Local man too engrossed in playing Half-Life to talk with friend about playing Half-Life

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Schiller (left) plays Half-Life while Markowski attempts to converse with Schiller about playing Half-Life.

Local man too engrossed in playing Half-Life to talk with friend about playing Half-Life

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Matt Schiller, friend and roommate of PC gaming enthusiast Mike Markowski, failed to respond Sunday to Markowski's repeated questioning about what time the two were to begin their nightly game of Half-Life, a popular first-person shooter game. Reports suggest that Schiller's failure to respond was caused by his complete engrossment in playing the very game that was the subject of Markowski's attempted interaction: Half-Life.

"At first, I thought maybe he couldn't hear me over the game," Markowski reported of his initial efforts to verbally communicate with Schiller. "I asked him when we were going to fire up the network and start a game, but I was like twenty feet away and Matt (Schiller) always runs his game sounds through his 500 watt stereo. When he's playing [Half-Life], nobody in the house can hear shit except for explosions and gunfire."

It was then when Markowski, 24, approached Schiller's computer desk and tried more fervently to discuss playing Half-Life with Schiller.

Unknown to Markowski at the time was that Schiller was currently involved in a four-hour command of the first place ranking on THELOWERLEVEL(3) - an expert-level online Half-Life server - and had no intention of breaking his concentration long enough to answer Markowski's Half-Life-related queries.

Above: Schiller, 13 hours into one of his typical Half-Life sessions.

"I stood right next to him, repeating his name louder and louder. Then I was like, 'Screw it,'" Markowski said. "I yelled that I was going out to get beer, and even then he didn't even blink, he just sat there, fixated on his monitor, rolling that goddamned mouse around. At that point I realized there was no getting through to him."

Markowski, an admitted "Half-Life nut" in his own right, says that Sunday's behavior is typical of Schiller, a self-employed web programmer who has incessantly played Half-Life since purchasing the award-winning PC game shortly after its release in 1999.

"Shit, he'll sit there playing for like 15 hours without even going to the bathroom," Markowski commented. "The phone rings? Forget it. Doorbell? [He] doesn't even hear it. This one time the house next door was on fire and he didn't even look out the window. He just sat there playing."

Schiller, holding a key sniper position during an Oz Deathmatch tournament at the time of interview, declined to acknowledge Recoil Magazine' existence, let alone comment on Sunday's events, Markowski's claims, or what to do when a photo assistant backs up his house's toilet.

July 2001