
, was held in L.A. at Staples Center as part of an Activision mega-proportional debut party.

Some hardcore gaming critics were pretty brutal when the game debuted in November 2009, writing it off as a failed novelty. Admittedly, there were some software quirks, but user reviews were overwhelmingly positive, especially those from the Wii crowd. We sold more than one million units in the first three months, and we quickly went to work on a sequel that would fix any glitches. The new version,
Tony Hawk: SHRED
, will also venture into the mountains, where players can pretend they're snowboarding.

At the time this book is being written, I'm in the twelfth year of my relationship with Activision. Here's a shocking stat: They've released 79 different versions of my game across the various gaming platforms, including mobile and online adaptations. It's been an intensely satisfying (and ridiculously lucrative) experience. I obviously hope the marriage will continue for a long, long time.

5

WHAT THE HELL IS A HUCKJAM?

Innovation and improvisation on a million-dollar ramp

Like most pro skaters, I’ve always been frustrated that skateboarding’s mainstream popularity derives primarily from contests, when that’s such a small part of what we do. In fact, most pro skaters shun competition entirely and instead build their reps through video parts and skate-mag coverage. That’s what makes the sport and the subculture so hard for outsiders to package: At its core, it’s about innovation and improvisation. It’s about ignoring rules.

As proof, let me make a confession. It isn’t exactly a secret, but it seems to be forgotten amid the hype: My most famous competitive feat, when I landed the first-ever 900 during the “best trick” event at the 1999 X Games, shouldn’t have counted. I should give ESPN back its medal. Here’s why: It took me 12 tries to finally stick a 900 that day, and somewhere around my eighth attempt, time ran out—contest over. I didn’t exactly cheat; I just kept climbing back up the ramp after the buzzer sounded, and nobody stopped me.

I wasn’t thinking about winning. I only wanted to land a trick that had eluded—and hobbled—me for 10 years, and I knew I was closer than I’d ever been to nailing one. The other guys had stopped skating and were cheering me on, and everybody in the venue knew something was up. So the people running the show (God bless ’em) decided to let me keep going. Despite the crowd and the loudspeakers and the TV cameras, it was in its way a lot like one of those skate sessions that happens every day in schoolyards and skateparks around the world: one kid trying to pull a trick he’s never made before, with some friends looking on and giving him high-fives after.

If it had been almost any other sport, security guards would have bum-rushed me to the parking lot. Can you imagine an Olympic high jumper getting the go-ahead to take a few extra tries at a new world record? Or an ice skater being granted a time extension because she’s close to nailing a quadruple lutz? If not for skating’s anarchist soul, I might
still
be trying to land my first 9.

I retired from contests shortly after that event, but I still loved skating in front of big crowds, and I still got to do it sometimes—but mostly as a sideshow to some bigger event like a concert or a football game. I figured there must be a way for talented action-sports athletes to headline events without competing against one another. So I started asking around. What if we built a portable ramp and practiced routines in advance? Mix in some BMX riders, maybe turn up the juice with a Motocross jump. Invite a good band. Call it something catchy, choreograph a whole show, take it on the road.

The more I talked to people about it, the more I liked it. So I suggested it to Pat. She thought it sounded good, so she started making calls.

We had no idea what we were getting into.

Two years later, when we finally launched the Boom Boom HuckJam tour, we’d concocted one of the most complex and expensive arena-based road shows in history. We needed eight tour buses to ferry the 60-person crew, and 14 semis to schlep the gear, which included a massive portable ramp system. At each stop, we had to hire 100 more local laborers to erect and dismantle the set. It was a juggernaut.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Million-Dollar Napkin

The idea took root during the 2001 Summer X Games in Philadelphia’s First Union Center (now the Wells Fargo Center), which drew a sold-out crowd. I realized that the audience didn’t care that much about who won the various events; they’d mainly come to see their favorite skate, BMX, and Motocross heroes perform live. I thought it would be cool to create a tour in which all of my friends could get paid well to travel around the country performing together, like a theater troupe.

By coincidence, a promoter named Steve Moore, from TBA Entertainment, approached me around the same time with the idea of creating just such a show. Steve was enthusiastic and well-meaning, but his company was unwilling to put up any money to get the thing off the ground. That turned out to be a common refrain.

We initially wanted to call the thing “Cirque X.” At a lunch meeting I sketched out a rough plan on a napkin for a huge halfpipe encircled by a Motocross track that would allow the Moto guys to jump
over
the halfpipe while we skated. It also had a separate three-story roll-in that led to a launch ramp, where we’d huck ourselves 40 feet across a gap, land on a downslope, then ride into a vertical quarterpipe, where we’d do one last air 10 to 15 feet above the ramp. We eventually added a full loop, like a Hot Wheels track.

That napkin ended up costing me a million bucks.

Pat and I realized pretty early that we were going to need partners and sponsors to finance all the start-up costs. Steve Moore put us in touch with a large concert promotion company called Concerts West to help book the tour. He also started talking to Toyota about coming on as a partner. Neither of those panned out.

The original napkin sketch of my dream ramp set-up…

In the meantime, my agent at the William Morris Agency, Brian Dubin, told me WMA might be interested in becoming a co-owner and partner of the tour. We had a bunch of meetings with the agency in which we discussed risk, ticket sales, rehearsals, booking procedures, travel logistics, merchandise—all of the minutiae that hadn’t occurred to me when I started sketching on that napkin.

… and the finished product come to life. The ramp system and lighting ended up being bigger than most rock’n’roll tour productions and filled the entire floor of huge arenas.

I quickly came to loathe the WMA bean counter. The guy was really just doing his job, trying to minimize his company’s risk, but to me it felt like he took delight in exposing every little cost, and I began to fear he was on a secret mission to scuttle the project. Their bottom-line recommendation: find sponsors to help cover the up-front costs, and find promoters willing to put up guarantees for each date, or just forget the thing and walk away.

Unfortunately, none of the promoters we talked to had ever tried to sell tickets to such an event, and they refused to put up their own money in advance. Sponsors were equally skeptical.

But I had faith in the idea, so I started writing checks. One of the first and most important payments came in December 2001, when I wired $10,000 to Paul Heuberger, a gifted skate ramp builder from Switzerland, to consult on making a massive, portable halfpipe. He met with Tait Towers, a set-construction company in Pennsylvania. Tait had been in business for years, building extravagant sets for such touring bands as the Rolling Stones, Kiss, U2, and Britney Spears. I gave them a deposit and they got to work.

Although that construction bill would top $1 million, none of our business “partners” were willing to kick in cash to help cover the cost of the ramp. Couldn’t blame them, really. We were entering
terra incognita
. But I felt confident it was worth the risk, so I kept coughing up cash.

The key to the ramp was making it sturdy and portable at the same time. Tait came up with an easy but rock-solid interlocking system that made it possible to erect the entire contraption in four hours and dismantle it in less than three. The thing is now eight years old and has been assembled and disassembled more than 100 times, and it’s still, I believe, the best halfpipe in the world.

I’d also been talking all along to a lot of athletes about the possibility of coming out on tour. It helped that I’d promised everyone that for once they’d get paid what they deserved. The initial cast was a dream team: