By: Scott Steinberg

Word to would-be wiseguys: Crime does not pay - at least, not usually much more than a job at the local Electronics Boutique, according to David Fisher, the author behind best-selling Mafia tell-all Killer. Seriously: How many street-level enforcers do you know that put in this kind of overtime on PlayStation 3 heists? (Although, in fairness in to the Cosa Nostra, all those non-affiliated crooks, con artists and hit men out there aren't exactly running circles around their best and brightest this year either.)

No, despite the supposed benefits - money, women, infamy, all the free cannoli you can cram into your smack-talking pie-hole - that the smorgasbord of gangster-iffic games, movies and TV shows we adore would suggest Mafia members enjoy, the real underworld is actually, well... kinda boring, says the noted organized crime expert. But hey: What better way to educate and amuse today's impressionable teens than make an interactive adventure out of authentic real-world goodfella antics like cigarette running, shaking down innocents and fetching coffee for some greasy-haired, pock mark-riddled lard ass ostensibly named Paulie or Remo?

That's right... The so-called "most realistic Mafia game ever" is almost upon us, courtesy of Aspyr, who, having already succeeded once with Stubbs the Zombie, will now attempt to resurrect Acclaim's once shit-canned, now re-planned ay-fuhgeddaboutit-'em-up Interview with a Made Man this coming March. Newly rechristened as just Made Man and keen on storming the burgeoning value-priced PS2 shooter market it's sure to have you fans of The Sopranos in stitches. (Or, if nothing else, praying it's not as crappy as the officially-licensed alternative...)

But we digress: Back to Mr. Fisher, who took a break from slaving away on his ever-growing, 50-odd book catalog (and chumming with pals like FBI agent Joseph "Donnie Brasco" Pistone and former Mob consigliere Bill Bonnano) to not only pen the script for this little gem, but also ensure its slavish authenticity. As for the quality of the game, meh - we'll let you decide whether to start chortling or polishing that semi-auto based on a recent, conversation with the man.

Q: With Made Man, what did you bring to the table to help them make the title more realistic, and what does that mean from a videogame perspective?

A: Well, I basically created the whole story - the characters, the plot, to some degree suggested what stages would be featured and worked on them with the developer. It was really fun for me because I've done a lot of writing about organized crime, and they basically wanted it to be the most realistic Mafia game ever made. I have two kids: They're 16 and 17 and they're both gamers. One of the things I really had to learn was how this universe works.

I was just speaking with someone this morning and they mentioned how they did an interview with [The Sopranos] creator David Chase a couple months ago and he was saying he's not a big fan of the game world. He talked about games' inability to ever bring any emotion into scenarios. I remember reading an interview a couple months ago where a very successful screenwriter was brought in to work with a company and he said pretty much the same thing.

Both of these guys, they only wanted to make the gaming world an adjunct of their world though, of TV and movies, and they just really failed to recognize the possibilities of this universe... I had to learn at the beginning what you could do and couldn't do. But I can tell you after learning, the possibilities are endless.

Q: Based on what you can do, how does that go in and improve the gameplay, make things more fun and interesting for enthusiasts?

A: If you can provide any sort of emotional attachment to the character, it brings you more into the game - you wind up getting rid of that detachment which leads to eventual boredom. Originally, Made Man was part of a trilogy and it may still be depending on sales. My goal is to tell a story of how you succeed in the world of organized crime. And so my guy, all the action takes place in one day, where he's going somewhere - he's either going to become a made man, or he's going to get whacked. And at the beginning, you don't know which it's going to be. So every one of the stages that we have parallels a real stage in the experience of a Mob guy...

Our guy starts in Vietnam - we've got a couple of stages set there. And he saves somebody's life, comes back to New York and gets sucked into the world of the Mob. We did a lot of backstory on all the characters, including this guy who eventually becomes his antagonist, who brings him into the family. He starts at the beginning, where any Mob guy would start, running cigarettes from North Carolina to New York. What we had to do was find a way to make running cigarettes and other mundane tasks like that fun from a gameplay standpoint. And we did - there's a great scene where he ends up in the swamps of North Carolina, and it's a lot of fun.

The other thing is that, as a writer, at the beginning, I really wanted to have some longer cut-scenes because I was convinced that I could write the kind of dialogue and branding of the characters that people would love. The type of script that would make people laugh out loud - it's just a skill that I have, and I also know these characters because I've written about them for so long.

Q: Touching on that, we've all seen these guys on TV, or via games such as Grand Theft Auto: Liberty/Vice City Stories and movies like Goodfellas or Casino, before. How realistic are they, and how do your characters talk differently or act differently that are more true to form?

A: That's a good question. What American culture has done is created a mythical Mafia. The first mob guy I ever got to know was a guy named Joey Black. What was amazing to me was the extremes that he could go to - he could be funny, he could be garrulous, anything... One night we were out to dinner with some friends of mine in California, and somebody said to him, "What would you do if I said I didn't believe you are who you say you are?" Who he said he was, was a Mafia hit-man. And with that, he took a fork, and jabbed it under the guy's jaw and pushed it upward, and he said "I'd ask you to say it again..." If you could see that scene in a movie, that kind of tension, that's the bar scene in Goodfellas...

Q: Naturally, we all see the supposedly glamorous side of being the Mafia. What's the other side look like here?

A: The main object of every Mob guy is earning. 99% of the time it's the most boring job in the world: It's collecting gambling debts, shuffling stolen goods, hustling hot television, hijacking a truck... There's so much of that stuff you have to do, and the other part of it is, often, the people you're dealing with are not the brightest people in the world. So what's happened is Hollywood has made these characters humorous in some ways, and that's a good thing. It's not necessarily the route I'd choose to go, but I've seen how people respond to them. That's what makes them interesting.

Q: So how realistic is a game like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories? How exaggerated is that? You see guys coming up, grabbing clothes and cars... How many people really get killed that often or go out guns blazing in this line of work?

A: Not so much. Very, very few people in the Mob get killed, and even fewer in shootouts. Most people who get killed get shot in the back of the head. My guy Joey was killed by being shot with a shotgun in the back. There's this great story... Donnie Brasco is a friend of mine, and the story he told in his book and later in the movie about the guy who brought him into the family, Sonny Black, when he discovered Joe (Joe Pistone is his real name) was an FBI agent, he knew he was going to be killed. And the FBI went to him, and they offered him his life. They said come into witness protection, and he said no, I know what I got into. And he handed his wallet to somebody, he gave his ring to somebody knowing he was going to go to this meeting and never come back. Real-life Mafioso Bill Bonanno and I have become friends, and Bill and I talk about this, and Bill talks so much about the way the Mob was, and honor and loyalty and those things that he learned from his father which are no longer part of the Mob anymore.

Q: If I were to ask about your character, Joey Verola, I know he comes back from Vietnam disillusioned and disenchanted, so he's obviously a prime example, but who else in your opinion is a good candidate for becoming a part of the Mafia, what type of person? What type of personality best suits the lifestyle: Someone larger than life, a tough talker...?

A: I've just finished a book - do you know the Mafia cops case? In New York, we had two highly ranking detectives, who were, in fact, for most of their careers, on the Mob payroll. And one of them became the head of the police organized crime bureau and he was funneling information to the Luchesi crime family and so I did a book with the guys who broke the case. One of them is a detective named Tommy Dades, who grew up as a street kid in Brooklyn, and his best friend is a made guy. Tommy is a great detective - one of the best, and we've talked about it. I said: "Why did you go that way and the other guy the other route?" And he said, you walk around the block, and whatever happens to you happens to you. He said that there's no question that he could have gone the other way. And for me to say to you who's a candidate... I mean, the fact that that world has been so glamorized makes it attractive to a certain kind of person.

Q: Maybe the better question is how many people really get the opportunity to join the Mafia, and how coveted is the honor truly?

A: Well it used to be a lot tougher and a lot more coveted. The thing about the Mob is that it's like corporate America. You actually move up the ranks, and as you do, you get more respect and more money. But, of course, you also have more obligations. You know, in the other world we would call them kickbacks, but in fact, every dollar that is earned goes up the ladder to the boss and eventually to the don. But everybody's taking a piece of that. So if you earn $10,000 you probably have to give $1500 to the boss. But you have to earn - that's really what it comes down to. Joey told me once that a guy asked him what makes the Mob work, and what he said is that you can't legislate morality. And anytime the government does, all it does it create situations where it's possible for the Mob to be successful.

Q: I remember in Donnie Brasco this great quote where they said "You go in alive, and you come out dead, and it's your best friend that does it." Is there a way to get out of the Mob alive, though? And how many people manage to get out?

A: Well, Bill Bonanno did it successfully. John Gotti, Jr. is trying to do it now. It's really hard because one of the things I do from time to time is talk to people in the witness protection program. And they just love to talk, because this was the greatest time of their lives, when they were living on the edge, when they were rich street guys, when they had status or whatever it was... But when you go into the witness protection program, you become a regular guy with a job oftentimes, and there's no one you can talk to about this stuff. So they love to talk about those days, so in terms of coming out, there's a lot of people in witness protection who have come out, but it's hard because it doesn't provide the excitement or adrenaline rush that they're using to enjoyment. It also doesn't provide the status - no one looks at them when they walk into a restaurant as if they're somebody special.

Q: So what, if anything, should game fans take away from today's Mob titles, given your experience with the real thing?

A: Going back to what I said earlier about learning about game universes, one of the things I had to learn about was when to get out of the way. In Made Man, we have this running voice-over telling you the story with some pretty good - not the best - but some pretty good dialogue telling you the story while you're actually playing. So we don't get in the way, prevent you from playing... I used to watch my kids playing games, and all they wanted from cut-scenes was for them to be over. You take every opportunity to develop a character to get a funny line in from a writer's point of view, but the story has to tell itself as players play it.

I don't think people realize how young the games world is. I'm enjoying being a part of it a lot because I'm talking to some really interesting people, but it's like the early days of television all over again. The limitations were unbelievable, and there's where we are now. But that's part of the fun and challenge, and things are only going to get better from a narrative standpoint...