WEBVTT - 4: Descent Into Darkness 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:05.480 In August nineteen eighty six, Stephen Bell decides to check 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:10.280 his mailbox. He walks over, opens it and begins sorting 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:15.000 through pizzaflyers, bills and letters, junk, junk, and more junk. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.640 One envelope, though, catches his eye. It has a return 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.560 address from Atari Holdings Incorporated, out of New York. Stephen 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:29.320 thinks this is a little strange for one. Atari's headquarters 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.320 are in Sunnyvale, California. That's where he'd become the first 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.000 ever winner in their sword Quest contest. The prize for 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.000 racing through the first game in record time was a 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.559 talisman worth twenty five thousand dollars. He hadn't won the 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.400 second game, but had kept busy trying to solve the 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.640 third water World. The second strange thing was that he 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:56.320 hadn't heard anything about the contest in the past two years. 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.520 Nothing official anyway. Stephen opens the envelope, think, King, he's 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.080 going to get word on whether he qualified for the 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:08.640 water World contest, which has been delayed over and over again. Instead, 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.920 the letter informs him of something else. It's not an invitation, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.759 but an offer. Here's Stephen, they. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.240 Just wanted to end it, and here's some money. They 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.800 offered Mike and I fifteen thousand. 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.560 It's a kind of settlement offer. Atari is canceling the contest, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.800 all of it, and they're offering Stephen and fellow winner 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:36.840 Michael rideout fifteen thousand dollars to not compete, to give 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.919 up any legal claim to having been denied a chance 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.959 at winning the sword Quest contest and the Sword of 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:48.960 Ultimate Sorcery, which is worth fifty thousand dollars. The talisman 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.720 was already gone, having been sold by Stephen to buy 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.560 a defective Pontiac Fieriro, a model that had the annoying 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.600 habit of catching fire. Now he could take a guaranteed 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.120 fifty thousand dollars or take a one in four chance 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.040 of getting the fifty thousand dollars sword, and maybe even 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.840 one or both of the other prizes, which are valued 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.120 at twenty five thousand dollars each. This was like one 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.040 of the puzzles in the game, objects constantly being shifted 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.160 and sorted from room to room. Stephen stands outside his 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.800 apartment on the outskirts of Detroit, a dwindling hub of 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:30.880 jobs lost to a sagging American automotive market. The money 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.320 was more than he'd make in a year, but the 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:41.600 sword and its bejeweled handle is calling to him. Stephen 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.760 isn't sure what to do, and then the letter mentions 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:46.520 something else. 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.040 The letter stated it had to be unanimous or they 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:51.799 would actually continue the contest. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.880 Two sword Quest games had been played and there were 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:00.240 two winners, Stephen and Michael, the winner of Firewars World. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.639 Both would have to agree in order to get the money. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.440 The problem. This was nineteen eighty six, and neither one 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:13.640 had the other's phone number for iHeartRadio. This is the 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.160 Legend of sword Quest. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus and 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:24.560 this is episode four, Descent into Darkness. Water World, the 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.560 third game in the sword Quest saga, was released in 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.799 October nineteen eighty three. The winner was due the Crown 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.600 of Life, a headpiece made of solid gold and adorned 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.680 with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. It came with a cash 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.400 value of twenty five thousand dollars, assuming the victor would 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.640 ever want to part with it. The in person contest 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.920 for the crown was planned for nineteen eighty four, but 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:54.480 early on there were signs that something was well off 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.080 about the promotion. Unlike the other games in the sword 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.120 Quest series. Water World War wasn't sold in stores. You 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.840 couldn't just go into a J. C. Penny or Toys 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.280 r Us and grab the game from a cashier with 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.080 your hot little hands. You had to be a member 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.000 of the Atari Age Fan Club and send away for 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:14.760 the game. It was weird. 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:17.919 I think at the time it never even occurred to me. 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.559 We saw it in the newsletter and ended up again 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.760 being able to get our hands on it, but we 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.480 didn't really stop to think that it wasn't in the stores. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.159 At the time. We were living in a small town 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.279 that I don't think there were any video game sales, 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.080 like any stores that sold them, so at the time 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.800 it meant going into the bigger town, which wasn't far away, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.760 mind you. But we didn't do it a lot, so 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.240 I think we weren't keeping track of what was on 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.560 the store shelves as well, especially once we realized we 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.479 could mail order some of these things. So yeah, for 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.760 water World, we ended up getting it through the game club. 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.280 That's Russ Perry Junior. Back in nineteen eighty two, US 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.680 was about fourteen years old, living in Illinois and a 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:09.520 devout sword Quest player, A quester a sword head, whatever 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.880 you want to call it. He was obsessed with winning 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:13.279 actual prizes. 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.440 Oh yeah, definitely. I mean there's always things like just 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.360 you know, solving the game and having bragging rights, but like, yeah, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.000 actually winning something like that, Oh yeah, that would have 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:25.560 been awesome. 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.680 When the first sword Quest game, Earth World came out, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.000 Russ and his brother grabbed it. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.640 We loved that game when these sort of seemed on 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.479 the surface like they were going to be sort of 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.960 a continuation of that. So yeah, we got the game 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.120 as soon as we could, and then immediately started pressing 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:44.440 on it. 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.200 Russ tried to solve the first two games, but they 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:48.400 were both difficult. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.680 So well, we didn't win the first one, Let's go 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.520 see if we can do the second one. And the 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.680 second one seemed like it was a little bit easier, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.760 but it was still as eech and we still couldn't 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.800 find an obvious pattern. And I think we ended up 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.440 finding like maybe six of the clues legitimately, but again 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.880 it was mostly coming down to the comic book that 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.120 we found the words in the comic books and were 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.360 able to enter, and I think again we only got 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.520 three or four or maybe we got all five, but 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.360 the order was wrong or something. But so once again, yeah, 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.080 we were just that close and didn't quite make it. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:30.000 But like a lot of gamers, Russ wasn't discouraged. Gaming 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.760 is a hobby of getting your reps in, and so 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.960 Russ dutifully sent in his thirty one dollars and ninety 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:40.039 five cents for a copy of water World. Four to 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.880 six weeks later, he got the game, and this time 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.520 there was something of a surprise. The game was accompanied 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.800 by a hint book, which guided players on strategies to 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:54.040 find clues in the game. Water World was based on 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.080 the chakra, the ancient spiritual theory of energy points in 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.960 the body. Knowing how that was laid out would help 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.360 you navigate the different rooms. Russ, however, was not versed 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.559 in Hinduism or Buddhism, so he just kept his eyes 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.720 glued to the screen and hoped for the best. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.440 It was definitely easier, and I don't remember if we 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.840 ended up finding all the clues or just the majority 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.560 of them, but it was clearly easier. We found more 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.120 clues and it didn't take us as long. If I remember, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.840 the map was a little bit smaller too. I'm trying 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.120 to remember that was based on was it And it 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.920 was like eight rooms total, I guess, and I don't 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.000 remember exactly how they were connected, if it was a 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.040 ring or a grid. But it didn't seem as hard 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.360 even I think some of the challenges that you have 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.160 to go through in certain rooms, I don't think they 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:46.600 were necessarily as hard. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.480 The comic was also of some help. Included in the package. 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.320 It told the continuing story of Tor and Tara, the 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.240 twins opposing King Tyrannus and searching for the objects that 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.720 will help lead them to the sword that can bring 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.040 Tyrannus down. In the third issue, they're forced to brave 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:07.400 the open seas. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:12.480 He didn't come up. That means, even though it's cold 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.679 enough up here to make icicles out of a dragon's breadth, 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.600 I've got to go back after him. Wait, something ascending 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:28.440 from below. No, oh god, he's dead dead. 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.960 Actually, Tour's fine, he's fine. He found a mask that 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.000 allows him to breathe underwater, and the twins are successful 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.440 in capturing the crown, which brings them one step closer 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:45.000 to the sword, just like the people playing the game. Finally, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.679 Russ thought he had the solution. He wrote it down, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.000 sent it in and waited. In May nineteen eighty four, 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.800 he got a response, and it was good news. The 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.800 solution he provided had been correct, but just as before, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.599 there were too many winners, way too many. For the 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.080 last game, Atari had seventy three people with the right answer, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.480 but only wanted to have fifty playing in the finals. 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.600 This time, the company needed to narrow it down even further, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:20.000 from forty five contestants to just ten, so they asked 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.400 Russ to write an essay about why he liked the game. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.080 Russ did. He wrote it down, sent it in, and waited. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:32.640 Yeah, it's always that combination of excited, but oh god, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.600 there's more. You know, we might not make this, even 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:38.160 though we did all the work and I got it 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.000 right this time. I think in our heads we knew 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.160 that it was it was a little bit easier than 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.400 the other ones, so I think we kind of assumed 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.280 there'd be more entrants that got it right. And again, 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.200 I don't think we had figured out yet that it 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.400 was only available to a smaller group of people. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.520 Russ kept waiting. He turned fifth, and then sixteen. He 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.240 had gotten his learner's permit, and the time Atari was 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.079 taking to address the contest his voice was getting deeper 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.319 in the time Atari was taking to address the contest. 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.960 Maybe Russ would get married and have children before Atari 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.280 wrote him back about this contest. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.240 And it did seem like with water World, things got 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.400 really quiet, and it was Earth's World and Fireworld. We 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.760 knew we hadn't won, we weren't going to make the 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.400 final playoff, but then when the playoffs occurred, there'd be 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.520 coverage in Atari page and other things, so at least 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.839 we got closure on those water World it did kind 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.439 of feel like, well, there's no closure here. 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:40.079 What happened? 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.199 And then finally he got a response. It came in 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.120 nineteen eighty five. It was from Atari's marketing firm, Amern 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:55.040 Marketing Associates, and it began, dear mister Perry, Atari was 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.320 sold to new owners last summer. Russ must have gotten 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.720 a kick out of that, mister Perry. It went on 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:06.079 to say, a very conscientious and industrious attorney for Atari 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.319 has the matter in hand now, and I wish there 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.240 was more we could tell you. For us, it amounted 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.880 to the same thing. The chances of a water World 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.440 contest were looking grim when sword Quest began. Atari had 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.040 been on top of the entertainment world. But in nineteen 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:30.200 eighty four things had changed considerably. Sales had slowed, the 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.400 stock of parent company Warner had dropped like a rock, 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.640 and the company had gone from a Silicon Valley sensation 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.839 too well something else. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.520 I kept up with the video game magazines as much 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.720 as possible, and it was clear between some of the 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:50.560 articles we were seeing and just the times you do 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.120 get to the store, there's a lot more cartridges unclearance. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.120 You realized there's definitely something going on. 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.160 Russ didn't know what that something was, but he was 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:10.040 about to find out. In the summer of twenty twenty two, 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.360 the parent company of Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers Discovery, made 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.400 headlines when they wound up shelving an entire movie, Batgirl, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.839 which was already done filming. They figured it saved them 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.040 more to keep it tucked away than to distribute it. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.360 It's not often major movies with Michael Keaton and Brendan 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.280 Fraser are just locked up, but Warner did it, and 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.320 then they did it again in twenty twenty three, and 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.480 it wasn't the first time they had made a drastic 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.840 move to please shareholders. In nineteen eighty four, it's safe 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:46.320 to say Atari was no longer the star of Warner Communications. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.720 Instead of posting record profits, the company was losing tens 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.560 of millions of dollars a quarter. Atari went from expecting 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.679 to see revenue rise by fifty percent to seeing it 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:02.040 expected to increase only ten to fifty teen percent. One 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.280 of the bigger problems is that there were more systems available, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.559 like Kaliko Vision, which had gotten off to a slow 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:13.280 start but exploded once Nintendo's arcade hit Donkey Kong arrived 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.720 on the system. It was the killer app before there 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.040 was such a term as killer app. Everyone loved Donkey 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.000 Kong from playing it in the arcades, but if they 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.360 wanted to play it at home, they had to buy 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.440 a Kaliko Vision, which had an exclusive on the game. 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:29.120 Early on. 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.560 Kaliko Vision, I'll never forget I was sitting at a 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.960 meeting at Atari when the first colcos hit the street. 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.640 So they went out and bought one, and they walked 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.680 into the conference room and they took it out of 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.040 the box, and they opened it up and they looked 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.520 at it, and the engineers looked at it and said, 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:53.200 it hit clearing a piece of shit. 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.080 That's many Gerard Manny was a top executive at Warner 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.320 who led the charge to buy Atari in nineteen seventy six. 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.480 Manny is ninety now and he sees Atari's downfall as 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:10.160 one built partially from arrogance. Atari had the opportunity to 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.480 get Donkey Kong all to themselves, but they didn't. 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:14.280 It was there. 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.679 Having another competitor is not good, but it never had 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.600 me reallyver. What it had was Donkey kar And when 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.960 I went into Kazar, who ran the company, I said, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.680 we knew how good Donkey car. We had the most 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.280 arrogant programmers in the world in the coin oup division, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:33.000 and they were telling us this is one of the 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.320 great games of all time. Why did you let the 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:40.040 game go? And he spaid to me, well, they wanted 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.200 two dollars a cartridge for a royalty. We aren't going 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.440 to pay that. He couldn't. May what do you say, stupid, 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.640 He said to growth margins or eighty eight percent on 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.360 the cartridges, And that was going to be one of 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:00.040 the best games anybody ever saw. And forgetting that, Calico. 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.880 Got Donkey Kong was lost to some bad math at Atari. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.560 The other problem the Atari system simply had too many 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.120 games and not all of them were coming from Atari. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.440 A growing number of third parties were able to produce 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.640 games for the system without Atari's permission. 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.920 We could not legally prevent it, and it had I 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.680 forget the technicalities of it, but it had a lot 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.760 to do with what they had done well done at 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.480 the very beginning, and the way the twenties eacheter was 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.240 designed and nobody thought it was a great prominent business. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.680 This is how Atari's out in trouble. The flood of software. Now, 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:46.040 remember that every subsequent successful piece of video game hardware, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.440 having learned from our experience, you couldn't play out of 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.160 cartridges unless you got a license from the parents. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.080 That's true. Video game companies got way more strict about 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.440 these games after Atari messuck. So how could that happen? 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:08.160 How can a company literally just crumble financially overnight. That's 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.920 a twisty knot. But here's someone else that can give 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:11.520 you a picture. 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.360 ET had just come out and Atari made this, you 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.240 know Howard Warshaws gave ET. So they had a press conference, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.600 they showed the game, and I was the only person 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.000 from Atari there. Nobody else wanted to go. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.440 That's Larry Kaplan Larry was a programmer with Atari who 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.160 left the company and then came back in time to 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:36.160 see it well implode. Part of that was poor quality control. 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.680 One of the most enduring stories of the Atari age 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.080 is the debacle that was Et, a game based on 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.000 the hit movie of the same name. Atari wanted, No 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.360 needed it in time for the Christmas nineteen eighty two 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:55.480 holiday season. That meant game designer Howard Scott Warsaw had 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:00.360 just six weeks to program it. Spoiler, it's really hard 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.520 to make a good game in six weeks. And to 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.040 add insult to injury, reporters at the press conference thought 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.640 Larry was Steven Spielberg. Both men wore glasses and had beards. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.199 Clearly mean way. I looked at reporters interviewing me, you know, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:20.040 for TV and local stations and newspaper, and they all 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.680 kept figuring out I said no, and of course then 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:27.119 nobody wanted to talk to me. It was fine, Yeah, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.800 I didn't know what to say. Anyway, I was there 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.280 because nobody else wanted to be And yeah, I thought 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.879 was somebody could be there double gay, So it was 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:36.840 probably a bad idea. 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:37.240 Anyway. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:42.720 To be clear, e T didn't kill Atari no one 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.840 game can do that. Not really, it's a tidy way 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.760 to summarize the story. But there was more going on. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.679 So a lot of it was that they done been successful, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:55.960 made a lot of money, and so they went out 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.080 and sent it and they had people doing all kinds 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.840 of crazy things, paying money for all kinds of stuff, 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.760 and especially on the computer side, and you know, just 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.440 wasting money. The huge buildings. 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.760 So we had all these buildings, huge rents, and all 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.880 these defences in these grouping all kinds of crazy wild 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.960 you know, weird stuff, you know, titles that never sell 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.440 by the day, hardware, they were working on a video phone. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.520 All kinds of stuff, and you know, they spent a 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.160 lot of money. But pac Man did not sell well 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.080 and they got returned and EP did not sell well, 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.880 and so Christmas came and retailers didn't have a good 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.639 Christmas because things weren't going well. So here it is 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.879 December and the retailers are trying to return the games 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.600 already for Christmas didn't even come because they have inventory, 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.879 you know, all over the place, and you know, famously 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.080 they buried some one of them buried with the landfill. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.840 They couldn't sell them at a Tariet didn't want to 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:57.560 take them back. 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.720 Thanks to a glut of games and a lot of 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.680 bad games, revenues began falling. This wasn't an abrupt thing. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.159 The so called video game crash took time to unravel, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:16.600 but eventually Warner Communications wanted out, and that part happened. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:21.440 Fast Ober night. Retail January said hey, we're not interested. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.639 We'll not buy any more titles. We will return everything 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.600 we have, all the units and everything else, and that 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.000 was it. It's clear the company is going down to. 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.520 The company entered into a complex deal to hand it 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.760 off to another party, with options for the new owner 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.879 to buy Warner stock and Warner able to acquire a 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.919 minority interest in the new Atari if they chose. Some 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.399 business experts characterized it as Warner practically giving Atari away. 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.199 Warner didn't sell all of Atari. They kept the arcade 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.880 division and Atari Tell the telecommunications arm of the company, 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.040 but home consumer products were no longer under their banner. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:09.200 Gaming was also undergoing a radical transformation culturally, like Rock 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.359 and Roll before it, Parents and child advocates were worried 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.280 about gaming's effect on kids, and while sword Quest was 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.680 offering real prizes, other games were offering real life consequences 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.560 of a different sort. In nineteen eighty two, a man 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.240 named Glenn Matta was playing pac Man at a bar 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.439 in Riverhead, New York, when a woman began insisting it 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.040 was her turn at the machine. Matta began fighting with 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.879 the bar's bouncer before getting kicked out. He went home, 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:42.240 retrieved a rifle, and headed back to the bar, opening fire, 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:47.639 striking and killing a patron. Naturally, every story detailing the 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.359 killing made sure to mention the dispute had been over 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.320 a pac Man game. That same year, an eighteen year 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.120 old Indiana man named Peter Bukowski was playing an arcade 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.920 game called Brazil in pursuit of a high score. When 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.920 he finally achieved it, he stumbled and fell over. People 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.560 rushed to his aid and an ambulance was summoned, but 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.840 it was too late. Peter was dead. The deputy coroner 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.320 later determined he had died of a heart attack. There 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.960 was some inflammation of his heart, but investigators couldn't determine 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.240 whether the excitement of playing the game was or wasn't 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.719 a contributing factor. The deputy coroner did add that Plukowski 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.919 could have died from any kind of exertion, but he 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.879 was playing a video game, so people jumped to that conclusion. 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.920 Some towns even took the extraordinary step of banning miners 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:44.600 from playing games. In Marlborough, Massachusetts, kids under eighteen were 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.720 banned from arcades before three thirty in the afternoon on 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.119 school days and after ten at night. Marlborough even mandated 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.480 that arcades couldn't be opened within fifteen hundred feet of schools. 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.280 The town of Bradley, Illinois, introduced similar policies, banning kids 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.600 under sixteen from all arcids. It was turning into footloose 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:06.600 for video games. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:08.240 Jerry. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.840 Video games are the latest craze to sweep the country. 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:12.840 In most of the world, too, millions of people are 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.600 addicted to hours of gazing at electronic images on game screens, 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.440 in arcades and in their own homes. What makes video 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:21.879 games so popular? We search for an answer as we 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.280 begin a special series on video fever Games people play. 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.400 Critics believed kids spending six or seven hours a day 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:35.359 playing games, or in what one dubbed an airtile electronic womb, 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.080 growing numb to reality. If the games didn't do it, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.760 maybe the recreational drugs frequently bought and sold in the 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.920 CD or arcades. Did some even believed kids sold drugs 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:50.359 just to have the money to play video games. Between 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:55.000 video game hysteria and market saturation, every penny of Atari 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.240 going in and out was examined in detail under its 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:03.000 new ownership. One thing that stood out was sword Quest. 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:06.200 When the company was sold in the summer of nineteen 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:09.760 eighty four, two of the five contests had been held. 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:14.240 There was still water World and Airworld, along with the 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.000 grand finale where all four winners would vie for the sword. 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.439 That was one hundred thousand dollars just in prizes, not 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:26.479 to mention airfare for dozens of people, plus hotel, and 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.439 you need to feed them. A safe assumption is that 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:32.200 it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:34.840 fifty thousand dollars to finish sword Quest in the way 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:40.720 Atari well the old Atari had promised. It had seemed 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:44.680 like a great idea just two years prior, But then again, 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:47.680 everything seemed like a great idea when you were making 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:52.639 hundreds of millions of dollars. If Atari was compiling a 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.840 list of unnecessary expenses, then acting as a travel agent 0:23:56.920 --> 0:23:59.240 for a couple dozen gamers had to be near the 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.400 top of the list. But here's the thing about contests, 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:06.280