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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, thirteen year old Bert war Doll

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Speaker 1: is looking through an Atari catalog. At the time, Atari

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Speaker 1: was the cutting edge in video games, promising an arcade

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Speaker 1: experience in your shag carpeted living room.

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Speaker 2: The Atari video computer system is twenty contridges with thirteen

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Speaker 2: hundred game variations.

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Speaker 3: You play on your own TV sect.

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Speaker 1: Bert sees something intriguing. It's an ad for Earthworld, the

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Speaker 1: first title in Atari's sword Quest series of games. Epic

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Speaker 1: and ambitious. Sword Quest promises one hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars in prizes split up among five finalists, with the

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Speaker 1: Sword of Ultimate Sorcery going to the grand prize winner.

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Speaker 1: Usually the prize for winning a game was getting yelled

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Speaker 1: at by your parents for staying at the arcade for

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Speaker 1: too long.

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Speaker 4: I remember there was a photo like a game image.

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Speaker 4: The sword Quest Earthroll game is about the zodiac signs.

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Speaker 4: In this particular picture of the screen grab was the

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Speaker 4: Leo sign. It is like a colorful waterfall that you

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Speaker 4: have to kind of run through. That was my first

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Speaker 4: image of seeing sword Quests from that and as I recall,

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Speaker 4: they did say, you know there was a contest, you know,

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Speaker 4: win one hundred and fifty dollars dollars, you know, something

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Speaker 4: like that, And they didn't give a ton of details

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Speaker 4: about it. But it was exciting, of.

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Speaker 1: Course it was exciting. It was the most exciting thing

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Speaker 1: a thirteen year old could possibly hear. Real prizes for

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Speaker 1: playing a video game. Weren't games supposed to be brain

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Speaker 1: rotting wastes of time. The problem was that video games

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Speaker 1: didn't have drop dates yet. He knew it was supposed

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Speaker 1: to come out in October, but he didn't know the day.

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Speaker 1: So Burt has to try to find the game the

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Speaker 1: old fashioned way by calling every store within driving distance.

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Speaker 5: Hello, kmart, Hey, do you have an Earth World?

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Speaker 6: Do we have what Earth World?

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Speaker 5: From?

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Speaker 7: Atari?

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Speaker 5: Earthworm?

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Speaker 6: Earth World?

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Speaker 5: Let me put you through to long care.

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Speaker 1: Bert calls every store he can think of, and then finally.

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Speaker 4: JC Penny was the biggest store in our area that

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Speaker 4: carried Atari games, at least the closest to my house.

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Speaker 4: And I do remember calling them and asking them and

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Speaker 4: they said they were going to be carrying it, so

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Speaker 4: I knew when to go and it would be there.

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Speaker 1: This was Bert's big Christmas story moment, except it's October

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Speaker 1: and he has to pay for it. With his own allowance,

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Speaker 1: but still he convinces his parents to drive him to J. C. Penny.

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Speaker 1: He leaps out of the car and runs toward the entrance. Inside,

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Speaker 1: past the clothing and the jewelry and the small appliances,

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Speaker 1: is the stores, video game department, a tiny glass encased

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Speaker 1: oasis of excitement, and a store full of socks.

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Speaker 4: There was a big kiosk that had electronics. There was

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Speaker 4: electronic stuff surrounding the kiosk too, but it was in

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Speaker 4: the kiosk where the games where they were behind the counter,

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Speaker 4: but it was a glass count so you could see

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Speaker 4: the games lined up in there.

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Speaker 1: Bert scans the shelves, past Asteroids, past Night Driver, past

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Speaker 1: Breakout until he sees it Earthworld. The cover has a

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Speaker 1: muscular man and woman wielding swords, a hovering head with

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Speaker 1: an eye patch, and a minotaur. It was very van

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Speaker 1: mural Rock and Roll, an image to the conjured up

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Speaker 1: Everything and adventure game should be. Bert fishes the money

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Speaker 1: out of his pocket, grabs the game, and dashes back

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Speaker 1: out to the car. On the drive home, he tears

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Speaker 1: into the plastic wrap, scanning the manual.

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Speaker 4: It seemed to take forever to drive home because I

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Speaker 4: was so excited to play a new game. But I

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Speaker 4: had that time to look at everything I could look

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Speaker 4: at the catalog, I could read the instructions. That's what

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Speaker 4: I did. I spent that time looking at everything I could.

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Speaker 4: And this game was also different because it came with

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Speaker 4: a comic book, which was unusual.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a comic book, which would become important later. At home,

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Speaker 1: he pushes the cartridge into his Atari twenty six hundred,

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Speaker 1: a shimmering sword appears on screen.

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Speaker 4: Well, I was definitely super excited by this time. The

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Speaker 4: Atari had been moved to my bedroom. Unfortunately, I had

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Speaker 4: a black and white TV at the time, not color,

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Speaker 4: so I couldn't see it. But when you plug the

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Speaker 4: game in for the first time, there's this magical, colorful

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Speaker 4: sword that comes on the screen, which and color looks

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Speaker 4: pretty impressive, even for Atari twenty six hundred. And then

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Speaker 4: you press the button to get started, and there you are.

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Speaker 1: Bert became immersed in a world of sorcery and magic,

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Speaker 1: wizards and demons, and if he could navigate it successfully.

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Speaker 1: There was a prize at the end for this first game.

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Speaker 1: It was a talisman, a solid gold pendant valued at

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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars or the equivalent of about eighty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars today. That was more than a lot of

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Speaker 1: people made in an entire year. For the first time,

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Speaker 1: a home video game could pay off with a real,

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Speaker 1: tangible reward, a prize that held enough value to pay

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Speaker 1: for college or a new car. But what started as

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Speaker 1: a video game promotion would quickly become one of the

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Speaker 1: most controversial moments in eighties pop culture, with a lot

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Speaker 1: of broken promises, urban myths, payoffs, and a central mystery

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Speaker 1: that's consumed fans for decades, a mystery that involves real,

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Speaker 1: not imagined lost treasure. Atari promised tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: players the chance to have a massive sword to be

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Speaker 1: crowned the king of video games. That wasn't exactly what happened. Bert,

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Speaker 1: of course, didn't know any of this, not yet. Right now,

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Speaker 1: there's no conspiracy theories, no accusations, no crestfallen kids. He

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Speaker 1: wraps his hand around the joystick, keeps his thumb hovering

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Speaker 1: over the red button, and hits start. The sword Quest

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Speaker 1: competition is about to begin, and video games will never

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Speaker 1: be the same. For iHeartRadio, this is the legend of

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Speaker 1: sword Quest. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus and this is

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Speaker 1: episode one, The Sword and the Stoned. In nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 1: Et was the film everyone wanted to see. Spider Man

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Speaker 1: was one of the most popular comic book characters. Journey

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Speaker 1: was a big concert act. All three of these things

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Speaker 1: had something in common. They were also available as games.

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Speaker 1: You could play on the Atari video computer system. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you could play as a member of Journey, although the

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Speaker 1: very limited sound chips of the time didn't really do

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Speaker 1: their music justice. Atari wasn't just the biggest thing in gaming,

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Speaker 1: It really was the only thing in gaming. Sure they

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Speaker 1: were rival home game consoles, but none could approach Atari's

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Speaker 1: market dominance or its cultural cachet. Atari was like Kleenex.

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Speaker 1: People didn't play video games. They played Atari. Walk into

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Speaker 1: a McDonald and you could grab a special at Tari

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Speaker 1: scratch off ticket to win free games. When politicians advocated

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Speaker 1: for high tech business development to create jobs, the press

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Speaker 1: dubbed them Atari democrats. When Harrison Ford runs through the

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Speaker 1: rainy Neon Alleys in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, audiences catch

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Speaker 1: a glimpse of a massive Atari logo, that three line

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Speaker 1: graphic that promised a trip into a world of unlimited imagination.

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Speaker 1: That film took place in twenty nineteen, meaning Atari was

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Speaker 1: set to rule the gaming realm for a long time

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Speaker 1: to come. The logo being in Scott's movie was no accident.

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Speaker 1: Blade Runner was released by Giant Movie Studio Warner Brothers,

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Speaker 1: and Warner Brothers was owned by Warner Communications, a massive

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Speaker 1: media conglomerate that also owned, among other things, Atari. But

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Speaker 1: Atari wasn't some up and coming division. In the first

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Speaker 1: nine months of nineteen eighty two, it was responsible for

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Speaker 1: nearly fifty percent of Warner's overall revenue, was making more

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Speaker 1: money than their films were, with cash registers ringing up

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Speaker 1: over a billion dollars in systems and games. That was

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Speaker 1: the first Golden Age of video games. Though it wasn't

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Speaker 1: the first home console, Atari was for many people the

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Speaker 1: only way to play, and.

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Speaker 3: That was exciting. When I was at Atari, we were

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Speaker 3: literally creating and defining the medium of interactive television entertainment

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Speaker 3: that had never happened before. Until that point, television was

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Speaker 3: a passive entertainment form one hundred percent, and we turned

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Speaker 3: it into an active entertainment form, and that was revolutionary

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Speaker 3: in ways they're still rippling through society.

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Speaker 1: That's Howard Scott Warshaw. Howard was a game engineer for

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Speaker 1: Atari who was responsible for some of their biggest hits,

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Speaker 1: like a tie in game for Raiders of the Lost

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Speaker 1: Dark and Yars Revenge. The Yar of the title was

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Speaker 1: just the first name of the Atari CEO, Ray Kassar,

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Speaker 1: spelled backwards. That's Howard's humor. When he programmed Raiders, he

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Speaker 1: got his hand on a bullwhip to crack around the offices.

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Speaker 1: It also meant meaning Steven Spielberg to get the director's approval.

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Speaker 1: When Spielberg was nowhere to be seen, Howard gave himself

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Speaker 1: a tour of the studio.

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Speaker 3: I walked everywhere. I walked in and out as sets.

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Speaker 3: I saw my favorite shows. I stole things off of sets.

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Speaker 3: I hope the statute has run on that, but I

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Speaker 3: actually stole little pieces on a memorabilia from some of

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Speaker 3: the sets. It was just an amazing day to be

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Speaker 3: It was like a dream tour of the studio and

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Speaker 3: at the end I get to talk to Steven.

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Speaker 1: Spielberg to put Atari's status in perspective. Remember that video

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Speaker 1: rental stores weren't on every corner just yet. Many homes

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Speaker 1: didn't have cable television. Electronic home entertainment was limited to

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Speaker 1: what was on TV and whatever was playing on your

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Speaker 1: stereo or walkman. Having an Atari system was major.

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Speaker 3: Atari wasn't the first video game system. The Atari VCS

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Speaker 3: was not the first home video game system, but it

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Speaker 3: was the first home video game system to hit the stratosphere.

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Speaker 3: It was ubiquitous, It was everywhere.

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Speaker 8: It was.

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Speaker 3: It was millions and millions and millions and millions of

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Speaker 3: units out in homes, which no one had ever done

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Speaker 3: before with a video game system. Because Atari was a

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Speaker 3: wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Communications, which is a huge conglomerate,

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Speaker 3: Warner was able to roll their Atari money into their

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Speaker 3: overall corporate picture. People knew Warner was doing really well.

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Speaker 3: Nobody knew just what an amazing cash fountain Atari had

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Speaker 3: turned into.

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Speaker 1: The Atari Video Computer System, later renamed the Atari twenty

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Speaker 1: six hundred, was released in nineteen seventy seven. The system

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Speaker 1: originally retailed for about two hundred dollars or almost one

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars today. While it sold well initially, it didn't

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Speaker 1: really take off until the nineteen eighty release of Space Invaders,

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Speaker 1: which had players shooting an endless Armada of Aliens. You

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Speaker 1: can't really say enough about the arcade version of Space

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Speaker 1: Invaders as a phenomenon. It grows to nearly four billion

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Speaker 1: dollars by nineteen eighty three, which makes it one of

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Speaker 1: the most successful entertainment properties in history, not just games,

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Speaker 1: any entertainment property. When Atari released a home version, it

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Speaker 1: established them as the company to beat. No longer did

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Speaker 1: Space Invaders fans have to brave Zenie arcades or pay

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Speaker 1: a cover charge at the bar to get their hands

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Speaker 1: on the game. Thanks in part to Space Invaders, by

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, fifteen million Atari VCS systems had been sold.

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Speaker 1: Players would flip a toggle style switch on their system,

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Speaker 1: which resembled a station wagon thanks to the faux wood

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Speaker 1: grain design. There was a switch to select whether you

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Speaker 1: had a black and white or color television, and another

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Speaker 1: switch to select the difficulty setting. It was like being

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Speaker 1: in a cockpit.

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Speaker 3: Why didn't I have them?

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Speaker 1: Then you'd select a cartridge from your collection and jam

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Speaker 1: it into the center of the concert. Space Invaders, Raiders,

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Speaker 1: Centipede asteroids, all of them with amazing painted art from

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Speaker 1: Atari's in house illustrators, some of whom went on to

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Speaker 1: careers in fine art. The art promised danger, excitement, the

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Speaker 1: chance to become someone else, someone who didn't have to

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Speaker 1: go to school or work, someone who slayed dragons. The graphics, well,

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Speaker 1: they didn't exactly move up to the box. Think of

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Speaker 1: it this way. When one Atari graphics artist applied for

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Speaker 1: a job, she submitted an art sample in needle point.

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Speaker 1: It was a pretty close approximation of the boxy visuals

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Speaker 1: of the games. Kids, of course, did not care. They

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Speaker 1: grabbed the eight direction joystick with one red button and

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Speaker 1: played for hours. Most games didn't have a pause option,

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Speaker 1: so you'd have to wait for a break in the

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Speaker 1: action to go pee and hope your little brother or

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Speaker 1: sister wouldn't run into the living room to mess up

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Speaker 1: your progress. But by nineteen eighty two, and in spite

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Speaker 1: of Atari's massive success, there were signs that things could

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Speaker 1: be hadding in a different direction. Some competing systems, like

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Speaker 1: Mattel's in television, were gaining ground with better graphics. The

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Speaker 1: VCS was now five years old, a fairly long time

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Speaker 1: for a gaming system. The Space Invader's phenomenon was winding down.

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Speaker 1: Pac Man Fever would soon cool off. There was a

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Speaker 1: sense that Atari needed to shake things up. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: adventure games were growing in popularity. One title, which had

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Speaker 1: the very on the nose name of adventure had been

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Speaker 1: a big seller. Something that sent players on a quest

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Speaker 1: was appealing as opposed to fast twitch games like Space Invaders,

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Speaker 1: which required little more than hand eye coordination and rapid

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Speaker 1: fire alien destruction. For another, Warner Communications had a number

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Speaker 1: of companies in its portfolio. One of them was DC Comics,

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Speaker 1: home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and thousands of others.

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Speaker 1: Another was the Franklin Mint, which Warner bought in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty one with money earned from Atari's success. The Franklin

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Speaker 1: Mint struck limited edition collectibles like coins honoring great Americans,

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Speaker 1: which was sort of cool, and novelty thimbles, which absolutely

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Speaker 1: were not. There was an opportunity for all three companies

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Speaker 1: to work in tandem to keep Atari on top of

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Speaker 1: the gaming world, and when you owned a collectibles company,

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Speaker 1: you could come up with something special.

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Speaker 3: The prizes they actually did come up with for the

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Speaker 3: sword Quest series were pretty awesome. As I recall, there

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Speaker 3: was a talisman for however you want to take that,

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Speaker 3: and that was had enough jewels and gems in it

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Speaker 3: to be worth twenty five thousand dollars. Then there was

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Speaker 3: a chalice that also was bitjeweled and valued at twenty

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Speaker 3: five thousand dollars, which is pretty impressive. Then there was

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Speaker 3: a crown, although anybody who won that I don't know

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Speaker 3: if their head would fit in it. But the crown

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Speaker 3: was also had enough jewels and case in at I

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Speaker 3: think a cool twenty five thousand dollars. And then there

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Speaker 3: was the Philosopher's Stone, which I don't think anybody knew

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Speaker 3: what that was before Harry Potter introduced that concept everybody,

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Speaker 3: and that also had enough jewels and gems to be

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Speaker 3: worth twenty five thousand dollars. Those prizes were for each

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Speaker 3: of the four games, and then you had the grand

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Speaker 3: prize that after all four games had been won and

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Speaker 3: those prizes had been distributed, the grand prize was, of

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Speaker 3: course a sword. It was the Magic Sword, the Ultimate Sword,

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Speaker 3: because this is sword quest, so this was the quest

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Speaker 3: for the sword, and that sword had enough action going

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Speaker 3: on that it was actually valued at fifty thousand dollars

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Speaker 3: at the time.

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Speaker 1: A game series in which real prizes could be won,

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Speaker 1: prizes that were worth a lot of money. That was

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Speaker 1: the idea but what would it actually look like, feel like,

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Speaker 1: sound like. What they needed was someone who could bring

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Speaker 1: all these elements together with this ambitious multi media idea.

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Speaker 1: Needed was the Steven Spielberg of Atari. If Steven Spielberg

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Speaker 1: got really high on the job. In Atari's Sunnyvale, California campus,

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Speaker 1: the corporate powers that be were largely kept away from

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Speaker 1: the creative people, the programmers, writers, artists, and others who

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Speaker 1: made Atari's games come to life despite the system's needle

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Speaker 1: point like graphics and limited processing power. One of Atari's

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Speaker 1: secret weapons was Todd Frye.

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Speaker 3: Of all the characters at Atari, Todd Frye is the king.

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Speaker 3: He is the character among characters. I met Todd Frye

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Speaker 3: on January twelfth of nineteen eighty one, and we are

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Speaker 3: still friends today. We are actually very good friends. Todd

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Speaker 3: is an amazing person. But the first time I met

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Speaker 3: Todd Frye, that's quite a story, because what it was was,

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Speaker 3: on my first.

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Speaker 1: Day, Howard walked into the Atari offices full of enthusiasm.

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Speaker 1: What he found were Atari offices full of marijuana smoke.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty Silicon Valley counterculture office environments were common,

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Speaker 1: and Atari was at the forefront. Put it this way,

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Speaker 1: no one was submitting a urine sample.

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Speaker 3: I was running around doing first day kind of stuff.

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Speaker 3: But towards the end of the day I finally settled

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Speaker 3: down and was just reading some manuals in the office waiting,

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Speaker 3: and then for the first time I encountered Todd Fry.

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Speaker 3: And what happens is Todd comes in. I'm alone in

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Speaker 3: the office. Todd comes in, slams the door behind him,

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Speaker 3: pulls out a little plastic bag, looks at me and says,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to get high in here right now. So

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Speaker 3: if you don't want to be around this, you need

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Speaker 3: to leave.

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Speaker 1: Todd did exactly that, lighting up on the campus of

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Speaker 1: a multi billion dollar corporate enterprise.

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Speaker 5: So but I like to I really want to add

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Speaker 5: some context to that.

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Speaker 1: That's Todd.

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Speaker 5: We were not getting high and sitting around playing video games.

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Speaker 5: We were hammering down on really, really hard work. Some

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Speaker 5: of us. There was a culture of marijuana. Later on,

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Speaker 5: there was a culture of cocaine. Cocaine blew through our

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Speaker 5: part of Silicon Valley like a snowstorm when the money hit.

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Speaker 5: And that's real. I have no idea what was going

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Speaker 5: on in the other companies. I have no idea that

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Speaker 5: Atari was typical atypical. I'm pretty sure that smoking right

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Speaker 5: in the office and getting people offices and other buildings

320
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Speaker 5: when they complain was not typical. Yeah, there was a

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Speaker 5: bizarre culture of drug relaxed, intense work.

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Speaker 1: Todd is from Berkeley, California, and got bit by the

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Speaker 1: computer bug early on, early enough to have used punch cards.

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Speaker 5: I fell into computers the way some people fall into

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Speaker 5: rock guitar. Right, it's for me. Computers are God, that's

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Speaker 5: going to sound so weird. Computers are to me what

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Speaker 5: double neck guitars are to Jimmy Page. Computers are to

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Speaker 5: me what a stratocaster left handed stratus, right handed strat

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Speaker 5: is to Jimmy Hendrix. And yes, that is grandiose, is all.

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Speaker 5: But computers grabbed me by the back of my neck

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Speaker 5: and said we own you.

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Speaker 1: Todd loved computers, but wasn't exactly as passionate about school.

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Speaker 1: He dropped out of Berkeley High and was well without

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Speaker 1: a home for a bit. After spending some time as

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Speaker 1: a carpenter, Todd came to Atari in nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 1: and quickly established himself as somewhat of an eccentric. He

337
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Speaker 1: got the nickname Arfman.

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Speaker 5: Arfman has to do with how I would just occasionally

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Speaker 5: make noises. I would bark, but I mean, you know, okay,

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Speaker 5: so there we are. We'd move to another building, and

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Speaker 5: I late at night of the day, I might be

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Speaker 5: working walking from one office to another and go our.

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Speaker 1: But Todd's legend, it doesn't end there. His greatest legacy,

344
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Speaker 1: apart from game design, may have been his seeming rejection

345
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Speaker 1: of gravity. Todd had a pair of Nike running shoes

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Speaker 1: with some pretty good grip on the soles, and he

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Speaker 1: found that in one particular hallway, which was very narrow,

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Speaker 1: he could touch both walls with his feet. Then he

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Speaker 1: figured out he could actually get off the ground about

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Speaker 1: eight inches and shimmy his way forward.

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Speaker 5: And then I could jump. I could hop and go forward.

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Speaker 5: I could hop forward by manipulating my center of gravity.

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Speaker 5: I could hop forward, pop my feet.

354
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Speaker 6: Back on the wall. Bay. It's hilarious.

355
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Speaker 5: I'm running down the hallways top of the floor bam, bam.

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Speaker 6: You know, jumping about two feet each time. And then

357
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Speaker 6: I could hop upwards.

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Speaker 5: So I'm sitting there on my feet are four feet

359
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:52,879
Speaker 5: above the ground, and I'm like curled up next to

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Speaker 5: the ceiling, so that's, you know, just in the middle

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Speaker 5: of the hallway.

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Speaker 1: But like Acarus, Todd flew too close to the sun

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Speaker 1: or ceiling. One day while he was walking the walls,

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Speaker 1: he ran into the overhead sprinkler.

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Speaker 5: One day, I was doing it in the hallway. Don't

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Speaker 5: usually do it in and in that hallway the modulo

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Speaker 5: of where sprinklers were laid out is there was a

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Speaker 5: sprinkler right around the middle of the ceiling. And when

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Speaker 5: I went to Dismount, I went up and forward and

370
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Speaker 5: right into a sprinkler with my forehead cut a inch

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Speaker 5: and a half gash in my temple and bleeding all

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Speaker 5: over the way head moons bleed. And that's the sprinkler lobotomy.

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Speaker 6: That was the end of the wallwalking. I do not

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Speaker 6: remember doing it ever since.

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Speaker 1: Todd suffered no last incognitive damage that we know of.

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Speaker 1: And if you find Todd eccentric, well that's a part

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Speaker 1: of being on the cutting edge. Perhaps only Todd could

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Speaker 1: have conceived a sword quest, and it was a bold idea.

379
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Speaker 1: Instead of buying one game, consumers would feel compelled to

380
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,919
Speaker 1: buy four. Each would have a comic book created by

381
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Speaker 1: DC comics, and like the elaborate box art, it would

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Speaker 1: help sell the fantasy.

383
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:10,639
Speaker 5: DC Comics was owned by Warrant Communications and we started

384
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Speaker 5: doing comic books.

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Speaker 6: We were DC.

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Speaker 1: Comics, and instead of playing for bragging rights, gamers would

387
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Speaker 1: be playing for real, tangible prizes made by the Franklin Mint.

388
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Speaker 1: Each one would be appropriately regal. There was the Talisman,

389
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Speaker 1: a donut sized dial, the chalice which the winner could

390
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 1: sip from, the crown, the Philosopher's Stone made of white jade,

391
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Speaker 1: and finally, the Sword of Ultimate Sorcery, which would be

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Speaker 1: the grand prize on the line for the four winners.

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Speaker 1: Understand these weren't toys or trinkets. One hundred and fifty

394
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars was a lot of money then and now,

395
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Speaker 1: and the Franklin Mint specialized in handcrafting items that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have looked out of place in a museum.

397
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Speaker 5: The other thing that was all me was the contest

398
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Speaker 5: and prizes from Franklin Mint. Franklin was another cousin company,

399
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 5: and they make collectibles, and so it's like, why not

400
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 5: have contests built into the games and.

401
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:09,919
Speaker 6: Comic books for the games. We'll make it kind of.

402
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,720
Speaker 5: Literary and then we'll have collectible prizes for the contest,

403
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 5: and you know the whole I think it starts out.

404
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 5: I forget a lot, but it's a hero's journey in

405
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 5: a Grail quest.

406
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Speaker 1: There's an interesting early idea that didn't quite make it

407
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Speaker 1: off the drawing board at first. Someone and Todd isn't

408
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: sure who had the idea to offer not just treasure,

409
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,959
Speaker 1: but buried treasure, sending gamers off to far flung coordinates

410
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: where they could dig up the prizes. It felt appropriately

411
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 1: epic and kind of insane, actually, but Atari did issue

412
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: press material early on in which they promised the winners

413
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: would do just that, unearth buried loot. You can imagine

414
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 1: what Atari's lawyers thought of people, including kids, digging up

415
00:23:55,960 --> 00:24:00,159
Speaker 1: property or property they thought held a big prize. That

416
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: idea was abandoned, but the objective of awarding actual prizes stayed.

417
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: This wasn't totally unheard of at the time. Many Atari

418
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: games promised players a cool clothing patch if they submitted

419
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: proof of a high score, and there had been arcade

420
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: tournaments in which modest prize money was offered. Katari sponsored

421
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: a few of those, and even recognized players who set

422
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 1: records for blasting away at asteroids. The longest the record

423
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: holder Dennis Hernandez, who played for fifty hours and twelve minutes.

424
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Speaker 1: He was so dazed after he finished that he lost

425
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: consciousness and tumbled down a flight of stairs. But sword

426
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: Quest wouldn't be a physical endurance test. It was a

427
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: home game. That's really the only way it could have worked.

428
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 1: Because of the way the games were designed, players would

429
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: need to spend hours playing and studying them. You can't

430
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: do that at a pizza hunt. That the sword Quest

431
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: series would be mysic in nature was easy, but what

432
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: kind of story with the games? Tell Atari and Todd

433
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,239
Speaker 1: were both slightly ahead of their time here too. In

434
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Speaker 1: May nineteen eighty two, just before the first game was

435
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: to be released, Conan the Barbarian hit theaters. It was

436
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: a massive and sincere sword and sorcery epics, darring Arnold

437
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger as the pulp hero. That same year, Mattel debuted

438
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: the Masters of the Universe toy line, featuring massively muscled

439
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: heroes and villains like he Man, Skeletor, and beast Man.

440
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons meanwhile, had been going strong for years

441
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:38,199
Speaker 1: on the dining room tables of role playing enthusiasts. The

442
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,360
Speaker 1: timing seemed perfect for a high fantasy game from Atari,

443
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: and it was also good timing for Warner Communications, which

444
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: was depending on Atari to keep their overall business thriving.

445
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: Warner was and is a powerhouse entertainment company, but their

446
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 1: movies of the era weren't doing all that well. They

447
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: had just had a big flop with Under the Rain,

448
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: an espionage comedy starring Chevy Chase and set against the

449
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: backdrop of actors auditioning to play munchkins in The Wizard

450
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: of Oz and no, it wasn't based on a true story.

451
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: Because of how important Atari was to the company, there

452
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: was no problem getting approval for their big multimedia gamble.

453
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: In fact, Warner saw the advantages of cross promoting their products,

454
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: and they had faith in Todd, who had just poured

455
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: it over the arcade Megaheit pac Man, which was a

456
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 1: huge success. At least that's probably what happened. Remember that

457
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: Todd hit his head really hard on that sprinkler.

458
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 5: There was a proposal, there was a let's get the

459
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,479
Speaker 5: comic book people and the you know, to a certain extent,

460
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 5: I was riding the wave for sword Quest of having

461
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 5: just had pac Man released right, so I may have

462
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 5: had some cred I don't really know, but I do

463
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 5: not remember the specifics of that.

464
00:26:57,680 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 6: I really do not. I don't think I ever.

465
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 5: Went over to corporate HQ and said, here's my grab

466
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 5: scheme for the future of adventure games. I think I

467
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 5: wrote some docs and they went up one level and

468
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 5: just kind of got a green light.

469
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: Todd's idea was that each game would be centered on

470
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: four elements, Earth, fire, water, and air. Each would also

471
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: get slightly existential, focusing on a different philosophical or spiritual template.

472
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: The first Earth world was built around astrological signs. Later

473
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: games would take inspiration from the Kabbala or the Iching.

474
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: It was actually pretty heavy stuff for the era, which

475
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: was usually preoccupied with alien sports or shooting things, not

476
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: the meaning of life.

477
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 5: One is that there is actually a lot of genuine

478
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 5: literary context behind it. Very ambitious. I mean, you know,

479
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 5: the Zodiac, the Kabbala, the Chakras, it's a grail quat,

480
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 5: it's a hero's journey, and it's all explicitly tied up

481
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 5: with those mythopoetic Joseph Campbell kind of components. So I

482
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 5: dragged in all of this cultural artifacts, this literacy. I mean,

483
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 5: it is so weird to hear me say that. But

484
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 5: I dragged in a very literate framework for sword Quest,

485
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 5: and I dragged in the puzzle and Franklin Mint and

486
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 5: the real things which I don't think had ever been done,

487
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 5: and tied that to the comic book. So there are

488
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 5: two completely separate things that I brought together. And then

489
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 5: we took the adventure aspect of run around to do

490
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 5: stuff and see what happens and have puzzles built into it.

491
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 5: And the twitch minigames include all that together. And just

492
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 5: like listing the number of ambitious sub things that I

493
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 5: merged into one, you know, set of dependencies, it sounds

494
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:00,959
Speaker 5: like over ambitious.

495
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 6: It's like she is what you got to lose.

496
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: Earth World would be unique in another way too. It

497
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: was an easy rebuttal for parents and psychologists who believed

498
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: video games were a waste of time maybe somewhere, but

499
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: a game in which you could win a prize worth

500
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars was a different story. And having

501
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: gamers feel compelled to buy four games was good too,

502
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: though technically they didn't have to.

503
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 6: If you liked any of them, and you should start.

504
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: At the beginning, Todd didn't work alone. He had programmers

505
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: like Dan Hichins to help create the games. Dan actually

506
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: programmed Earth World. Thanks to his efforts, that first game

507
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,719
Speaker 1: was ready in time for its October nineteen eighty two

508
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: release date. But this wasn't just another Atari title. This

509
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: was something the company was hoping would usher in a

510
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: new era, one in which Atari was going to further

511
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: establish its marketplace dominance. Its games were, after all, bigger

512
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: than a lot of movies. Atari needed to make sure

513
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: everyone knew about the game. In order to do that,

514
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: they had to go big. New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel

515
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: was once the world's largest. At forty seven stories, It

516
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: loomed over Manhattan. American Royalty, like Clark Gables, stayed there,

517
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: so did British Royalty like Queen Elizabeth II. Waldorf, one

518
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: of the Heckling puppets on The Muppet Show was named

519
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: after it. There was and is a certain cultural significance

520
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: to the property, which is why Atari chose the Waldorf

521
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: to formally announce the arrival of sword Quest. Here's Howard again.

522
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 3: When sword Quest came out, there was a huge splash

523
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 3: because they had the prizes, and that was the whole thing,

524
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 3: was the ad campaign for sword Quest, because it's not

525
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 3: much fun to have a contest nobody knows about, right,

526
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 3: So you've got to hype the hell out of it.

527
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 3: That's what you have to do with something like this.

528
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 3: So one great thing about sword Quest was it got

529
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 3: a tremendous marketing push because they needed to make everyone

530
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: aware and it's a great hook, so the splash was big.

531
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,239
Speaker 3: It was really kind of a hype thing. I can

532
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 3: remember feeling a little jealous and thinking, man, that's really cool.

533
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 3: He's really getting a huge push for the game.

534
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: The press conference in the fall of nineteen eighty two

535
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: was like nothing the video game industry had ever seen,

536
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: although to be fair, the video game industry wasn't very old.

537
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: The company took over the hotel's grand ballroom, decorating it

538
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: with Zodiac iconography. Lights flashed and sand was tossed around,

539
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: which attendees probably had to shake out of their shoes.

540
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: Later on, as members of the press gathered, loud speakers

541
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: began playing a pre recorded audio drama that set the stage. Well,

542
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: we hoped there was existing audio. We couldn't locate any,

543
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: so you'll have to settle for this recreation.

544
00:31:58,160 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 6: You may call us Mentor and mental.

545
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 9: We would tell you of your destiny, a destiny that

546
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 9: will take you across four worlds. A world of earth spirits,

547
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 9: a world of fire, a world of water sprites, and lastly.

548
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 6: A world of air.

549
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 9: On each world you will encounter a challenge, perhaps more

550
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 9: than one. Surmounting these challenges will make you stronger, wiser,

551
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 9: more courageous, and in the end, will give you your heart's desire.

552
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: This was high drama worthy of he Man or Conan,

553
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: and it wasn't over, according to an article published in

554
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: Video Gaming Illustrated. Journalists were then shown another set of

555
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: screens that displayed promotional artwork that helped explain the premise.

556
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: The two main characters were Tara and Tor, two adventurous

557
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: siblings looking to avenge the death of their parents at

558
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: the hands of King Tyrannus. A number of clues would

559
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: be hidden in each game. Find them, submit them to Atari,

560
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: and you could be invited to a playoff for the prizes.

561
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: Talk Sorry arfman I designed.

562
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 5: The prizes according to a hero's journey path. A hero's

563
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 5: journey is a phrase you'd hear a lot about this

564
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 5: it's a mythological healing, growth, aspiration development, grail quest, Here's journey.

565
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 6: So it had to start small and get big.

566
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 5: So you had prizes for thieves, and prizes for warriors,

567
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 5: and prizes for Emperor King's prize for wizards. The price

568
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 5: for the wizards, you know as the Philosopher's Stone, ultimately

569
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 5: the ability to transmute.

570
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't be enough to just play the games.

571
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: Players would have to read the mini comic book included

572
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: in the box. Inside the comic were hidden words the

573
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: game would guide you to their location in the comic.

574
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: Play the game, read the comic, and you were on

575
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: your way. It was marketing genius, but Atari wasn't relying

576
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: solely on the press to get the word out. They

577
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: launched a full fledged promotional assault. Displays went up in

578
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,719
Speaker 1: stores with cardboard swords promising one hundred and fifty thousand

579
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: dollars in prizes. Members of the Atari Fan Club got notices,

580
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: Subscribers to Atari Age magazine were blasted with hype. The

581
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: burgeoning video game press was inundated. The question was would

582
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 1: gamers really care? After all, wasn't being a mindless diversion

583
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: The entire point of games a way to park your

584
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: brain and neutral What if people didn't want to conquer

585
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: King Tyrannus, or navigate water sprites, or avenge their parents' debts?

586
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: But they did. As the weeks and months rolled on,

587
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 1: it was clear that sword Quest was paying off. Atari

588
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: sold five hundred thousand copies of Earth World, a major

589
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: success by any metric. That was a half million people

590
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: who were willing to pay thirty four dollars for a

591
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: chance at winning twenty five thousand dollars or more. Across

592
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: the country, they settled into their shag carpeting, twisting their

593
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: joysticks to find the hidden virtual treasure that could be

594
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 1: exchanged for real treasure. Homework went by the wayside, so

595
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 1: did sleep Journey, cartridges, collected dust, Space Invaders was cast aside.

596
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: Sword Quest became a nationwide treasure hunt organized by the

597
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 1: biggest name in gaming. This wasn't just a chance for

598
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: a prize. It was a chance to validate a hobby

599
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: and passion, a chance for kids to tell their parents

600
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: that video games weren't a waste of time, that a

601
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: kid could maybe give his parents an allowance instead of

602
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: the other way around. The stakes were high for Atari, too,

603
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: Other game consoles were heading shelves. Consumers were complaining about

604
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: disappointing games like Karate, which had two crudely rendered stick

605
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: people fighting, or even pac Man, which didn't compare favorably

606
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 1: to the arcade version. If this contest struck a chord,

607
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: it would cement Atari's reputation. It could make that Blade

608
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: Runner future where Atari is on top a reality. It

609
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: could change the course of the gaming industry forever. But

610
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: the game was hard, so hard that out of those

611
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: half million players, just eight people found the right solution.

612
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: One by one. They began to fly out to Sunny

613
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 1: Vale to seek fame and fortune. Bert Wardahl was hoping

614
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: to be one of them, so were plenty of others.

615
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't be long before sword Quest began to

616
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: spin out of control and introduce the biggest question of all.

617
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 1: How did all those prizes, valued at a total of

618
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars become something of a

619
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 1: lost treasure? Here's Howard.

620
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 3: And so I had heard stories about these amazing things.

621
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 3: I saw a picture of them here and there. I

622
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 3: can honestly say that in my entire experience, in my

623
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 3: life so far, I have never actually been in the

624
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 3: same room with any of these items.

625
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 5: And Todd Fry I never ended up seeing these prizes

626
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,479
Speaker 5: in person. You know, it's actually interesting to think about

627
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 5: that there was a real abstraction where maybe Ivory Tower

628
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 5: and maybe disassociated or maybe my world was separate from

629
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 5: the mundane.

630
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,760
Speaker 6: Sorry, this is so weird. That's why I'm laughing at myself.

631
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 5: But yeah, it would have been a good story if

632
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 5: I'd taken the sort of the sorcery and used to

633
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 5: chop out lives or yeah, not so much.

634
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: This season on the Legend of sword Quest.

635
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 8: It is a mystery, just purely because so much of

636
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 8: this is lost in the mists of time that gives

637
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 8: it a certain are of something special.

638
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 2: Night walk in, I just put it on a kitchen

639
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 2: tam on, Hey came here. I opened it up and

640
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 2: say what do you think? And I'm like, what's that?

641
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 2: My sister actually said that? Or was that a replica?

642
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: I said, no, I want it.

643
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 2: I won't.

644
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 8: No.

645
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 6: He never admits that it's fake.

646
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:51,720
Speaker 2: You see, he's thinking if it's a fake, that he's

647
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 2: a victim too, because he bought him somebody.

648
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 7: Other people have pointed out that, well, that's not really

649
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 7: kind of legal you have to go through with.

650
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Speaker 2: A contest, and he didn't even know there was a

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00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 2: contest going on. Spoil the lawyers went round in our

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00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 2: arms for a year before so many had told him, well,

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00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 2: you bought the company, you got to do something about this.

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00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 7: He was saying, it's in legal boxes somewhere. We would

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00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,839
Speaker 7: have to charge you legal research fees to go through

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00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 7: the boxes to figure out who owns what. I'm like,

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00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, I don't.

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00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 2: Think there was ever any pictures of the actual items themselves,

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00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 2: besides the ones that were awarded the prize winners.

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00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 8: There was a letter envelope just tucked in the side

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00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 8: of a shoebox, and I opened it and I found

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00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 8: those photos, so I knew what this was.

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00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 6: How that is not the case. What happened to the

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Speaker 6: prizes is?

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Speaker 10: The Legend of sword Quest is a production of iHeart

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Speaker 10: Podcasts and School of Humans. This episode was written by

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00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 10: Jake Rosson and hosted by Jamie Loftus producers are Miranda

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00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 10: Hawkins and Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, LC Crowley,

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Speaker 10: Brandon Barr, and Jason English. Our show editor is married

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00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 10: to audio engineering by Graham Gibson. Research and fact checking

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00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 10: by Austin Thompson and Jake Rosson. Original score by Jesse Niswanger.

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Speaker 10: This episode was sound designed by Josh Fisher, mixing and

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00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 10: mastering by Miranda Hawkins. Show logo by Lucy Quintonia. Voices

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00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 10: in this episode are provided by Dylan Fagan, Nick Rimes,

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Speaker 10: and Isaiah Pringle.