WEBVTT - The Electronic Arts Story: Part One 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.360 Get in touch with technology with Textile from how stuff 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.200 works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.799 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bock Obama, and we 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:18.599 thought we'd take another one of our looks at a 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.840 big company that's in the world of tech and uh 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:23.320 and you know, it's been a while since we've done 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.400 one of these, And we also thought we talked about 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.440 a company that's involved in video games. It's one that 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.760 has a long history in video games and a controversial 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.479 one at times. This also has been something that numerous 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.920 listeners have requested over the years. If you do not 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.680 like video games, you have our permission to just, you know, 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.159 listen to an old episode. Wait, but we promised that 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:45.960 we're going to try to make it interesting, even for 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:47.880 those of you who don't care that much. Yeah, because 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.040 there's a lot of impact that this has on the 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.400 entire industry. And it's really this particular story is pretty interesting. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.200 We're specifically talking about Electronic Arts or e A, which 0:00:57.240 --> 0:00:59.680 a lot of people view these days as some sort 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:06.160 of megalomaniacal corporation bent on dominating the entire video game industry. Yeah, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.440 and it's uh, yeah, well, I mean we'll we'll get 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.039 into it later on, but but it but it is 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.360 one worst company in America twice, two years in a row, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.400 two years in a row. Yeah yeah. But but to 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.800 start off, you know, it's it didn't start off as 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.559 as this uh company that was bent on on having 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.440 a stranglehold on the video game industry. And I'm not 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.280 saying that that's what he has now or that's goal, 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.360 that's what's goal is, but that's what that's the popular 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.000 perception that is. Well, you know, to be fair, it 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:37.440 does as twenty five million registered players and is operating 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.920 out of seventy five countries, so it's not doing to shadowy. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.520 But but it had had interesting beginnings. Now to really 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.400 understand how A started, you actually have to go way 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.480 back before e A was a thing. Uh. And my 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.960 first date that I wrote down was in nineteen fifty 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:59.000 three because that's when William M. Trip Hawkins the Third 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.200 was born. Now, this guy is going to be the 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.360 founder of e A when we get up to that point, 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.960 but um, he was. It was his idea to start 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.280 up a video game company, and uh, and you know 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.079 the way he came about this was as he was 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.119 growing up and going to school, he started to get 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.920 really interested in uh, computers in general and games as well. 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.640 In fact, in nineteen seventy he designed a board game. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:33.160 It was a football board game called ACU stat Pro Football. Yeah. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.480 He borrowed five thousand dollars from his father to get 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.280 this off the ground. And it was a complete commercial failure. Right. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.040 It was his first entrepreneurial attempt and it and it failed, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.720 which often we can learn a lot more from our 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.320 failures than our successes. But it teaches us a couple 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.360 of things about Hawkins that he's interested in games, and 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.720 he's interested in football in particular, which becomes extremely evident. 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.800 And during the the evolution of e A right, right, 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.359 and he had started kind of designing stuff. He was 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.360 a big D and D player from what I understand 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:05.919 and um and was really interested in how all of 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.440 the math and statistics worked. But noticed that a lot 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.120 of his friends were not interested in doing that at all, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.680 and so he was kind of thinking like, hey, what if. Yeah, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.280 he was looking at at different ways of creating sets 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.720 of rules and statistics and and also at the same 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.760 time he was starting to get interested in computers. Now 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.120 in the early seventies. This is predating the personal computer. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.560 If you were interested in computers, it's because you had 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.400 a job at Uh, there were computers at your job, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.240 or maybe you were attending university and they were computers 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.520 there right right in in seventy when he had his 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.720 first interaction ever with a prototype micro computer, this was 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:43.880 over a friend's house and uh, and that kind of 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.119 set him up for a couple of years later. Yeah, 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.320 in nineteen seventy three, he has access to a d 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.280 E C PDP eleven mini computer and he creates a 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.720 program written in the Basic programming language that was designed 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.800 to run simulations of football games, so exactly a fully 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.120 interactive gaming experience. More like, if I put in every 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.040 player's stats and then set this to go and have 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.200 it play out as if it were a game, what 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.000 would the results be? And he tested it by running 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.479 a simulation of what was going to be at that time, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.960 the nineteen seventy four Super Bowl game, and it turned 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:24.560 out that his his game ended up predicting the final 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.760 score fairly closely. Uh. In his game, it said that 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.440 the Dolphins would win over Minnesota twenty three to six, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.400 and the real score was actually twenty four to seven. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.800 So at least in that sense, the statistics seemed to 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:44.159 hold true. Now, of course, we all know that in reality, 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.359 from a day to day basis, statistics can give you 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.560 an indication of how things might go, but there's no 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.279 guarantee that's how they will go, right, Yeah, So so 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.839 Luck could have certainly been involved in that one, but 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.320 you know not. Nonetheless, he was a student at Harvard 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.440 at the time. He graduated with a self designed major 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.240 in a strategy and applied game theory. That's an interesting 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.920 major right there. Especially fore right, he says that he 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.080 spent a couple of years convincing Harvard to to let 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.280 him get that degree because that was what he wanted. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.400 And I would go on to get an MBA from Stanford. Yep. 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.480 And when he graduated in ninet with that NBA, he 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.880 went to work for a little company called Apple, and 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.920 at that time it really was a little company. Yeah, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.400 they had just just about fifty employees at the time, Yeah, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.479 fifty employees. He had joined early on. This is, of course, 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.440 you know, right at the very onset of the personal 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.880 computer era. The Apple two was the first computer from 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.719 Apple to really hit it off in the market. The 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.520 first Apple was mostly adopted by people who were hobbyists 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.880 or really had a fascination with computers, but it was 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.080 not a commercial success. What didn't run away with the market, 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.279 Apple two was a totally different story. That was the 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.920 one that a larger niche began to get interested in 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.560 personal computers. It's still was still, you know, kind of 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:06.280 in the hobbyist era, but uh, it was a looser 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.480 definition of hobbyists at that point, not just people who 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.120 were obsessed with computers. And I mean that in the 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.240 nicest way. I come from a family that's part of 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.279 this niche. So yeah, Hawkins has said that in seven 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.000 he saw an Apple two at a computer fair and 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:22.960 realized that this was kind of you know, he had 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.000 been churning around this this concept of of games and 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.400 computers and programming for a couple of years and decided 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.839 that Apple was, yes, the way to go. He's not 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:33.960 the only one either. There were a lot of early 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.359 game developers who were looking at personal computers as the 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.800 platform of choice, and many of them, uh showed an 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.279 early preference for the Apple to Richard Garriott of Origin 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.480 also had that same fascination. So Hawkins works for Apple. 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.920 By two, he was the director of strategy and marketing 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.360 at Apple Computers. So from yeah, that those humble beginnings, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:00.760 and of course by then Apple was doing very very 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.719 well and had already had its initial public offering, which 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:09.240 netted Hawkins quite a bit of money. And so he 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.120 made a big, risky decision. He decided that his fascination 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.800 of games and computers needed to really be indulged, and 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.440 so he left Apple Computer. Well, he supposedly had had 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.760 decided almost a decade prior that in two would be 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.440 the year for him to start a business, to start 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.480 a computer business, and that that that would be the 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.920 year that that the home computing market had caught up 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.760 to his desire to plan it. Now, now, I both 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.000 of us honestly don't know whether or not that's truly 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:41.760 what he thought. That's some of the stuff. Some of 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.320 the stuff he says, he says, well after the time, right, 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.200 it could be retcond is all I'm saying. I'm not 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.120 saying he definitely did do that. I'm just I have 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:57.800 a little bit of skepticism either either way. On two 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.400 fun fact, the day before I was born, Um, in 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.520 case anyone needed to feel really old right now, thank 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:09.400 you you're welcome. Um. He he incorporated Electronic Arts, and 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.480 and this was not going This was not the original 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.400 name that he had thought of for the company. No, no, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.920 he actually originally wanted to call it Amazing Software, but 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.560 that just didn't seem to really click. He got a 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.320 bunch of people together to try and uh brainstorm and idea. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.440 He had actually used two thousand dollars of his own 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.920 money to fund this early part of the company, UH 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.520 and he they started thinking about other possible names. One 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.360 of the names they came up with was soft Art, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.800 but the head of another company that was called Software 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.160 Software Arts asked him if he would reconsider naming his 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.800 company that just to avoid any confusion, and he agreed 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.559 to do that. Had another brainstorming session and that came 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.400 up with Electronic Arts. Along with a team of other 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.560 folks and marketing people as well an outside marketing company, 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.560 and Electronic Arts was born. They would actually receive by 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.000 the end of nineteen eight two two million dollars in 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.640 venture capital from Sequoia Capital, and Sequoia Capital even gave 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.960 them some office space to work out of before they 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.520 had any sort of physical headquarters right right. Very Originally, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.439 I think he worked out of his own home when 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.280 he was hiring his first couple of people, and uh, 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:20.400 all of these people that he was hiring at the time, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.240 and and the naming of the company kind of came 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.240 about because he really wanted UM. He really believed that 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.320 computer games are an art form and wanted UM wanted 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.560 the game company to operate kind of like a music 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:34.920 label UM. And this is really evident in some of 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.040 their early marketing campaigns and attempts. You know, they would 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.160 get these game developers together and pose them like rock 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:44.040 stars have, have rock music photographers come in and do 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.560 these gorgeous photographs of them and and really concentrate on 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.559 the software artist. Yeah, even the art they would use 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.800 in their the games they sold, which in those days 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.760 games didn't come in boxes yet. They were in usually 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.040 plastic bags, and you had some r that would be included. 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.760 But it it looked pretty looked like a lot of Yeah, 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:06.360 it looked like a lot of these games came out 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.160 of someone's garage. And here's here's a fun fact. A 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.840 lot of them did. UM. But uh e A. They 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:14.680 took an approach where they really put a lot of 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.319 graphic design work into the art that was included with 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.600 the games, and there were several sources I read that 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.959 likened the the art on the games too. Album you 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.160 would see on what we used to you know, buy 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.880 music on, which were these giant vinyl albums. I actually 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.320 kids are doing that again now. But there was a 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.760 while where I would say vinyl album and I just 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.400 get that blank stare um. Those days appeared to have 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.200 disappeared again for at least a while, but I'll see 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.920 that keeps up. Uh. They actually moved to the headquarters 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.000 in San Mateo, California, and they were there for quite 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.640 a few years. Ultimately they ended up moving again. But 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.240 and also you know, e A expanded greatly, But we'll 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.400 get into all of at So they're early early efforts 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.880 were concentrated on a few titles, uh, and they wanted 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.440 to produce all of their games. Internally, they wanted to 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:16.199 be a publisher, a developer, and a distributor. So these 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.679 are all different parts of the the video game industry. 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.400 And you can have a company that's just one of 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.280 these things, or you can have a company that does 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.960 multiple roles here, but to break it down, essentially, you 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.200 have publishers that these are the companies that fund the 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.280 development of video games. Now, they might have a development 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.439 team within the publisher, or they may pay an independent 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.600 developer to create a game. But they are the ones 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.280 who say, here's some money, we believe in the project 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.599 that you have pitched, why don't you go ahead and 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.120 build that game. Then you give us the game, and 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.719 we will make sure the game gets to distributors who 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.240 will then make sure the game gets two stores. And 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.360 then the way it generally works, if it if you're 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.320 talking about a dependent developer and a publisher, the publisher 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.280 will give an advance to the developer, and that advance 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.160 is against any future royalties that the game sells until 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.280 you pay off that advance, and then you usually have 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.600 some sort of royalty sharing program where the publisher gets 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.880 a certain amount of the money from sales and the 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.600 developer gets another, you know, a percentage of those sales 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.760 as well, But the advance has to be paid off first, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.880 because that's the initial investment the publisher makes to the developer. 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.760 Developers are of course, those are the people who developed 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.040 the games, are the ones who actually build the games. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.280 So again, it can be an independent company, it could 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:35.920 be part of a publisher, it could be part of 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.200 a distributor. Uh. Either are all different types of models 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.440 out there, but these are the people actually building the code, 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.079 making the art, writing the games. That's that's yeah. Then 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.640 you've got the distributors. Now, these are the people who 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:53.040 are responsible for delivering finished games from publishers and delivering 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.760 them to retail establishments and other outlets, so they sell gain. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.480 The publishers sell their games to distributors, and then the 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.640 distributors take those games and sell them to the retail operators, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.679 who then sell them to the public. So U e. A. 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.800 Was all three of these things right. And at the time, 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.400 Hawkins has said that he had done a lot of 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.480 market research and that a hundred and thirty five of 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.000 his competitors were doing the same thing um, which which 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.480 seems like an awfully large number, although at the time 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.800 we were just on the verge of a little bit 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.000 of a market crash A little bit. A little bit 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.800 is a little bit is understating it. Yeah, but but 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:33.640 but but during this boom, there were there was a 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.760 lot going on. Um and uh. And also the concept 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.080 reminds me a lot of Apple's Apple is a really 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.040 terrific example of vertical integration and um and from his 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.240 time at Apple, I feel like probably that's one of 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.320 the places where he picked up this concept. Yeah, and 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:54.000 and those early titles that first came out. The first 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:59.120 six titles from e A included games called Hard Hat Mac, 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:04.800 which was kind of like Mario Clone. Um It's or 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.120 Donkey Kong Clone. I really should say not Mario, but 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.240 a Donkey Kong clone. It was a platforming game a 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.520 side not even a side s calling it was, you know, 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.000 it's kind of like Donkey Kong. Then you had the 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.920 pinball construction set. There was a game called which you 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.800 Don't let you build pinball systems. Then you had arcn 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.440 which was kind of a weird fantasy strategy game that 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.520 was part chess, part action game. The idea being that 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.480 you have two sides. Uh. Two sides have different pieces 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.840 that are kind of like chess pieces. Uh. The different 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.680 pieces have different abilities, and you try to take over 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.160 your opponent's territory. Whenever one of your pieces comes in 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.080 contact with an opponent's piece, you then have a little 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.920 arcade like battle between the two right, and depending upon 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.480 what your pieces, you might be able to really whoop 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.480 up on your opponent because you're faster, or your shots 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.360 do a lot more damage. Uh and and so it 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.800 was all about strategy, like I want to make sure 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.160 this piece goes up against my that piece my opponent has, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.640 so I can I can win the game. You can 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.280 kind of tell that I played the heck out of 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.680 this game by the way. I also owned the Pinball 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.120 Construction set and I owned hard hat Mac. Then there 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.240 was a Mule, which was another strategy game. A lot 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.440 of people who enjoyed this really like things like a 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.440 war gaming where you would have the big table with 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.200 all the hexagons and you move the pieces around. Mule 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:32.560 was kind of the computer version of that. Yeah. It 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:34.640 was really built for four players, which at the time 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.320 was was kind of unheard of. Yeah, and I never 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.040 got into it because my brain does not work that way. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.720 I can. I can do well enough in our con 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.760 because even if my strategy skills aren't that great, my 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.240 twitch skills were good enough to help me get by, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.440 but Mule not so much. Then there was Worms, which 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.640 was kind of a high concept game where you would 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.760 train these what they called worms, these these these lines 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.160 of light to behave in a certain way in order 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.960 to progress in the game. And it's very difficult to explain. 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.960 And I've always seen people who say, if you want 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:10.560 to play the game, if you want to try it out, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.440 find a copy of it and give it a whirl. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.680 I mean, you can find stuff like this on the internet. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.080 Uh you should do it without reading the instructions, just 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.160 to see if you can figure out what the heck 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.160 is going on. Um And I mean I read a 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:24.720 description of this, and I'm not sure I would be 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.600 able to figure it out. But maybe it's more intuitive 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.600 than the descriptions would give you. Uh that, then the 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.840 descriptions seemed to indicate. And then the last of the 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.960 six titles that they launched with when they the company 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:42.000 was first offering up games was Murder on These zinder Kneuf, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.720 which I know nothing about. I did not own that one. Yeah, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.920 I I should put in that I have played zero 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.400 of these games. Well, they you know, right around when 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.280 you were one, so I'm not surprised, uh so. But 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.960 I I had most of these games because they came 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.240 out for the Apple too, and we had an Apple too. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.440 And actually what happened was a local school had purchased 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.639 a bunch of games and then they gave them to 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.760 me to test and tell them which ones were educational 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.800 and which ones were not really educational. So I did, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.280 and then I returned all the games and they said, 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.600 all right, you can keep all the ones that aren't educational. Yeah, 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:23.240 so as a kid, I was like ching and um 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.000 and so yeah, I ended up with a lot of 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.680 a lot of early games. That's also how I ended 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.480 up learning about the Ultimate series because Ultimate two was 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.400 one of those games. But uh uh, yeah, so there 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.800 was That was the initial launching title, but there were 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.760 some other ones that came out shortly thereafter. There was 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.280 the Last gladi Eator, which is a game I also owned. Um, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.680 so that one didn't come in the batch. I wanted 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.080 that one as a as a part of a lip 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:56.439 sinking contest. Yeah, well, what pray tell? Were you lip sinking? 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.359 Me and my dad did a lip sinking routine to 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:05.280 raise stevens the Pirates song, which is all about a 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.880 pirate who wants to sing and dance and wear bright 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:12.440 shiny pants. Well that's that's a that's awesome. Yeah. We 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.280 won first place, which was a fifty dollar gift certificate 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.719 to a local comics store. And I don't read comic books, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.920 so I bought all their computer games instead, and one 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:23.960 of them was The Last Gladiator, And that was a 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:25.960 game where you play as a little gladiator and all 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.800 these different monsters come out and based upon whatever weapon 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.280 you have at your disposal, you have uh you know, 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.120 decent chances against them. It gets more and more difficult 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:35.720 as the game goes on. You know, it's kind of 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:41.919 a typical Arcady experience. Um. They also had they launched 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:43.479 a game that would end up being sort of the 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.680 genesis of e A sports. Dr J and Larry Bird 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.560 Go one on one. I'm told this is from a 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.919 sport called basketball and so one that's one with the 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:57.639 orange round thing. Correct. Uh I want to say yes, yeah, 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.720 this this was one of the earliest Uh well, it 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.960 was the earliest sports game from e A and Hawkins 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.000 really struck on a brilliant idea. He had decided to 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.840 try and approach people who were famous in various sports 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:16.320 and to license their their names. Yeah right, Yeah, they 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.800 get a promotional tie in from famous famous athletes, I 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.680 mean Dr J and Larry Bird or especially at the 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.720 world famous and and which is interesting because the world 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.040 famous since they were playing an American sport that was 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:35.240 almost exclusively played in America. UM, they ended up that 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:37.920 they ended up paying off big time. Ended up being 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.080 a strategy that e A still to this day employees. 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.840 They also established a new policy which was to in 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.480 order to keep more of the profits that it would 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.239 get from its uh from the sales, it was going 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.960 to reduce the discount it gave software distributors for its games, 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.080 meaning that UH they were essentially selling their games at 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.879 a higher cost. Two stores saying all right, well, you know, 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.520 we're no longer going to sell this game to you 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:07.560 at ten dollars a copy. We're gonna sell it to 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.840 you for thirty dollars a copy. And UH, and you 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.240 know it's your trump. Uh, it's your problem to figure 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.640 out how to sell this. So if you're if you 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.080 usually sell your games at forty dollars, now you're paying 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.520 thirty bucks to sell it for forty, your profit margin 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:27.240 has shrunk. As a software district, a software retail store. UM, 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.320 you know, do you continue trying to do that? Do 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.400 you hike your prices up and hope that people are 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.639 willing to pay it? Uh. E A's point was that, hey, 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:36.919 we're starting to make a name for ourselves. People know 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.400 our product and they like it. So if if they 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.520 like it and this is the only way they can 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.080 get it, then you're gonna have to play ball with us. 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.119 And this is sort of the first example of e 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.280 A really throwing its weight around. Yeah. This was also 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.600 the year that it made its Conferdence debut at the 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.600 Consumer Electronics Show, and so, yeah, they were really really 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.359 getting out there in the public and starting to make ways. Yeah, 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:03.320 and keep in mind this is all in the first 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.320 year that they're actually offering games. You know, they had 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:08.720 been a company for a while, but of course, you know, 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:10.399 as soon as they became a company, it didn't mean 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.480 that they had games to offer everybody them. Uh. They 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.879 also had established these ideas that you know, every single 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.040 person who worked on the game was going to be credited. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:21.920 If you were the creator of a game, your name 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.480