WEBVTT - Selects: E.T.: Is It Really the Worst Video Game of All Time? 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.360 Everyone. It's Joshua. For this week's select, I've chosen our 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:07.640 twenty eighteen episode on ET the video game. It's one 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:09.760 of those topics that you thought you knew about, but 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.280 after you hear this episode, you'll realize that you've been 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.720 grossly misinformed by the Internet. Who knew that could happen? 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:18.799 Enjoy this trip down nostalgia lane. 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:41.360 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradioy. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.160 And welcome to the podcast. I'm josh and there's Chuck 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.839 and there's Jerry, and it's like the holiday season. I 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:42.680 feel great. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.159 It is Holidays with a Z, and we're gonna do 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:48.879 what we almost did for a short stuff. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.120 Oh yes, Chuck, you're commended for that call. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.120 Well, I was just like I kind of wanted to 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.920 do this one. Always is a long stuff. We don't 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:00.440 have a show called mediums stuff yet. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.320 No, we have a so so stuffed called Stuff you 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:04.760 Should Know. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:10.400 Yeah, but yeah, I saw that documentary Atari game over 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:12.080 a few years ago. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:13.000 It's a good one. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.280 And I also guested on tech Stuff and did a 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.600 two part episode on the history of Atari. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.080 It's a good one with Strickland. 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.360 He's great too, and we could probably do Atari on 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:26.280 its own at some point too. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:27.880 I agree, I think we definitely should. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:29.840 But this is I mean, I was about to say 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.760 if Strickland and I could get two episodes out of it, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.120 but you know how that guy goes on. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.919 Oh my god, he's the hardest working man in podcast business. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:38.520 I'll tell you that. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:39.560 Just ask. 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.800 So we're talking today about what is widely believed to 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.760 be the worst video game of all time, except that 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.920 it's not. Except that it's not. Yes, it's true. I 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.280 love stories like this where it's like everything you thought 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.040 you knew was wrong, and really stop and ask yourself, 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.280 how did you even know that this truth that you 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.120 knew before. I love that man. 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.880 Yeah, E t the Atari video game a lot of people. 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:10.000 It's that whole. 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.040 Internet bandwagon thing. I think, Yes, worst game of all time. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:14.560 They tried to bury it in the desert. It was 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:14.960 so bad. 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.519 Killed Atari, killed the whole stinking industry. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.240 Right, But it was just that bad of a game. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:21.240 But you've played it. 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:26.239 No, Yeah, I will say this, it may be one 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.399 of the one of the most disappointing games of all time. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.320 It could be, Yes, because if you were a kid 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.680 back then like me, and you and you played Atari 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.919 like I did. It was it was a disappointment. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.360 It was greatly anticipated. I'm sure a lot. 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.880 Of anticipation that was part, you know, that was that 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:47.679 was probably the biggest reason why it gets all the 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.320 attention because it was e t It wasn't what said, 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.520 dumb game sorcerer, yeah, or fast food. There were so 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:58.440 many bad video games for Atari. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:02:59.880 Yeah, there were a lot. 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:01.240 It was awful. 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.640 So will this come out and say, no, ET is 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.600 not the worst video game of all time. There were 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.359 a lot of worst, far far worst video games. Yes 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.040 than ET, But like you were saying, as far as 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.320 the anticipation went, as far as the letdown went, as 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.000 far as the loss of money went, you can understand 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.040 how people would say this is the worst of all time. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:28.520 But also the timing of its failure was so utterly, 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.760 amazingly perfect that it just took it from worst video 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.080 game of all time to worst video game of all time. 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.360 Yeah, it's like here Atari in video home console game industry, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.120 you're not doing well, and I notice you're sinking. Let 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.440 me tie this anvil around your ankle that's shaped like ET. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:51.880 Yep, that's right. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:53.080 It's just really bad timing. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.240 So let's get into the story because it's one of 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.400 the more interesting ones, and it features a great guy 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.880 named Howard Scott wore Shaw, who if you've seen the 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.040 movie Game Over, you have probably come to really like 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:07.920 and admire good dude. 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.880 Good dude, brilliant designer. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.520 Huh and like a just a genuinely great guy. He 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:19.520 The story begins back in nineteen eighty two, I believe, Yeah, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.800 it was nineteen eighty two. He was a designer at Atari. 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.720 He'd apparently started out writing Coda Hewlett Packard and was 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.800 very unhappy, so he made the move over to Atari, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.279 even though he had zero experience with game design, but 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.200 he was really an exciting game designer because he came 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.560 up with some really innovative ideas. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.279 Yes, he Yars Revenge is one of the best Atari 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:45.320 twenty six hundred games of all time. 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:46.279 Did you have that one? 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:46.480 Oh? 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:48.080 Yeah, I never played it. 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:49.240 It's great. It's great. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.440 It's kind of space invaderies or something. It's like a 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.080 shooter thing, kind of yeah, single screen shooter. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.320 Well, you're a I guess you were a Yar, and 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.440 you're this sort of bug like Reacher and instead of 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.599 shooting at something to chip away at it. You do 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.560 it so with your body, so you just fly into this. 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.200 Oh I think I had that went You. 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.839 Would fly into this. I mean, of course all this 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.000 stuff was supposed to represent like a spaceship or a planet, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.640 but it was made up of you know, blocks and cubes, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.039 so I don't even know what it was. But your 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:24.120 whole point was to make it. 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.520 Smaller, gotcha, and you would fly into I know. 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.360 You instead of yeah, shooting, you would fly into it. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.680 For my money, that kind of game the best of 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.000 all time with Centipede. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:33.400 Cinipede is great. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:34.200 It was great. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.280 I mean a lot of those games I played today 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.680 when I happened upon an arcade, Galagha and Frogger and 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.800 Centipede and Defender, like those are still really good challenging 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.520 jus sure, miss fun games, yeah, miss bac man, they 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.520 just stand up still. It's not like you go to 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.200 Galagha or Jousts now and you're like, this is easy. 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.640 What was I thinking? I was such a kid. 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.479 There are still hard challenging games, and I think that's 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.360 sort of they to a good video game is it's 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.799 got to be winnable, but it's got to be hard 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.760 because a kid didn't want to you know, a pushover, right, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:12.280 but a kid also wants to win. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.720 So Howard Scott Warshaw knew this like he was a 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.280 game designer. He wasn't like a code monkey or anything 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.479 like that. He was a game designer, an artist. I'm 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.920 sure he considered himself, especially at the time, and he 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.159 should have. One of the other things he was known 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:30.440 for was he was the guy who realized that you 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.359 could make a game way more enjoyable if you created 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.320 a backstory for it. So rather than like, drive this 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.520 car there, you're actually running away from this gang of 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.880 you know, international mafia guys who are trying to kidnap 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.920 your girlfriend or whatever. Yeah, you make up a backstory 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.960 for it. The player reads this backstory and then plays, 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.520 they care that much more about the person because their 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:55.960 imagination is now kicked in. They're not just doing a 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.760 mindless task. They're imagining what's going on in computer world. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.320 And he did that for games, and he was one 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.960 of the first, if not the first designer to create 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.919 backstories and biographies for his characters and games. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.880 Yeah, and you know what just now is sort of 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.320 hitting me that part of the appeal was the imagination 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.120 of the kid. So like when you got the game 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:23.760 Adventure or Asteroids and Asteroids, you were a pencil drawn 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:29.080 triangle shooting at pencil drawn shapes. 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.040 Shooting pencils at pencil drawn shapes. 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.920 Shooting dots at pencil drawn shapes. An Adventure, you are 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:39.000 a cube that flew around with an arrow attached to 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.040 you that was supposed to be your sword. But when 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.720 you look at the actual cartridge or the box that 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.360 it came in, they had this great artwork of this 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.960 night on a horse with his sword drawn in asteroids, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:56.960 this han solo like pilot like cruising through a you know, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.440 an asteroid field, and that would kickstarts. That starts the 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.760 imagination of a ten year old, right, and then they 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.120 forget they're a cube, right or an arrow? 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:06.920 Yeah, it makes it that much more real. 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:08.600 Yeah, it was really really cool. 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.040 Because the imagination can do some pretty amazing stuff with 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:12.200 eight bytes of graphic. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:14.280 Yeah, you know for sure. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.440 So Warshaw figured. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:19.800 This out, Yeah, designing worlds. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.280 He would design easter eggs into his games too. Yeah 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.440 he wasn't the first, but yes, no, but he was 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:26.920 an early person to do that. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:28.680 Yeah, Adventure was the first, I think. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.160 And in addition to Yours Revenge, he also already had 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.120 a hit in the Raiders of the Lost Art game. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.680 He had designed that and it's still laid so much. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.000 I read you did. Oh yeah, so from what I 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.720 never played that one. From what I understand you, it 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.800 was extremely difficult. You it required both joy sticks. Yeah, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.800 there was. I think I read somewhere that there were 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.360 thirty three screens, which is unheard of. 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:52.840 I could buy that. 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.000 And that like people still have trouble beating it today. 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.480 Well, it's it was really hard. I remember very specifically. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:06.680 There was one part where you were to parachute parachute 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:08.880 from one screen and it would all of a sudden, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.800 you went to the bottom and it would pop up 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.240 and you're on the next screen going down and there's 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.839 a tree on the left, and you had to start 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.200 that jump early, going hard left and hook onto that 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.920 tree with your parachute. If you hit at the wrong angle, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.600 it burst your parachute and you would die, and if 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.880 you didn't, you would hook onto it and slide perfectly. 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.760 And it was probably one of the hardest things I've 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.000 ever had to do in a video game. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:35.560 I know, you get to this day life. 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:37.640 No, as far as video gameplay though. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.720 Really it was very, very challenging, but it was possible. 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.599 So when you tried it twenty seven times and you 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.840 nail it on that twenty eight, like you would run 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.760 around the neighborhood telling all your friends that you nailed 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.680 the parachute jump really really hard. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.480 But it was so hard that it was like you 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.480 would get frustrated or it kept you sucking. 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.280 No, no, no, no, You're like, I know I can get it. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:02.600 There's the key and that's. 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.440 Where ET messed up. But we'll get to that, okay. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:10.320 So on June, it's funny, he remembers us the date 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.880 on June twenty seventh, nineteen eighty two, Howard s Gott 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.480 Warshaw's hanging around Atari and he gets a phone call. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.240 He gets a phone call from the CEO, Ray Casar himself. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.400 That was a big deal back then. Oh sure, and 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.040 Ray Casar says, hey, kid, we know you, we love you. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.960 We've got something going on with Steven Spielberg. He remembers 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.000 that you made the Raiders of the Lost Art game 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.000 for him. He thinks, you're a certifiable genius, but we 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.200 have a special assignment for you. We want you to 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.840 make the et video game. Can you do it? Wait, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:47.280 don't answer yet. Can you do it in five weeks? 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.240 Then he went sure, yeah, he said yeah, which I 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.600 mean even today, you're like five weeks. That doesn't sounding 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.120 very long. That was less than a tenth of the 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.320 time that it would normally take. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.960 And he had the little secret is that he had 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.360 already called some other people in the company and said, 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.880 the CEO has this, like is this even possible? Or 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.000 am I just crazy for asking this guy to do 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.200 this in five weeks because it takes five or six months. 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.320 And they all said, no, it's not possible. And he said, well, 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:19.080 I'm going to ask him. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.160 Anyway, right, And Howard Scott Warshaw didn't realize that they'd 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.000 already told him like, no, this can't be done when 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.079 he said yes, but he was locked in the punch 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.160 and he was twenty four years old and sure, full 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.280 of full of exuberants and hubris and all sorts of stuff, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.200 and said I can do this. So he did. And 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.160 the reason we should say, the reason why this this 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.960 schedule was so short and usually took five to six 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.839 months for a game to be developed, and he had 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.640 five weeks to do it, and The reason why is 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:53.480 because the haggling the deal to get the rights for 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.520 the et game for Atari to purchase them, which they 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:01.120 bought for twenty one million dollars, took way longer than expected, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.560 and they really wanted this game out for in time 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:05.600 for Christmas. 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:06.680 That was the whole deal. 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.200 So because of the because the deal had worked all 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.360 the way up into the summer and Christmas was on 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.880 the other edge, they needed also several weeks to manufacture 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.320 the actual cartridges and get them into stores. Yeah, if 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.199 you lay it all this timeline out, they left five 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.920 weeks to develop a game from scratch. So they they 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.439 knew just the guy to do it, and it was 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.520 Howard's got Warshaw and Howard said I'll give it a shot. 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:31.319 I'm going to do it. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:31.720 Yeah. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.719 And I should point out that when you say five 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.040 or six months is the usual time, five or six 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:37.800 months was fast. 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:39.839 The usual time was more than that. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.280 Well, you also probably had a team working on it. 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.319 Like five or six months was the Rush version? 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:44.800 Right? 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.320 Anyway? Yeah, I mean I think I think. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.080 That the pretty delightful prog Rock version. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.560 Did that have a they should add their own video game. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.840 I'm surprised they didn't. They were like, right there, they 0:12:57.840 --> 0:12:58.880 did in that wheelhouse. 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.560 We would like the twenty one to twelve game or something. 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.120 We would know. Yeah, there's no way we wouldn't know 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.280 about the Rush twenty one to twelve Atari game. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:13.920 So Warshaw gets to meet with Steven Spielberg in la 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.160 and was not given direction or a brief. He meets 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.640 with Spielberg says, here's what I proposed, this adventure game 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.280 that follows a plot of the film somewhat where the 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.600 kid is et playing the game. You are et, right, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:30.320 and you got to go around and collect all these 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.640 pieces to build a phone so you can phone home, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.360 and the government's after you and these bad doctors are 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.520 after you. It's just like your movie, right, And Spielberg 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.280 was like, well, can't you just have him like running 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.400 around eating Reese's pieces like pac Man? 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.840 Yeah, and he went, oh. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.719 There's this great there's this great quote where he's like, here, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.559 here's one of my idols, Steven Spielberg asking me to 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.920 knock off pac Man for the ET game. And I thought, well, gee, Stephen, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.280 couldn't you make something more like The Day of the earthstud? 0:13:59.679 --> 0:13:59.959 Yeah? 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.480 Burn right, burn? So he apparently had to do a 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.160 little fancy footwork to talk Spielberg into going with his 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.040 vision rather than a pac Man knockoff of ET, which 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.439 who knows, may have sold a lot better, but it 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.160 was he got him to agree to his vision for 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.680 this game. He said, no, this is a groundbreaking movie. 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.720 We need to make a groundbreaking game. And so Spielberg 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.640 agreed to it, and Warshaw started to get to work. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.200 So we should probably take a break before Scott, Howard 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:53.720 Scott really jumps in it, all right, Chuck. So it's 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.280 basically the beginning of July nineteen eighty two, and Howard 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:01.360 Scott Warshaw is the sole programmer for an ET video game. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.680 Atari's biggest bet. That they spent twenty one million dollars 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.440 on the rights too, that they're going to spend an 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.600 additional five million dollars on the advertising budget, for the 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.160 most anyone's ever spent on a video game up to 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.320 that point. He's the only programmer who's going to make 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.320 this game, and he has five weeks to do it, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.480 which from what I understand, no one had ever done before. 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.320 Yeah, and this was Atari was a giant at the time. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.880 If video If the video game industry was beginning to slip. 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.880 It wasn't like the public didn't really realize that yet. 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:41.080 The industry may have, but Atari held about eighty percent 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.720 of the market. They were at about two billion in 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.600 annual sales and about three quarters of billion in profit, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.520 which is just unheard of. 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.560 About two billion in profit in today's money. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.320 Yeah, so a ton of money. But they saw the 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:57.160 writing on the wall. 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.160 They knew that the personal computer like the Common or 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.080 sixty four that could play games but also do a 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.880 lot more, was a real genuine threat to the home console. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.960 So I read a contemporary article in the New York 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:14.880 Times from nineteen eighty three talking about this, and Atari 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.080 said they did not see the writing on the wall. 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:18.040 Well, one of. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.400 Them said, the first six months of nineteen eighty three 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.440 was one way. The second six months it was like 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:25.920 we were in a totally different business. 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.680 Yeah, but if you read interviews with him now, I 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:29.400 think that might have. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.240 Been, Oh, the guy covering is well, yeah. 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:33.160 I don't think you want to go out in the 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.520 press in the moment and say, hey, everyone, we're super 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.000 scared investors. 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.120 Don't freak out, don't panic, You're right, Chuck. I feel 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:42.520 a little foolish. 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.960 So they what they did was they set Warshaw up 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.760 with everything he would have at work. They set him 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.840 up at home. So the only time he could not 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.320 be working on this game was his very short drive 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.840 over to the office. And he worked on it almost 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:00.000 NonStop for five weeks. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.480 He had a manager that was assigned to him to 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.199 make sure that he ate. That was I'm sure not 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.520 the manager's only duty, but it was. One of the 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.720 manager's new jobs was to make sure that Warshaw ate 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:11.280 every day. 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:12.720 How about a waffle? 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.240 Sure, whatever, Stop bothering me. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:18.320 ET's in the pit again. 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.160 So for five weeks he worked almost like you said, 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:24.679 twenty four hours a day. He said, it's the hardest 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.400 he's ever worked in his entire life. 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:27.280 Yeah. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.760 And when five weeks came and went, he handed off 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.000 his He handed off the game. He finished it. He 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.360 completed it in time. And it wasn't done in his opinion, 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.919 or it would turn out in anybody's opinion, but it 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.120 was done. It was a complete game that he had 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.359 finished in five weeks, the et video game. And it 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.200 wasn't just something like a pac Man knockoff. He'd given 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.760 real thought to it and created a world that was 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:55.879 much different from a lot of the other games at 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.119 the time. At the time, it was a world like 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.359 it was a cube shape told with six screens, and 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.919 so if you walk to the left, you knew you 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:06.479 were going to end up on this other screen. If 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.440 you walked up, you wouldn't end up on the other screen. 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.120 It was a world that you were navigating, rather than 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.879 say like Yars Revenge, which is just one screen and 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.760 everything's happening on the one screen and it may imply 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.679 motion or something like this. With the Et game, you 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.560 were moving from one area of this world to the next. Yeah, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.320 which is it was new. It wasn't new, but it was. 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.080 It wasn't. It wasn't standard to have six screens, especially 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:32.560 if you have five weeks to do it. Give a 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:33.200 guy a break. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.840 Yeah, yeah, No, I'm not saying it should. What I'm 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:36.560 saying is that. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.760 It wasn't like some big revolutionary thing like the Raiders 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.240 game was pre this and it had thirty something screened. Okay, 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.919 all right, fine, and adventure like kids were used to 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.879 this by this point. Okay, So it wasn't like, oh 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.800 wait till they get a load of six screens, like 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:53.679 leaving the screen. 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.399 I see, but I think Howard Scott Warshaw should have 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.520 gone to everybody's house and been like, here's your copy 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.560 of et game as well. You know I made this 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:03.719 in five weeks. 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.320 Well he designed Easter eggs in there too, and I 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:07.960 kind of wondered, like, how much time did he spend 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.640 doing that with his own initials and like the little 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:12.800 Yards Revenge Flower. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:14.280 I hadn't really thought about that. 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.800 I don't know, so he says time was of the essence, 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.359 though I just maybe put that last on the list. 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.159 He says today that had he had one more week 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.639 to just troubleshoot, he could have worked out all the kinks. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.199 He could have worked out the kinks and one more 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:28.720 Easter egg. 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.800 But he handed it out. He handed it off to Atari, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.080 and Atari said genius. They gave it to Steven Spielberg 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.800 to play. Spielberg apparently liked it. And in the game 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:44.240