Growing Pains

"A weekend now and then, maybe," she says.

He didn't expect otherwise. But he needs a Plan B, and he isn't sure about how significant a role Krista will play in it. In the old days, when THQ was small, there would have been no Vancouver. His work, his passion, would have been at THQ's former location, in that mice-infested office next to a pet cemetery. Such personal complexities would never have entered the picture. He could have had both his job and Krista. Now, sure, he could follow through on his resignation immediately and stay in Los Angeles, but going has its perks too. Aidyn is one of the best things that he and his coworkers have ever done. It has been a nightmare, but making this decision has also become a way to continue moving toward his dream -- despite the detours that have sprung up around him.

"We're already past the first deadline date on Aidyn," he says. "This product is going to be big. There's nothing better than broadsiding a major competitor. But we've got big problems, and now panic is setting in. The question was, Do we throw more money at the game, or do we kill it? Sometimes, I wish that we had killed it. But my people love the game. I love the game. A couple hundred thousand dollars later, the question was, Who do we send up to Vancouver to make sure that the money is well spent?"

Jones has one mantra in his life now: Security, stability, success. Going to Vancouver is the path toward achieving all of those things. He knows what it's like to live on the margin, and he doesn't want to go there again. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. He worked at Wherehouse Music. He worked at Mail Boxes Etc. He knows the tune to the minimum-wage blues. He once lived homeless for a month on the streets of Hollywood, sleeping on a secluded roof until a 33-year-old woman took him in. He doesn't want to climb a fire escape to go to bed ever again. He doesn't have to anymore. But, in exchange for that security, he knows the tune to the explosive-growth blues too. People who work for a company that's growing as fast as THQ is have to get used to a different kind of homelessness: They can't put roots down in one job or one place for long.

For now, Jones seems to feel at home sitting here at Scotland Yard with Krista by his side.

On the Verge of Greatness

THQ is building momentum for big moves in the future. As Germaine Gioia, 39, THQ's vice president of licensing, puts it: "On a bicycle, grinding it out in a middle gear, you eventually kick it into third. We kicked it into third gear a while ago, but we're still not in fourth gear. We're hitting our stride, though. We see the path ahead."

Yet, on the verge of greatness, THQ has become like a glistening, dewy spiderweb: Pluck one strand, one corner, and the whole web sheds droplets of water. You can't incubate an idea or a project in secrecy anymore. A project belongs to everybody before a day of work has ever been spent on it. Everybody has to know about it, from start to finish. Everything has to be coordinated and aimed toward "the date."

The date always looms now at THQ. A vast network of planning surrounds every video-game title. The company books television-advertising slots 10 months ahead; it pays $50,000 in advance for an end-cap display at Kmart; it builds and executes marketing plans in the final months before a product launch, which means that it must finish a game by or before the deadline date. Advance-marketing expenses don't get refunded. If you don't hit your deadline, that money's lost. The game has to get out, even if it's flawed. Otherwise, you lose. The bigger the game, the bigger the loss. Everything builds toward the milestone, the deadline, the drop-dead date. And so far, THQ has always hit its dates.

As THQ struggles to develop its own original titles and to invest the serious marketing money that such work requires, its business risks have become far greater. Heavily marketed original game titles represent a major gamble for a company that has been known as one that never takes risks, never spends a lot of money, never calls attention to itself. THQ used to thrive by doing the same old thing -- by being true to the game play, loyal to the feel of an old "franchise," an old game title -- while still changing it in the kinds of key ways that renew those titles for another year. In the process, THQ became known as a bottom-feeder, a burglar, and a rebuilder -- a cheap "tuner" of used-up games, a video-game chop shop. Its motto could have been something like a paraphrase of lines from the Statue of Liberty itself: "Give us your leftovers, and we'll turn them into a feast."

But then, about three years ago, Farrell, the company's CEO, decided to take a big risk on a Nintendo 64 game -- THQ's second professional-wrestling title -- and he went to the banks to borrow money. The gambit was a nail-biter. He bet the company on a chance that the gamble would pay off big.