WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Electronic Arts Story: Part One 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.479 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.560 and a love all things tech, and it is time 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:25.440 for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.720 on May two thousand thirteen. It is part one of 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:34.320 a two parter and it is called The Electronic Arts Story. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.040 This is clearly one that I'm going to have to 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.560 do an update for a lot has happened in seven years, 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:40.760 and there's a lot more to say about e A. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.440 But we have to have a start somewhere, right, So 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.680 let's go back and listen to the Electronic Arts Story, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.400 Part one. This particular story is pretty interesting. We're specifically 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.840 talking about Electronic Arts or e A, which a lot 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.640 of people view these days as some sort of megalomaniacal 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.800 corporation on dominating the entire video game industry. Yeah, and 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:05.959 it's uh yeah, well, I mean, well we'll get into 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:07.560 it later on, but but it but it is one 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.720 worst company in America twice, two years in a row, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:12.760 two years in a row. Yeah. Yeah, But but to 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.120 start off, you know, it's it didn't start off as 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.000 this UH company that was bent on on having a 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.160 stranglehold on the video game industry. And I'm not saying 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.000 that that's what he has now or that's goal, that's 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.200 what's goal is, but that's what that's the popular perception 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:29.520 that is. Well, you know, to be fair, it does 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:34.920 as twenty five million registered players and is operating out 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:39.240 of seventy five countries, so it's not doing too shadows company. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.840 But but it had had interesting beginnings. Now to really 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.720 understand how A started, you actually have to go way 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:48.760 back before e A was a thing. Uh. And my 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.280 first date that I wrote down was in nineteen fifty 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:56.160 three because that's when William M. Trip Hawkins the third 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.520 was born. Now, this guy is going to be the 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.680 founder of EA when we get up to that point, 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.320 but um, he was. It was his idea to start 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.640 up a video game company and UH. And you know 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:12.400 the way he came about this was as he was 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.440 growing up and going to school, he started to get 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.240 really interested in uh, computers in general and games as well. 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.960 In fact, in nineteen seventy he designed a board game. 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:30.520 It was a football board game called ACU stat Pro Football. Yeah, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.839 he borrowed five thousand dollars from his father to get 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.600 this off the ground. And it was a complete commercial failure. Right. 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.400 It was his first entrepreneurial attempt and it and it failed, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.079 which often we can learn a lot more from our 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.640 failures than our successes. But it teaches us a couple 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.680 of things about Hawkins. That he's interested in games, and 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.079 he's interested in football in particular, which becomes extremely evident. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.280 And during the evolution of e A right, right, and 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:58.760 he had started kind of designing stuff. He was a 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.600 big D and D player from I understand, and and 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.720 was really interested in how all of the math and 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.359 statistics worked. But noticed that a lot of his friends 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.880 were not interested in doing that at all, and so 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.000 he was kind of thinking like, hey, what if. Yeah, 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.600 he was looking at at different ways of creating sets 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.400 of rules and statistics. And and also at the same time, 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.200 he was starting to get interested in computers. Now in 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.720 the early seventies, this is predating the personal computer. If 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:27.960 you were interested in computers, it's because you had a 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.160 job that there were computers at your job, or maybe 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.120 you were attending university and they were computers there right 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.720 right in in seventy when he had his first interaction 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.200 ever with a prototype a micro computer. This was over 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.200 at a friend's house and uh, and that kind of 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.440 set him up for a couple of years later. Yeah, 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.640 in nineteen seventy three, he has access to a d 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.640 E C PDP eleven mini computer and he creates a 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:55.040 program written in the Basic programming language that was designed 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.840 to run simulations of football games. So not exactly a 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.839 fully interactive gaming experience. It's more like, if I put 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.360 in every player's stats and then set this to go 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.400 and have it play out as if it were a game, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.960 what would the results be? And he tested it by 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:13.400 running a simulation of what was going to be at 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.680 that time, the nineteen seventy four Super Bowl game, and 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.560 it turned out that his his game ended up predicting 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:25.960 the final score fairly closely. In his game, it said 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.760 that the Dolphins would win over Minnesota twenty three to six, 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.719 and the real score was actually twenty four to seven, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:37.159 So at least in that sense, the statistics seemed to 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.479 hold true. Now, of course, we all know that in reality, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.680 from a day to day basis, statistics can give you 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.920 an indication of how things might go, but there's no 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.599 guarantee that's how they will go, right. Yeah, So so 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.159 Luck could have certainly been involved in that one, but 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.679 you know not. Nonetheless, he was a student at Harvard 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.719 at the time. He graduated with a self designed major 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:04.120 in strategy and applied game theory. That's an interesting major 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.240 right there, especially fore right, so he says that he 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.400 spent a couple of years convincing Harvard to to let 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.640 him get that degree because that was what he wanted. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.719 And I would go on to get an MBA from Stanford. Yep. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.800 And when he graduated in nineteen with that NBA, he 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.240 went to work for a little company called Apple. And 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.240 at that time it really was a little company. Yeah, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.720 they had just just about fifty employees at the time. Yeah, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.839 fifty employees. He had joined early on. This is, of course, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.799 you know, right at the very onset of the personal 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.160 computer era. The Apple two was the first computer from 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.039 Apple to really hit it off in the market. The 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.800 first Apple was mostly adopted by people who were hobbyists 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.240 or really had a fascination with computers, but it was 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.440 not a commercial success. What didn't run away with the market, 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.640 Apple two was a totally different story. That was the 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.240 one that a larger niche began to get interested in 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.880 personal computers. It still was still you know, kind of 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:03.560 in the hobbyist air, rah, but it was a looser 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.800 definition of hobbyists at that point, not just people who 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.440 were obsessed with computers. And I mean that in the 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.560 nicest way. I come from a family that's part of 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.599 this niche. So yeah, Hawkins has said that in seven 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.360 he saw an Apple two at a computer fair and 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.280 realized that this was kind of you know, he had 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.320 been churning around this, this concept of of games and 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.720 computers and programming for a couple of years and decided 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.159 that Apple was, yes, the way to go. He's not 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.279 the only one either. There were a lot of early 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.680 game developers who were looking at personal computers as the 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.120 platform of choice, and many of them, uh showed an 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.640 early preference for the Apple to Richard Garriott of Origin 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.800 also had that same fascination. So Hawkins works for Apple. 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.240 By two, he was the director of strategy and marketing 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.720 at Apple Computers. So from yeah, that those humble beginnings, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.080 and of course by then Apple was doing very very 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:02.039 well and had already at its initial public offering, which 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.560 netted Hawkins quite a bit of money and so he 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.480 made a big, risky decision. He decided that his fascination 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.120 of games and computers needed to really be indulged, and 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.760 so he left Apple Computer. Well, he supposedly had had 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.080 decided almost a decade prior that in two would be 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.640 the year for him to start a business, to start 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.800 a computer business, and that that that would be the 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.280 year that that the home computing market had caught up 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.080 to his desire to plan it. Now, now, I both 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.320 of us honestly don't know whether or not that's truly 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.120 what he thought that some of the stuff, some of 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:43.200 the stuff he says, he says, well, after the time rights, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.560 it could be retcond is all I'm saying. I'm not 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.440 saying he definitely did do that. I'm just I have 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.120 a little bit of skepticism either either way. On two 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.720 fun fact, the day before I was born, Um, in 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.440 case any he needed to feel really old. Right now, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:06.240 thank you, La, You're welcome. Um, he he incorporated Electronic 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.080 Arts and And this was not going to This was 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:09.800 not the original name that he had thought of for 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.440 the company. No, No, he actually originally wanted to call 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:18.680 it Amazing Software, but that just didn't seem to really click. 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.600 He got a bunch of people together to try and 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.160 uh brainstorm and idea. He had actually used two thousand 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.000 dollars of his own money to fund this early part 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.480 of the company, UH, and he they started thinking about 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:33.720 other possible names. One of the names they came up 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.520 with was soft Art, but the head of another company 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.120 that was called Software Software Arts asked him if he 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.480 would reconsider naming his company that just to avoid any confusion, 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.360 and he agreed to do that. Had another brainstorming session 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.080 and that came up with Electronic Arts. Along with a 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.400 team of other folks and marketing people as well an 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.040 outside marketing company, and Electronic Arts was born. They would 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.240 actually receive by the end of nine two two million 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.480 dollars in venture capital from Sequoia Capital, and Sequoia Capital 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.680 even gave them some office space to work out of 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.640 before they had any sort of physical headquarters, right right, 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.080 very originally, I think he worked out of his own 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.760 home when he was hiring his first couple of people, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.280 and UH, all of these people that he was hiring 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.280 at the time, and the naming of the company kind 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.920 of came about because he really wanted, um, he really 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.319 believed that computer games are an art form and wanted 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.520 UM wanted the game company to operate kind of like 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.040 a music label. UM. And this is really evident in 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.920 some of their early marketing campaigns and attempts. You know, 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.160 they would get these game developers together and pose them 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.080 like rock stars have, have rock music photographers come in 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.000 and do these gorgeous photographs of them and and really 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.360 concentrate on the software artist. Yeah, even the art they 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.560 would use in their the games they sold, which in 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.080 those days, games didn't come in boxes yet. They were 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.480 in usually plastic bags, and you had some art that 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.040 would be included. But it it looked pretty look like 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:02.840 a lot of Yeah, it look like a lot of 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.800 these games came out of someone's garage. And here's here's 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.320 a fun fact. A lot of them did. UM but 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.400 uh e A. They took an approach where they really 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.480 put a lot of graphic design work into the art 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.400 that was included with the games. And there were several 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.200 sources I read that likened the the art on the 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.680 games to album you would see on what we used 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.880 to you know, buy music on, which were these giant 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.600 vinyl albums. I actually kids are doing that again now, 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.839 but bund there was a while where I would say 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.079 vinyl album and I just get that blank stare um. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.880 Those days appeared to have disappeared again for at least 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.600 a while, but I'll see that keeps up. They actually 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.559 moved to the headquarters in San Mateo, California, and they 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:52.520 were there for quite a few years. Ultimately they ended 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.319 up moving again. But and also you know, e A 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.160 expanded greatly, But we'll get into all of that. So 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:04.840 they're early early efforts were concentrated on a few titles, uh, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.160 and they wanted to produce all of their games internally. 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.640 They wanted to be a publisher, a developer, and a distributor. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:18.000 So these are all different parts of the video game industry. 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.760 And you can have a company that's just one of 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.600 these things, or you can have a company that does 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:27.240 multiple roles here. But to break it down, essentially, you 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.520 have publishers that these are the companies that fund the 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.600 development of video games. Now, they might have a development 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.760 team within the publisher, or they may pay an independent 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.920 developer to create a game, but they are the ones 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.559 who say, here's some money, we believe in the project 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.960 that you have pitched, why don't you go ahead and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.440 build that game. Then you give us the game, and 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.040 we will make sure the game gets to distributors, who 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.559 will then make sure the game gets two stores. And 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.880 then the way it generally works if if you're talking 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.800 about an independent developer and a publisher, the publisher will 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.840 give an advance to the developer, and that advance is 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.679 against any future royalties that the game sells until you 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.800 pay off that advance, and then you usually have some 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.040 sort of royalty sharing program where the publisher gets a 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.680 certain amount of the money from sales and the developer 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.440 gets another you know, a percentage of those sales as well, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.439 but the advance has to be paid off first because 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.200 that's the initial investment the publisher makes to the developer. 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.080 Developers are of course, those are the people who developed 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.360 the games, are the ones who actually build the games. 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.640 So again, it can be an independent company, it could 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.240 be part of a publisher, it could be part of 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.520 a distributor. Uh, either are all different types of models 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.800 out there, but these are the people actually building the code, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.400 making the art, writing the games. That's that's yeah. Then 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.960 you've got the distributors. Now, these are the people who 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:50.360 are responsible for delivering finished games from publishers and delivering 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:55.080 them to retail establishments and other outlets, so they sell gain. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.800 The publishers sell their games to distributors, and then the 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.480 distributors take those games and sell them to the retail 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.760 operators who then sell them to the public. So e 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.640 A was all three of these things right. And at 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:09.480 the time, Hawkins has said that he had done a 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.520 lot of market research and that a hundred and thirty 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.679 five of his competitors were doing the same thing um 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.560 which which seems like an awfully large number, although at 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.400 the time we were just on the verge of a 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.880 little bit of a market crash a little bit, a 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.600 little bit as a little bit is understating it. Yeah, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:30.760 but but but but during this boom there were there 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.079 was a lot going on um and And also the 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.200 concept reminds me a lot of Apple's Apple is a 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.240 really terrific example of vertical integration and um and from 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.480 his time at Apple, I feel like probably that's one 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.440 of the places where he picked up this concept. We'll 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.640 be back to talk more about e A in just 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:59.600 a moment, but first let's take a quick break. The 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.400 first six titles from e A included games called Hard 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.160 Hat mac which was kind of like a Mario clone. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.480 Um it's or Donkey Kong clone. I really should say 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.200 not Mario, but a Donkey Kong clone. It was a 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.080 platforming game a side not even a side scralling. It 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.600 was you know, it's kind of like Donkey Kong. Then 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.200 you had the pinball construction set. There was a game 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.680 called which you don't let you build pinball systems. Then 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.240 you had arcn which was kind of a weird fantasy 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.800 strategy game that was part chess, part action game. The 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.360 idea being that you have two sides. Uh. Two sides 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.040 have different pieces that are kind of like chess pieces. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.120 The different pieces have different abilities, and you try to 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:49.840 take over your opponent's territory. Whenever one of your pieces 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.640 comes in contact with an opponent's piece, you then have 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.280 a little arcade like battle between the two. Right and 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.840 depending upon what your pieces, you might be able to 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.840 really whoop up on your opponent because you're faster or 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.920 your shots do a lot more damage. Uh and and 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.360 so it was all about strategy, like I want to 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.240 make sure this piece goes up against my that piece 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.960 my opponent has, so I can I can win the game. 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.000 You can kind of tell that I played the heck 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.200 out of this game. By the way, I also owned 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:20.800 the Pinball Construction set and I owned hard Hat Mac. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.200 Then there was a Mule, which was another strategy game. 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.440 A lot of people who enjoyed this really like things 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.600 like a war gaming where you would have the big 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.640 table with all the hexagons, we move the pieces around. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.440 Mule was kind of the computer version of that. Yeah, 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.320 it was really built for four players, which at the 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.080 time was was kind of unheard of. Yeah, and I 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.520 never got into it because my brain does not work 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.280 that way. I can I can do well enough in 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.640 our con because even if my strategy skills aren't that great, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.160 my twitch skills were good enough to help me get by, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.360 but Mule not so much. Then there was Worms, which 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.600 was kind of a high concept game where you would 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.760 train these what they called worms, these these these lines 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.120 of light to behave in a certain way in order 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.920 to progress in the game. And it's very difficult to explain. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.920 And I've always seen people who say, if you want 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:16.520 to play the game, if you want to try it out, 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:18.400 find a copy of it and give it a whirl. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.400 I mean, you can find stuff like this on the internet. Uh, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.200 you should do it without reading the instructions, just to 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.320 see if you can figure out what the heck is 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.640 going on. Um. And I mean I read a description 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:30.880 of this, and I'm not sure I would be able 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.760 to figure it out. But maybe it's more intuitive than 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.520 the descriptions would give you. Uh that then the description 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.120 seemed to indicate. And then the last of the six 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.440 titles that they launched with when the company was first 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.960 offering up games was Murder on These zinder Kneuf, which 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.720 I know nothing about. I did not own that one. Yeah, 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:53.880 I I should put in that I have played zero 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.320 of these games. Well, they you know, right around when 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.400 you were one, so I'm not surprised. So but I 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.199 had most of these games because they came out for 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.480 the Apple too, and we had an Apple too. And 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.520 actually what happened was a local school had purchased a 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.720 bunch of games and then they gave them to me 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.879 to test and tell them which ones were educational and 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.879 which ones were not really educational. So I did, and 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.520 then I returned all the games and they said, all right, 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.520 you can keep all the ones that aren't educational. Yeah, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:29.240 So as a kid, I was like ching and um, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:30.960 and so yeah, I ended up with a lot of 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.640 a lot of early games. That's also how I ended 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.480 up learning about the Ultimate series because Ultimate two was 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.520 one of those games. But uh yeah, so there was 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.919 that was the initial launching title, but there were some 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.840 other ones that came out shortly thereafter. There was The 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:52.240 Last Gladiator, which is a game I also owned. Um 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.520 that that one didn't come in the batch. I won 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.040 that one as a as a part of a lip 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:03.000 syncing contest. What pray tell, were you lip sinking? Me 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.800 and my dad did a lip sinking routine to raise 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:11.560 Stevens the Pirates song, which is all about a pirate 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.720 who wants to sing and dance and wear bright shiny pants. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.200 Well that's that's a that's awesome. Yeah. We won first place, 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.879 which was a fifty dollar gift certificate to a local 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.080 comics store. And I don't read comic books, so I 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.160 bought all their computer games instead, and one of them 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.440 was The Last Gladiator, And that was a game where 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.439 you play as a little gladiator and all these different 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.000 monsters come out and based upon whatever weapon you have 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.200 at your disposal, you have uh you know, decent chances 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.359 against them. It gets more and more difficult as the 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.600 game goes on. You know, it's kind of a typical 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:48.160 Arcady experience. Um. They also had they launched a game 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.119 that would end up being sort of the genesis of 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.240 e A sports. Dr J and Larry Bird Go one 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.240 on one. I'm told this is from a sport called 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:00.920 basketball and so on. That's one with the orange round thing. Correct, Uh, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.879 I want to say yes, yeah, this this was one 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.919 of the earliest. Uh well, it was the earliest sports 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.240 game from e A and Hawkins really struck on a 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.680 brilliant idea. He had decided to try and approach people 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.000 who were famous in various sports and to license their 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.120 their names to get that media tie in. Yeah right, Yeah, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.679 they get a promotional tie in from famous famous athletes, 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.600 I mean Dr J and Larry Bird or especially at 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:33.159 the world famous and and which is interesting because the 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:35.919 world famous since they were playing an American sport that 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.680 was almost exclusively played in America. Um. They ended up 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.880 that they ended up paying off big time and being 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.040 a strategy that e A still to this day employees. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.879 They also established a new policy which was to in 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.440 order to keep more of the profits that it would 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.240 get from its uh from the sales it was going 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.919 to reduce the discount it gave software distributor sports games, 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.040 meaning that uh, they were essentially selling their games at 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.840 a higher cost. Two stores saying all right, well, you know, 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.480 we're no longer going to sell this game to you 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.520 at ten dollars a copy. We're gonna sell it to 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.800 you for thirty dollars a copy. And uh, and you 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.200 know it's your truck. Uh, it's your problem to figure 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.600 out how to sell this. So if you're if you 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.040 usually sell your games at forty dollars, now you're paying 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.480 thirty bucks to sell it for forty, your profit margin 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:33.199 has shrunk as a software disc a software retail store. Um, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.320 you know, do you continue trying to do that? Do 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.359 you hike your prices up and hope that people are 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.600 willing to pay it? Uh. E A's point was that, hey, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:42.879 we're starting to make a name for ourselves. People know 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.360 our product and they like it. So if if they 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.520 like it and this is the only way they can 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.040 get it, then you're gonna have to play ball with us. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.080 And this is sort of the first example of e 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.240 A really throwing its weight around. Yeah. This was also 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.560 the year that it made its conference debut at the 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.640 Consumer Electronics Show, and so, yeah, they were really really 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.040 getting out there in the public and starting to make 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:08.719 make waves. Yeah, and keep in mind this is all 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.760 in the first year that they're actually offering games. You know, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.480 they had been a company for a while, but of course, 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:15.960 you know, as soon as they became a company, it 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.200 didn't mean that they had games to offer everybody them. Uh. 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.520 They also had established these ideas that you know, every 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.359 single person who worked on the game was going to 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.440 be credited. If you were the creator of a game, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:32.280 your name was front and center on the game's screens. 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:33.960 It would let you know that this was a game 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.840 developed by so and so. And that was a response 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.960