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Where Xbox Meets Lunchbox
From left, Mark Toscano, Robert Settle, Adam Rossi, Navid Norouzi and Mikko von Kutzleben play Halo.
(By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
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On the screen, Norouzi's character, an energy-sword-wielding alien, runs around a corner and onto -- whoops! -- a grenade. It explodes, and his character sails over a wall and through the air. "This is not my level," he said.
As Norouzi's character came back to life, Settle's and Toscano's had an onscreen showdown, firing explosives at each other as they jump through the air.
"Rocket launchers," Settle noted with the voice of experience. "That's what makes this level pretty nasty."
Whoever racked up 25 kills first would win. They were averaging one or two kills per minute. Toscano led with 23 kills when the phone rang and the carnage came to a temporary halt: "Platinum Solutions, this is Mark Toscano." As he took the call, his co-workers took a few potshots at his vulnerable, motionless avatar.
Toscano tends to be at the top of the pack, except perhaps on Fridays when Richard Vanhook comes in. Vanhook, who won the company's Halo 2 tournament last year, doesn't usually work at the Reston headquarters, but he'll stop by to catch a little face time with his colleagues -- and to play some Halo.
The company went through a phase when office space was tight, but taking the video-game break room apart was never seriously considered. A move to a larger office is scheduled for August. If the new break room has enough space, they might even get a Wii, Rossi said.
The company's director of recruiting, John Capozzi, has the office next door to the current break room. He's a decade or two older than most of the staff, and he's no gamer. You could hear the guys yelling through the wall during a pre-lunch visit, as Capozzi explained some of the company's projects.
It should be annoying, but it's not a problem -- he's glad the game room is there. Capozzi has to find and attract young programming talent to the company, and the daily Halo match signals to prospective hires that the company doesn't take itself too seriously.
If it weren't for the Xbox, there's a chance that Conner McCarthy might not work there. It's his first job since graduating from Virginia Tech in December with a degree in business information technology. When he told his mother what companies he was thinking about working for, she checked them out on the Web. Then she called her son and pushed Platinum Solutions. "She said, 'I think this is the company for you -- they're into video games!' "
Not every office is. There are a couple of floors leased by Microsoft in this building, though no one at Platinum Solutions seems to know exactly what the people there do. Norouzi went down a few weeks ago to ask if they wanted to join the daily Halo routine. He left his card, but never heard back from anybody.
