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Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and a love all things tech, and it is time

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Speaker 1: for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published

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Speaker 1: on May two thousand thirteen. It is part one of

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Speaker 1: a two parter and it is called The Electronic Arts Story.

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Speaker 1: This is clearly one that I'm going to have to

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Speaker 1: do an update for a lot has happened in seven years,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot more to say about e A.

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Speaker 1: But we have to have a start somewhere, right, So

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Speaker 1: let's go back and listen to the Electronic Arts Story,

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Speaker 1: Part one. This particular story is pretty interesting. We're specifically

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Speaker 1: talking about Electronic Arts or e A, which a lot

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Speaker 1: of people view these days as some sort of megalomaniacal

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Speaker 1: corporation on dominating the entire video game industry. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's uh yeah, well, I mean, well we'll get into

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Speaker 1: it later on, but but it but it is one

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Speaker 1: worst company in America twice, two years in a row,

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Speaker 1: two years in a row. Yeah. Yeah, But but to

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Speaker 1: start off, you know, it's it didn't start off as

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Speaker 1: this UH company that was bent on on having a

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Speaker 1: stranglehold on the video game industry. And I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: that that's what he has now or that's goal, that's

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Speaker 1: what's goal is, but that's what that's the popular perception

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Speaker 1: that is. Well, you know, to be fair, it does

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Speaker 1: as twenty five million registered players and is operating out

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Speaker 1: of seventy five countries, so it's not doing too shadows company.

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Speaker 1: But but it had had interesting beginnings. Now to really

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Speaker 1: understand how A started, you actually have to go way

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Speaker 1: back before e A was a thing. Uh. And my

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Speaker 1: first date that I wrote down was in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: three because that's when William M. Trip Hawkins the third

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Speaker 1: was born. Now, this guy is going to be the

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Speaker 1: founder of EA when we get up to that point,

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Speaker 1: but um, he was. It was his idea to start

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Speaker 1: up a video game company and UH. And you know

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Speaker 1: the way he came about this was as he was

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Speaker 1: growing up and going to school, he started to get

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Speaker 1: really interested in uh, computers in general and games as well.

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Speaker 1: In fact, in nineteen seventy he designed a board game.

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Speaker 1: It was a football board game called ACU stat Pro Football. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he borrowed five thousand dollars from his father to get

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Speaker 1: this off the ground. And it was a complete commercial failure. Right.

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Speaker 1: It was his first entrepreneurial attempt and it and it failed,

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Speaker 1: which often we can learn a lot more from our

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Speaker 1: failures than our successes. But it teaches us a couple

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Speaker 1: of things about Hawkins. That he's interested in games, and

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Speaker 1: he's interested in football in particular, which becomes extremely evident.

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Speaker 1: And during the evolution of e A right, right, and

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Speaker 1: he had started kind of designing stuff. He was a

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Speaker 1: big D and D player from I understand, and and

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Speaker 1: was really interested in how all of the math and

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Speaker 1: statistics worked. But noticed that a lot of his friends

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Speaker 1: were not interested in doing that at all, and so

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Speaker 1: he was kind of thinking like, hey, what if. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he was looking at at different ways of creating sets

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Speaker 1: of rules and statistics. And and also at the same time,

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Speaker 1: he was starting to get interested in computers. Now in

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Speaker 1: the early seventies, this is predating the personal computer. If

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Speaker 1: you were interested in computers, it's because you had a

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Speaker 1: job that there were computers at your job, or maybe

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Speaker 1: you were attending university and they were computers there right

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Speaker 1: right in in seventy when he had his first interaction

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Speaker 1: ever with a prototype a micro computer. This was over

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Speaker 1: at a friend's house and uh, and that kind of

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Speaker 1: set him up for a couple of years later. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, he has access to a d

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Speaker 1: E C PDP eleven mini computer and he creates a

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Speaker 1: program written in the Basic programming language that was designed

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Speaker 1: to run simulations of football games. So not exactly a

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Speaker 1: fully interactive gaming experience. It's more like, if I put

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Speaker 1: in every player's stats and then set this to go

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Speaker 1: and have it play out as if it were a game,

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Speaker 1: what would the results be? And he tested it by

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Speaker 1: running a simulation of what was going to be at

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Speaker 1: that time, the nineteen seventy four Super Bowl game, and

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Speaker 1: it turned out that his his game ended up predicting

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Speaker 1: the final score fairly closely. In his game, it said

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Speaker 1: that the Dolphins would win over Minnesota twenty three to six,

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Speaker 1: and the real score was actually twenty four to seven,

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Speaker 1: So at least in that sense, the statistics seemed to

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Speaker 1: hold true. Now, of course, we all know that in reality,

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Speaker 1: from a day to day basis, statistics can give you

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Speaker 1: an indication of how things might go, but there's no

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Speaker 1: guarantee that's how they will go, right. Yeah, So so

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Speaker 1: Luck could have certainly been involved in that one, but

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Speaker 1: you know not. Nonetheless, he was a student at Harvard

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Speaker 1: at the time. He graduated with a self designed major

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Speaker 1: in strategy and applied game theory. That's an interesting major

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Speaker 1: right there, especially fore right, so he says that he

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Speaker 1: spent a couple of years convincing Harvard to to let

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Speaker 1: him get that degree because that was what he wanted.

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Speaker 1: And I would go on to get an MBA from Stanford. Yep.

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Speaker 1: And when he graduated in nineteen with that NBA, he

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Speaker 1: went to work for a little company called Apple. And

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Speaker 1: at that time it really was a little company. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they had just just about fifty employees at the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fifty employees. He had joined early on. This is, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, right at the very onset of the personal

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Speaker 1: computer era. The Apple two was the first computer from

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Speaker 1: Apple to really hit it off in the market. The

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Speaker 1: first Apple was mostly adopted by people who were hobbyists

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Speaker 1: or really had a fascination with computers, but it was

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Speaker 1: not a commercial success. What didn't run away with the market,

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Speaker 1: Apple two was a totally different story. That was the

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Speaker 1: one that a larger niche began to get interested in

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Speaker 1: personal computers. It still was still you know, kind of

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Speaker 1: in the hobbyist air, rah, but it was a looser

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Speaker 1: definition of hobbyists at that point, not just people who

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Speaker 1: were obsessed with computers. And I mean that in the

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Speaker 1: nicest way. I come from a family that's part of

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Speaker 1: this niche. So yeah, Hawkins has said that in seven

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Speaker 1: he saw an Apple two at a computer fair and

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Speaker 1: realized that this was kind of you know, he had

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Speaker 1: been churning around this, this concept of of games and

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Speaker 1: computers and programming for a couple of years and decided

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Speaker 1: that Apple was, yes, the way to go. He's not

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Speaker 1: the only one either. There were a lot of early

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Speaker 1: game developers who were looking at personal computers as the

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Speaker 1: platform of choice, and many of them, uh showed an

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Speaker 1: early preference for the Apple to Richard Garriott of Origin

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Speaker 1: also had that same fascination. So Hawkins works for Apple.

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Speaker 1: By two, he was the director of strategy and marketing

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Speaker 1: at Apple Computers. So from yeah, that those humble beginnings,

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Speaker 1: and of course by then Apple was doing very very

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Speaker 1: well and had already at its initial public offering, which

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Speaker 1: netted Hawkins quite a bit of money and so he

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Speaker 1: made a big, risky decision. He decided that his fascination

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Speaker 1: of games and computers needed to really be indulged, and

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Speaker 1: so he left Apple Computer. Well, he supposedly had had

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Speaker 1: decided almost a decade prior that in two would be

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Speaker 1: the year for him to start a business, to start

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Speaker 1: a computer business, and that that that would be the

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Speaker 1: year that that the home computing market had caught up

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Speaker 1: to his desire to plan it. Now, now, I both

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Speaker 1: of us honestly don't know whether or not that's truly

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Speaker 1: what he thought that some of the stuff, some of

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Speaker 1: the stuff he says, he says, well, after the time rights,

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Speaker 1: it could be retcond is all I'm saying. I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying he definitely did do that. I'm just I have

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Speaker 1: a little bit of skepticism either either way. On two

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Speaker 1: fun fact, the day before I was born, Um, in

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Speaker 1: case any he needed to feel really old. Right now,

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Speaker 1: thank you, La, You're welcome. Um, he he incorporated Electronic

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Speaker 1: Arts and And this was not going to This was

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Speaker 1: not the original name that he had thought of for

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Speaker 1: the company. No, No, he actually originally wanted to call

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Speaker 1: it Amazing Software, but that just didn't seem to really click.

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Speaker 1: He got a bunch of people together to try and

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Speaker 1: uh brainstorm and idea. He had actually used two thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars of his own money to fund this early part

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Speaker 1: of the company, UH, and he they started thinking about

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Speaker 1: other possible names. One of the names they came up

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Speaker 1: with was soft Art, but the head of another company

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Speaker 1: that was called Software Software Arts asked him if he

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Speaker 1: would reconsider naming his company that just to avoid any confusion,

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Speaker 1: and he agreed to do that. Had another brainstorming session

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Speaker 1: and that came up with Electronic Arts. Along with a

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Speaker 1: team of other folks and marketing people as well an

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Speaker 1: outside marketing company, and Electronic Arts was born. They would

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Speaker 1: actually receive by the end of nine two two million

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Speaker 1: dollars in venture capital from Sequoia Capital, and Sequoia Capital

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Speaker 1: even gave them some office space to work out of

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Speaker 1: before they had any sort of physical headquarters, right right,

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Speaker 1: very originally, I think he worked out of his own

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Speaker 1: home when he was hiring his first couple of people,

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Speaker 1: and UH, all of these people that he was hiring

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Speaker 1: at the time, and the naming of the company kind

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Speaker 1: of came about because he really wanted, um, he really

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Speaker 1: believed that computer games are an art form and wanted

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Speaker 1: UM wanted the game company to operate kind of like

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Speaker 1: a music label. UM. And this is really evident in

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Speaker 1: some of their early marketing campaigns and attempts. You know,

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Speaker 1: they would get these game developers together and pose them

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Speaker 1: like rock stars have, have rock music photographers come in

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Speaker 1: and do these gorgeous photographs of them and and really

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Speaker 1: concentrate on the software artist. Yeah, even the art they

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Speaker 1: would use in their the games they sold, which in

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Speaker 1: those days, games didn't come in boxes yet. They were

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Speaker 1: in usually plastic bags, and you had some art that

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Speaker 1: would be included. But it it looked pretty look like

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Speaker 1: a lot of Yeah, it look like a lot of

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Speaker 1: these games came out of someone's garage. And here's here's

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Speaker 1: a fun fact. A lot of them did. UM but

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Speaker 1: uh e A. They took an approach where they really

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Speaker 1: put a lot of graphic design work into the art

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Speaker 1: that was included with the games. And there were several

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Speaker 1: sources I read that likened the the art on the

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Speaker 1: games to album you would see on what we used

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Speaker 1: to you know, buy music on, which were these giant

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Speaker 1: vinyl albums. I actually kids are doing that again now,

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Speaker 1: but bund there was a while where I would say

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Speaker 1: vinyl album and I just get that blank stare um.

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Speaker 1: Those days appeared to have disappeared again for at least

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Speaker 1: a while, but I'll see that keeps up. They actually

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Speaker 1: moved to the headquarters in San Mateo, California, and they

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Speaker 1: were there for quite a few years. Ultimately they ended

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Speaker 1: up moving again. But and also you know, e A

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Speaker 1: expanded greatly, But we'll get into all of that. So

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Speaker 1: they're early early efforts were concentrated on a few titles, uh,

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Speaker 1: and they wanted to produce all of their games internally.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to be a publisher, a developer, and a distributor.

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Speaker 1: So these are all different parts of the video game industry.

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Speaker 1: And you can have a company that's just one of

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Speaker 1: these things, or you can have a company that does

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Speaker 1: multiple roles here. But to break it down, essentially, you

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Speaker 1: have publishers that these are the companies that fund the

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Speaker 1: development of video games. Now, they might have a development

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Speaker 1: team within the publisher, or they may pay an independent

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Speaker 1: developer to create a game, but they are the ones

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Speaker 1: who say, here's some money, we believe in the project

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Speaker 1: that you have pitched, why don't you go ahead and

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Speaker 1: build that game. Then you give us the game, and

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Speaker 1: we will make sure the game gets to distributors, who

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Speaker 1: will then make sure the game gets two stores. And

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Speaker 1: then the way it generally works if if you're talking

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Speaker 1: about an independent developer and a publisher, the publisher will

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Speaker 1: give an advance to the developer, and that advance is

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Speaker 1: against any future royalties that the game sells until you

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Speaker 1: pay off that advance, and then you usually have some

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Speaker 1: sort of royalty sharing program where the publisher gets a

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Speaker 1: certain amount of the money from sales and the developer

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Speaker 1: gets another you know, a percentage of those sales as well,

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Speaker 1: but the advance has to be paid off first because

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Speaker 1: that's the initial investment the publisher makes to the developer.

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Speaker 1: Developers are of course, those are the people who developed

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Speaker 1: the games, are the ones who actually build the games.

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Speaker 1: So again, it can be an independent company, it could

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Speaker 1: be part of a publisher, it could be part of

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Speaker 1: a distributor. Uh, either are all different types of models

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Speaker 1: out there, but these are the people actually building the code,

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Speaker 1: making the art, writing the games. That's that's yeah. Then

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Speaker 1: you've got the distributors. Now, these are the people who

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Speaker 1: are responsible for delivering finished games from publishers and delivering

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Speaker 1: them to retail establishments and other outlets, so they sell gain.

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Speaker 1: The publishers sell their games to distributors, and then the

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Speaker 1: distributors take those games and sell them to the retail

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Speaker 1: operators who then sell them to the public. So e

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Speaker 1: A was all three of these things right. And at

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Speaker 1: the time, Hawkins has said that he had done a

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Speaker 1: lot of market research and that a hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: five of his competitors were doing the same thing um

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Speaker 1: which which seems like an awfully large number, although at

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Speaker 1: the time we were just on the verge of a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a market crash a little bit, a

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Speaker 1: little bit as a little bit is understating it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but but but during this boom there were there

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Speaker 1: was a lot going on um and And also the

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Speaker 1: concept reminds me a lot of Apple's Apple is a

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Speaker 1: really terrific example of vertical integration and um and from

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Speaker 1: his time at Apple, I feel like probably that's one

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Speaker 1: of the places where he picked up this concept. We'll

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Speaker 1: be back to talk more about e A in just

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Speaker 1: a moment, but first let's take a quick break. The

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Speaker 1: first six titles from e A included games called Hard

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Speaker 1: Hat mac which was kind of like a Mario clone.

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Speaker 1: Um it's or Donkey Kong clone. I really should say

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Speaker 1: not Mario, but a Donkey Kong clone. It was a

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Speaker 1: platforming game a side not even a side scralling. It

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Speaker 1: was you know, it's kind of like Donkey Kong. Then

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Speaker 1: you had the pinball construction set. There was a game

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Speaker 1: called which you don't let you build pinball systems. Then

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Speaker 1: you had arcn which was kind of a weird fantasy

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Speaker 1: strategy game that was part chess, part action game. The

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Speaker 1: idea being that you have two sides. Uh. Two sides

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Speaker 1: have different pieces that are kind of like chess pieces.

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Speaker 1: The different pieces have different abilities, and you try to

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Speaker 1: take over your opponent's territory. Whenever one of your pieces

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Speaker 1: comes in contact with an opponent's piece, you then have

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Speaker 1: a little arcade like battle between the two. Right and

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Speaker 1: depending upon what your pieces, you might be able to

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Speaker 1: really whoop up on your opponent because you're faster or

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Speaker 1: your shots do a lot more damage. Uh and and

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Speaker 1: so it was all about strategy, like I want to

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Speaker 1: make sure this piece goes up against my that piece

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Speaker 1: my opponent has, so I can I can win the game.

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Speaker 1: You can kind of tell that I played the heck

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Speaker 1: out of this game. By the way, I also owned

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Speaker 1: the Pinball Construction set and I owned hard Hat Mac.

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Speaker 1: Then there was a Mule, which was another strategy game.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people who enjoyed this really like things

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Speaker 1: like a war gaming where you would have the big

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Speaker 1: table with all the hexagons, we move the pieces around.

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Speaker 1: Mule was kind of the computer version of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was really built for four players, which at the

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Speaker 1: time was was kind of unheard of. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: never got into it because my brain does not work

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Speaker 1: that way. I can I can do well enough in

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Speaker 1: our con because even if my strategy skills aren't that great,

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Speaker 1: my twitch skills were good enough to help me get by,

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Speaker 1: but Mule not so much. Then there was Worms, which

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Speaker 1: was kind of a high concept game where you would

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Speaker 1: train these what they called worms, these these these lines

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Speaker 1: of light to behave in a certain way in order

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Speaker 1: to progress in the game. And it's very difficult to explain.

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Speaker 1: And I've always seen people who say, if you want

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Speaker 1: to play the game, if you want to try it out,

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Speaker 1: find a copy of it and give it a whirl.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can find stuff like this on the internet. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you should do it without reading the instructions, just to

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Speaker 1: see if you can figure out what the heck is

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Speaker 1: going on. Um. And I mean I read a description

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Speaker 1: of this, and I'm not sure I would be able

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Speaker 1: to figure it out. But maybe it's more intuitive than

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Speaker 1: the descriptions would give you. Uh that then the description

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Speaker 1: seemed to indicate. And then the last of the six

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Speaker 1: titles that they launched with when the company was first

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Speaker 1: offering up games was Murder on These zinder Kneuf, which

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Speaker 1: I know nothing about. I did not own that one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I should put in that I have played zero

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Speaker 1: of these games. Well, they you know, right around when

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Speaker 1: you were one, so I'm not surprised. So but I

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Speaker 1: had most of these games because they came out for

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Speaker 1: the Apple too, and we had an Apple too. And

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Speaker 1: actually what happened was a local school had purchased a

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Speaker 1: bunch of games and then they gave them to me

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Speaker 1: to test and tell them which ones were educational and

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Speaker 1: which ones were not really educational. So I did, and

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Speaker 1: then I returned all the games and they said, all right,

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Speaker 1: you can keep all the ones that aren't educational. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So as a kid, I was like ching and um,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, I ended up with a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of early games. That's also how I ended

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Speaker 1: up learning about the Ultimate series because Ultimate two was

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Speaker 1: one of those games. But uh yeah, so there was

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Speaker 1: that was the initial launching title, but there were some

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Speaker 1: other ones that came out shortly thereafter. There was The

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Speaker 1: Last Gladiator, which is a game I also owned. Um

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Speaker 1: that that one didn't come in the batch. I won

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Speaker 1: that one as a as a part of a lip

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Speaker 1: syncing contest. What pray tell, were you lip sinking? Me

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Speaker 1: and my dad did a lip sinking routine to raise

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Speaker 1: Stevens the Pirates song, which is all about a pirate

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Speaker 1: who wants to sing and dance and wear bright shiny pants.

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Speaker 1: Well that's that's a that's awesome. Yeah. We won first place,

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Speaker 1: which was a fifty dollar gift certificate to a local

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Speaker 1: comics store. And I don't read comic books, so I

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Speaker 1: bought all their computer games instead, and one of them

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Speaker 1: was The Last Gladiator, And that was a game where

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Speaker 1: you play as a little gladiator and all these different

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Speaker 1: monsters come out and based upon whatever weapon you have

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Speaker 1: at your disposal, you have uh you know, decent chances

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Speaker 1: against them. It gets more and more difficult as the

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Speaker 1: game goes on. You know, it's kind of a typical

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Speaker 1: Arcady experience. Um. They also had they launched a game

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Speaker 1: that would end up being sort of the genesis of

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Speaker 1: e A sports. Dr J and Larry Bird Go one

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Speaker 1: on one. I'm told this is from a sport called

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Speaker 1: basketball and so on. That's one with the orange round thing. Correct, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I want to say yes, yeah, this this was one

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Speaker 1: of the earliest. Uh well, it was the earliest sports

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Speaker 1: game from e A and Hawkins really struck on a

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Speaker 1: brilliant idea. He had decided to try and approach people

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Speaker 1: who were famous in various sports and to license their

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Speaker 1: their names to get that media tie in. Yeah right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they get a promotional tie in from famous famous athletes,

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Speaker 1: I mean Dr J and Larry Bird or especially at

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Speaker 1: the world famous and and which is interesting because the

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Speaker 1: world famous since they were playing an American sport that

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Speaker 1: was almost exclusively played in America. Um. They ended up

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Speaker 1: that they ended up paying off big time and being

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Speaker 1: a strategy that e A still to this day employees.

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Speaker 1: They also established a new policy which was to in

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Speaker 1: order to keep more of the profits that it would

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Speaker 1: get from its uh from the sales it was going

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Speaker 1: to reduce the discount it gave software distributor sports games,

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Speaker 1: meaning that uh, they were essentially selling their games at

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Speaker 1: a higher cost. Two stores saying all right, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're no longer going to sell this game to you

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Speaker 1: at ten dollars a copy. We're gonna sell it to

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Speaker 1: you for thirty dollars a copy. And uh, and you

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Speaker 1: know it's your truck. Uh, it's your problem to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to sell this. So if you're if you

375
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Speaker 1: usually sell your games at forty dollars, now you're paying

376
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Speaker 1: thirty bucks to sell it for forty, your profit margin

377
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:33,199
Speaker 1: has shrunk as a software disc a software retail store. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, do you continue trying to do that? Do

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Speaker 1: you hike your prices up and hope that people are

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Speaker 1: willing to pay it? Uh. E A's point was that, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're starting to make a name for ourselves. People know

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Speaker 1: our product and they like it. So if if they

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Speaker 1: like it and this is the only way they can

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Speaker 1: get it, then you're gonna have to play ball with us.

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Speaker 1: And this is sort of the first example of e

386
00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:57,240
Speaker 1: A really throwing its weight around. Yeah. This was also

387
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Speaker 1: the year that it made its conference debut at the

388
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Speaker 1: Consumer Electronics Show, and so, yeah, they were really really

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Speaker 1: getting out there in the public and starting to make

390
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,719
Speaker 1: make waves. Yeah, and keep in mind this is all

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Speaker 1: in the first year that they're actually offering games. You know,

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Speaker 1: they had been a company for a while, but of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, as soon as they became a company, it

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Speaker 1: didn't mean that they had games to offer everybody them. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They also had established these ideas that you know, every

396
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 1: single person who worked on the game was going to

397
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Speaker 1: be credited. If you were the creator of a game,

398
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Speaker 1: your name was front and center on the game's screens.

399
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Speaker 1: It would let you know that this was a game

400
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 1: developed by so and so. And that was a response

401
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 1: to a lot of the the activity they were seeing

402
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: on the console market, particularly with Atari. Uh, and that

403
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 1: there were people who were essentially anonymous game developers who

404
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:51,200
Speaker 1: had put in hours and hours and hours of time

405
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:54,600
Speaker 1: to create video games, but there was no sign of

406
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 1: credit for them on on the actual video games. It

407
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: was just you know, is this is you ex title

408
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 1: from X company? Sure. Yeah. The word that I've seen

409
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: tossed around in a lot of articles about it is

410
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:10,640
Speaker 1: is surfs that these people were being treated like surfs

411
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: and and Hawkins was was saying that you know, some

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Speaker 1: of these kids that he had met out at Apple

413
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Speaker 1: were were and I quote legitimate divas, and and that

414
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 1: they deserved better than that. Yeah, and they Let's make

415
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: it clear, e A was not the only company doing this.

416
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Speaker 1: There were other companies that split off from Atari, for example,

417
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 1: that were founded by developers who wanted to have more

418
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 1: more control and more credit for the work that they

419
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: were doing. So e A is one example of that,

420
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 1: but it's by no means the only example of that.

421
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:51,160
Speaker 1: Now UH in four Larry Probst joined the company as

422
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,440
Speaker 1: the vice president of sales, and he will become really

423
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,879
Speaker 1: important to e A. He was already important at that point,

424
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: but becomes even more so over the years. UH and

425
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,160
Speaker 1: e A begins to distribute games from other companies, not

426
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: just their own companies. So now they're becoming a distributor

427
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:09,960
Speaker 1: for other UH publishers. And one of the first ones

428
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: was Lucasfilm Games. There was also s s I and Interplay.

429
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: They all used Electronic Arts as a distributor. So now

430
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:21,639
Speaker 1: they're bringing in money not only from the games that

431
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 1: they are developing in their their own house, but also

432
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: from developers. Yeah, this was this was the year that

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00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 1: the that the video game market really crashed or was

434
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: really feeling all of the effects of the crash. Um.

435
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,480
Speaker 1: And this was due to a lot of a lot

436
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: of things, but um, but but mostly you know, Atari

437
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: had been kind of sort of driving the market into

438
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 1: the ground for a minute. Yeah, yeah, the market was

439
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: completely flooded with games, and and not good games necessarily.

440
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 1: There were some there's some great titles that were among

441
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 1: the ones that came out that year, but there were

442
00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: Atari had essentially lowered the bar so far for anyone

443
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: to submit games to the console that it was flooded

444
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: with games that were just rushed, that had bad art,

445
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 1: that were poorly constructed, that were impossible to play. Um.

446
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 1: And this made people stop wanting to buy games because

447
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: they were just not fun. Right. And also there were

448
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: so many consoles on the market, you know, it had

449
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: kind of boomed, and and these things cost four to

450
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars in today's in today's concept of the dollar, right,

451
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: and so you know, yeah, it was it was not

452
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: sustainable at the time without the quality of games that

453
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: were coming out, and there was such an early boom

454
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: that it was just a rush, right, and then the

455
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: rush was followed by a bubble bursting, which we see

456
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: all the time, not just in technology but in all

457
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: kinds of markets. And uh and so you know, as

458
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: of a game company, Electronic Arts had a tough year

459
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: ahead of it because you know that was it was

460
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:55,920
Speaker 1: affected to it. Even though a lot of its games

461
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: were being made for specters. I was saying p seas

462
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: but really at this time we weren't really calling the

463
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: PCs yet, but yeah, they were being made for computers.

464
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: It still was affected because uh, you know, a lot

465
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: of consumers got jaded on the concept of games in

466
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: the first place. That was, however, the year that they

467
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: published a game called The Seven Cities of Gold, which

468
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: I also owned. Uh yeah, I was. I was known

469
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: for being a terrible, terrible columnists colonialist. I guess I

470
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: should say I would go in and wreak havoc on

471
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: the various Mayan and az tech cultures and plunder them. Yeah.

472
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: I've heard that it was a very educational game, edutainment

473
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: edutainment toll. Yeah. I want to say that I bought

474
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: that one, and that one was not part of the package,

475
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: because if it were part of the package. Then obviously

476
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: I fipped about it being educational. Um. And then e

477
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: A began to switch its strategy at this point, when

478
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 1: the video game market had crashed, and instead of marketing

479
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: games as being from specific creators the way they had

480
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: been where they had made these developers rock stars, uh,

481
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: they were instead going to look at creating actual brands

482
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: and genres. So instead of saying from the mind of

483
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: so and so, they said, why don't we find a

484
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: game that really resonates with people and then just continue

485
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: to create games within that brand title or more even

486
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 1: just within that type of gameplay. Uh. This would actually

487
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: end up being something that people would criticize e A

488
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 1: four years later to the point where they well, they've

489
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: they've taken it to something of an extreme, but we'll

490
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 1: get into that. Yeah, Like yes, and they also decided

491
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: to start making games for lots of different platforms. So

492
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 1: besides the Apple two, they started looking at the Macintosh,

493
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 1: which was brand new in uh, the Amiga, the Commodore

494
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: sixty four IBM compatibles, which were just starting to take

495
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: off right around then. Uh, the Atari eight hundred, and

496
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: the Attari st We've got a bit more to say

497
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: about electronic arts. But first, let's take another quick break.

498
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, and let's go back into what's

499
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: going on with the e A. So comes round and

500
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: e A starts releasing a bunch of games, including some

501
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: that were really famous in the fantasy gaming genre. Uh,

502
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: the big one being The Bard's Tale, which I also owned.

503
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: I did, I did not? I think. Well, it was

504
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: very Dungeons and Dragons ish. You would control a party

505
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: of players. You would you would generate characters and then

506
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: put them together in a party, and uh, this was

507
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: kind of standard for a lot of other video games

508
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: at the time. Wizardry was very similar in this respect,

509
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: where you would have certain number of fighters, a certain

510
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: number of magic users, maybe a thief or even a

511
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: bard who could affect the way the party performed by

512
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: playing different songs. That was one of the big innovative

513
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: gameplay elements of The Bard's Tale. So you know, play

514
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: a little song and then everyone gets gets all amped

515
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: up and they fight better, or you play another song

516
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: and everyone's starting to feel kind of chill and they

517
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: start healing and faster. That's terrific, useful bards, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah,

518
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: as opposed to and uh, there's this guy Guy's singing again.

519
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 1: We can't get them to shut up. We've broken four

520
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: loots and he doesn't get the hint. Well. The other

521
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:23,959
Speaker 1: the alternative title for the Bard's Tale was Tales of

522
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: the Unknown Volume one when it was a fantasy RBG

523
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: and you. There was something really creative about the Bard's

524
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: Tale series, which was that you could import players from

525
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: other games all right on certain platforms app Apple two

526
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: is one of them. Yeah, um yeah, you can. You

527
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 1: can pull in things from from Ultima, which was from

528
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: Origin Systems that was not part of Electronic Arts at

529
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: that time, or from the aforementioned Wizardry, which was from Curtech,

530
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: also not part of e A. So these are games

531
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: made by other companies and allowed interoperability in the sense

532
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: that you could pull like if you had play this

533
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: other game and you had these characters that you had

534
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: developed some sort of emotional attachment to and you had

535
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: really invested in this game, you could then pull those

536
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: characters into The Bard's Tale and use them again in

537
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: a totally different game, which was kind of an awesome idea.

538
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 1: I will say that from my own personal experience from

539
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: playing Wizardry and then pulling characters in from Wizardry into

540
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: The Bard's Tale. They ended up being a tad overpowered,

541
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: like to the point where the whole first section of

542
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: the game was pointless to play because you just would

543
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: you know blast, Yeah, essentially like if I were to

544
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: encounter a moth and you were to give me a sledgehammer. Uh,

545
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: you know. That's kind of the way it felt. But

546
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: it was still a really cool game mechanic. Now. In

547
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: six and in they would release sequels to the Bard's Tales.

548
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: You get bards Tale two and Bard's Tale three. I

549
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: remember Bard's Tale three in particular, that was the one

550
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: I played the most. And into thousand four we saw

551
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: the release of The Bard's Tale. But this is a

552
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: game that was not released by e A, nor was

553
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: it connected directly to the Bard's Tale games. But it

554
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 1: was created by someone who had worked on the first two.

555
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, that one of the people who helped

556
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: develop the maps in the first two Bards Tale games

557
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: was the developer behind The Bard's Tale the two thousand

558
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: four games. So I remember being excited when that game

559
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: came out because I thought, oh, they're relaunching this this

560
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: franchise that I loved as a kid. Yeah, it was

561
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: more just the name. I was still a fantasy RPG,

562
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: and you played a character who was very snarky thief.

563
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: Bard character voiced by Carrie El was. Oh man, well

564
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: that sounds that sounds worth playing just for just for that.

565
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: It was. It was entertaining first five minutes. You had

566
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: a narrator and you had Carrie Ell was this character,

567
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: and they would bicker as you played. So that was

568
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: kind of fun. But it again didn't relate back to

569
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: the Bard's Tale Games of My youth, So I was tricked.

570
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: They're tricks. E UH was also an e A released

571
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: their first productivity application, which was called Deluxe Paint. It's

572
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: a program for the Commodore Amiga, which was known as

573
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: a machine that was particularly powerful when it came to

574
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,719
Speaker 1: graphics and sound. When you compared it against the other computers,

575
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: the Amiga blew them away. As far as that well,

576
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: I mean I had a friend who had Amiga, and

577
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: I remember just being completely flabbergasted that a computer could

578
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: do what his Amiga could do as far as graphics

579
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: and sound. We're concerned because when you compared it to

580
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: my Apple two or my two eighties six, it just

581
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: it outperformed him hands down in that So it was

582
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: a great game platform. But this was a painting platform

583
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,719
Speaker 1: or a painting application, I should say, And it was

584
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: based off of an in house art development tool that

585
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: that e A had been using that they called Prism.

586
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: So they essentially took this in health tool and then

587
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: packaged it and changed it a bit for consumers. So hey, kids,

588
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: kids would be into this too. Yeah, like, you know,

589
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: we're using this to develop games, but I think people

590
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: would really be interested in using this for themselves. So

591
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure they tweaked it so that would make sense

592
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: to a consumer, but hopefully yeah, or not just release

593
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 1: it the way it was, because you know, things, things

594
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,959
Speaker 1: make you have different kinds of tools for people who

595
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,239
Speaker 1: are professionals in an industry and people who are just

596
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: interested in it. Yeah, but yeah, that was an interesting

597
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: departure from just creating games. Um, I don't have anything,

598
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: and I should say I didn't say this at the

599
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: top of the show, but we're not going to cover

600
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: every release e A ever made, because first of all,

601
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: that would take us about five hours I think just

602
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: to list every game, and second of all, that would

603
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: that would be a really boring podcast that would be

604
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 1: that would be like like, yeah, even for our threshold,

605
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: that would be boring. So we don't want to I'm

606
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: just kidding. I'm just kidding, But no, I I agree entirely.

607
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna mentioned some of the big ones, obviously,

608
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: especially the ones that ended up being disruptive to e

609
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 1: A or to the industry. But but in this case,

610
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: we're we're just kind of skimming through some of the

611
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: big ones and not hitting every single one. Son was

612
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: when e A set up a European division to market

613
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: PC games. Now, at this point it was just to

614
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: kind of be a marketing firm, not a development house,

615
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: but uh, they saw a lot of opportunity to expand

616
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: into Europe. The problem with Europe was that it was

617
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,719
Speaker 1: being very it was very slow to adopt consoles. It

618
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: was this is true later on when we started getting

619
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,239
Speaker 1: into the advanced consoles, to the ones like are the

620
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: current generation PlayStation forward Europe. It's not that Europe was

621
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: not interested in it's just it was slower to adopt

622
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: it than other markets. So e A was trying to

623
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: really invest in what they saw as being a huge opportunity. Yeah.

624
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: So so that's that was the beginning of that. And

625
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: in A released waste Land, which was a post apocalyptic

626
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: role playing game that's pretty you know, innovative. There were

627
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: some other post apocalyptic RPG type stuff that was out

628
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: for computers. Some of them were just text based games,

629
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: not even graphics games. But but yeah, wait, Wasteland is

630
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: one that that I I still we are still not

631
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: in the era of me playing video games that are

632
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: not um maybe super Mario Brothers. But but but I

633
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: but I A lot of my friends speak with speak

634
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: of it with a lot of nostalgia. See. The reason

635
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: why I know so many of these e A titles

636
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: is because I followed the same kind of pathway that

637
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: e A did, and that I abandoned consoles shortly after

638
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: the Atari era and moved on to PCs because I

639
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 1: saw it as being a platform that would allow for

640
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: more sophisticated types of games. And that's something that Hawkins

641
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: and self headset as well. It's one of the reasons

642
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: why e A in its early days focused on computers

643
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: not on consoles. There were other reasons as well, like

644
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: if you want to build a console or a game

645
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,240
Speaker 1: for a console, it gets pretty expensive from a production standpoint,

646
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: because you have to manufacture the cartridges, you have to

647
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: build the ROMs directly onto chips, you have to build

648
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: the cases, all this kind of stuff. Um, and so

649
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: there were higher costs associated with producing a video game

650
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: cartridge than a computer disk. So, uh, they had their

651
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: own reasons for really focusing on computers versus consoles. So yeah,

652
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: the console market didn't really recover until until the ny

653
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: S came out, Tony, Yeah, yeah, right around the round

654
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 1: eighty eight, that's when e A started to reevaluate this

655
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 1: position of focusing on PC only instead of or computers only,

656
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: since PC we tend to think of as anything that

657
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: runs DOS or Windows. But anyway, at that that time,

658
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: that's when e A was starting to really look at

659
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: the NES and say, well, maybe there's a reason to

660
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: get into this now. Entering into any kind of agreement

661
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: with Nintendo was something that Hawkins was a bit reluctant

662
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: to do because Nintendo had very strict licensing agreements and

663
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: standards that you had to meet. Because Nintendo did not

664
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: want another video game crash. They absolutely they're being very

665
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,839
Speaker 1: careful about what they published exactly. They did not want

666
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: the market flooded with bad games. Not to say that

667
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: every game that came out for the NES was amazing,

668
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 1: but they were trying to keep as much of a

669
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: control on that as possible. And you know that's something

670
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: that publishers are or or game developers might view as

671
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: being a barrier. You know, they might go through the

672
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: trouble of developing a game only to hit a roadblock

673
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: with the licensing problem, and then you've got all this

674
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,320
Speaker 1: time and energy and money that was spent on something

675
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: that you can't actually sell. So there was a big

676
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: issue there. But they did decide to start developing games

677
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: for the NES, and the first one was Skate or Die,

678
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 1: which my friends who had any S IS they loved

679
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: that game. I did not have an any S so

680
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: I was largely ignorant of it. I was still playing

681
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: the computer games at that time. UH. And instead of

682
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: just publishing the game directly and distributing it, they actually

683
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: licensed it out to Konami. UH. And then Hawkins said

684
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: that the console market was still just unproven, that that

685
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: the crash from before was so devastating that you could

686
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: not be certain it wouldn't happen again, and also again

687
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: said that consoles were kind of underpowered when you compared

688
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: them to computers. UM. Now. They would later really revisit this,

689
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: especially once the Sega Genesis came out UH and and

690
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: their their tune changes dramatically, but at that time they

691
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: were really saying computers are really that's that's our main focus.

692
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: Consoles or something we might do as a side project. Sure,

693
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: so they released a game that became one of the

694
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: most important franchises in the company's history, and I am

695
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: of was talking about John Madden Football. UH. Hawkins has

696
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: a lot of There are a lot of interviews with

697
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: Hawkins where he talks about his fond memories of developing

698
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: that game, about bringing John Madden into the experience and

699
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, we would show him how we

700
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: were doing things, and then he would spend the next

701
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: twenty minutes yelling at us about how we got it wrong.

702
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: And but it was always in an effort to make

703
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: sure the game was as good as it possibly could be.

704
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: So while Madden's approach was what some people might call

705
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: aggressive and meant that they were working on making a

706
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 1: really good football game, or at least that was there.

707
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: That was the goal, and it did become one of

708
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: the most successful franchises his history. Yeah, as their twenty

709
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: four games out and it's sold million units. Now we'll

710
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: talk more about some controversy with Madden Football, but that

711
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: really plays in a few years down the line. Uh.

712
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: In nine, they began to develop games for the Sega

713
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: Genesis console, and this is when they started to really

714
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 1: rethink that approach and say, all right, maybe consoles are

715
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: actually important enough for us to consider it being a

716
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: main line of business, not just some little side business

717
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: where we can make a little extra money. There might

718
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 1: be some serious cash in this business. Hawkins has said

719
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: that that this deal that he made with with Sega

720
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,479
Speaker 1: was kind of a crowning moment and has has said

721
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 1: that he had been um kind of stealthily reverse engineering

722
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: the sixty bit Seco Genesis for a couple of years

723
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: and that when Sega found out about this, um, you

724
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: know it's it's it could have gone one of two ways.

725
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: Either Sega could have sued him a whole lot, or

726
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: they could have created this this kind of awesome contract

727
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: for for creating games, and and it went. Hawkins has

728
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: said that, yes, that this is one of his big

729
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: wins in life. He essentially said that that he negotiated

730
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: an incredibly favorable deal for Electronic Arts. This was something

731
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 1: he could not do in Nintendo because Nintendo held so

732
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: much of the power in that relationship. And uh, you know,

733
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 1: when it comes to big business, guys, you know whoever

734
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: holds the power that that becomes an important part of

735
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: of any deal. And it was certainly something that Hawkins

736
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: was very concerned about. Even if you think back to

737
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: the days of him saying, you know, I want this

738
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: company to be about video games and art, you can

739
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:20,760
Speaker 1: tell there's still a cutthroat businessman lurking underneath that artist

740
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: exterior there and um, and so yeah, this was a

741
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: great example of that. And uh, in the fall of nine,

742
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: that's when Electronic Arts held its initial public offering, the

743
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 1: I p oh, That's when it became a publicly traded company.

744
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: And uh, Hawkins decided, in order to really justify going

745
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: public and to to get investors excited and invested in

746
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: the company and to really increase the value of the company,

747
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: to initiate a policy where every single month he expected

748
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 1: there to be three new games entering into the development process,

749
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: not not completed, but entered into So you know that

750
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: that would mean that as time goes on, you have

751
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: more and more overlapping games until some come out for

752
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: publication while others are entering the development process. It Uh,

753
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 1: it's set a pretty tough standard. But and also they

754
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: were handling games from other developers at this point too,

755
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: so that this didn't even include those games right right,

756
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: And the company at the time it's worth about sixty million,

757
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 1: yeah and uh, and of course the the value of

758
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: the company now is in the billions. But will again

759
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: address that when we get further up into the timeline.

760
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: And in ninety one, that is a momentous year for

761
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: both Hawkins and for e A. That's when Trip Hawkins

762
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: decided to leave e A. He had felt that he

763
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: had accomplished all he wanted with the company and that

764
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:46,280
Speaker 1: it was time for him to move on to something

765
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: new and challenging. And that new and challenging thing ended

766
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: up being three d O, which was you know, the

767
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: whole idea was he was going to create a video

768
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: game console that would lead the market. It would be

769
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: the most powerful, uh console, and it actually it was

770
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: predictive of the consoles that we see today. It was

771
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: meant to be sort of an entertainment center, not just

772
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: a video game console, but it was really expensive. Uh.

773
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: And also the games that first came out for the

774
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 1: three D O didn't get a lot of critical acclaim

775
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: and a lot of them relied heavily on full motion video.

776
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: That was when full motion video was just becoming possible

777
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 1: in the computer and console worlds. So people were using

778
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 1: it a lot, to the point where it became a gimmick.

779
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: You know, you thought that, oh, this game is good

780
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: because as full motion video in it. Then and you know,

781
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: full motion video, like any other tool, is just a tool.

782
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: It's just a tool. Yeah, if you're if you're using

783
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 1: three D for example, these days, it's just just a gimmick.

784
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: It's just a gimmick. Yeah, exactly, so, and that was

785
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: the that was the ultimate problem with three D O,

786
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: which spoiler alert, did not take off. It actually it. Yeah. Meanwhile,

787
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:59,320
Speaker 1: back at e A, Larry Probst steps in. He becomes

788
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: the CEO of e A, uh and uh. Nintendo that

789
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: same year ninety one launched the Super Nintendo Entertainment System,

790
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,320
Speaker 1: the S and E s or Ness, if you insist

791
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: on pronouncing it that way. And then e A began

792
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: to develop games both for the Genesis and for Nintendo

793
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 1: and in an effort to really kind of hit as

794
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: many fans as possible. They also said they prefer there

795
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: to be lots of different consoles competing in the market

796
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: because that means there's not one dominant player that can

797
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: use the leverage against them. You know, when there are

798
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: a lot of different players out there, then e A

799
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: has the advantage, which has been an important part of

800
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: the company's Yeah, it's it's really clever business business standpoint. Yeah,

801
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: it's another one of those things that some people get

802
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 1: a little I think people want games to be fun

803
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: and they don't want to think about the business end

804
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: of it because the business end is not necessarily fun.

805
00:43:55,080 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: It can be pretty pretty, pretty grand. Yeah. But anyway,

806
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: that that was that was starting to take off right

807
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 1: in ninety one, and that was when e A made

808
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: its first real acquisition, which was Distinctive Software, So they

809
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: bought an outside development studio. The idea was to kind

810
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: of they saw talent out there that they wanted to get,

811
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: and instead of trying to hire the talent away, they thought, well,

812
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: we're a larger company. Now, we're publicly traded, we're highly valued.

813
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: Let's use this opportunity to purchase this other company and

814
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: make it part of what we do. And Distinctive Software

815
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: was the company that had created the test Drive series

816
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: for Accolade, which of course was a competing company to

817
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: Electronic Arts. And so this same division ended up creating

818
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: a new line of games for Electronic Arts called Need

819
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: for Speed. You know, you may have played those games. Uh.

820
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: And then eventually Distinctive Studios was renamed e A Canada

821
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: and it's it's because it was located at an British

822
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: Columbia that's correct, over in Vancouver. And uh. Yeah, that

823
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: was also the year that the e A established a

824
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: Sports as a division. Yeah, so now we finally have

825
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,760
Speaker 1: an actual formal division within Electronic Arts that is overseeing

826
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: the development of sports titles. And a lot of big

827
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: sports titles came out of that division, Madden Football, FIFA

828
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 1: games that were related to hockey to basketball, um, and

829
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: of course that will become more important as well. That

830
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: wraps up a classic episode the Electronic Arts Story Part one.

831
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out what happens in part two,

832
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 1: even though it happened more than seven years ago now,

833
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 1: But we're gonna go and check that out next week.

834
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 1: If you guys have suggestions for topics I should cover

835
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,720
Speaker 1: on tech Stuff, reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter.

836
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,439
Speaker 1: The handle at both of those is tech Stuff hs

837
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text

838
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,399
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I heart Rate Deo production. For more

839
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

840
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

841
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 1: H