WEBVTT - Rerun: The Tragedy of 3DO 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.840 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.920 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.480 and how the tech are you. I'm still on vacation myself, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.919 so it's time for a rerun. This episode originally published 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:31.600 on October. It is titled The Tragedy of Three d Oh. Yeah. 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.560 This was a fun one to cover because I do 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.839 enjoy video games quite a bit, and three d Oh 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.840 was one of those systems I was always curious about 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.879 and never well, frankly, I never had the cash on 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:46.920 me at the time to be able to buy something 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.680 like that. But yeah, let's sit back and listen. Back 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:56.320 in three a new video game console created by the 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.920 founder of Electronic Arts launched and US Three years later, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.880 that console would be discontinued and essentially taken off the market. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.640 It was a massive failure. The company that made the 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.520 console would stick around a little longer, ultimately closing up 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.560 shop in two thousand three. This is the story of 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.919 the three d O Company and the console that wasn't 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.200 meant to be. Now, for this episode, we're going to 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.760 focus a lot early on at some prehistoric, at least 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.240 in terms of three d OH information, because I think 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.400 it's helpful to get an understanding of the man who 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.600 championed the idea of the three D O, to kind 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.040 of see where he was coming from, what his thought 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.280 process was. If I just focused on the console or 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.280 even the company all by itself, it would be kind 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.200 of unusual, strange. You wouldn't understand why anyone would make 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.880 these decisions. So it's helpful to have the background. Also, 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:02.040 I just think it's kind of an interesting story with 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.760 lots of ups and downs. And that story begins with 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:11.639 William M. Hawkins the third a k a. Trip Hawkins. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.760 He was born in nineteen fifty four. He grew up 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.520 in California, and his mother, Dr. Helen Hawkins, was a 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.640 producer and host at a California public broadcast station. She 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.440 was also a prominent feminist and a publications director, very 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:33.480 much a influential woman. And his father, William Hawkins Jr. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.720 Had earned a degree in physics before becoming a sales 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:41.359 and marketing executive for various companies in California, primarily those 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.560 in the tech sector. In the late fifties and then 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.400 into the sixties. Trips father would take a job with 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:54.040 a company called Spectral Dynamics Corporation, which employed another person 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.200 who will be an important figure early on for the 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.960 young Trip, that being a man named Lane Hawk. But 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.320 we'll get back to him. So, as a kid, Trip 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.320 loved games, not just playing them, but kind of learning 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.280 how they worked, right, What were the mechanics behind the games, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.440 What was the theory behind the games? What led to 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.280 making a game a fun playing experience? You know, it's 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.680 not easy to develop an actual game that is rewarding, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.280 that balances everything out, and he was really interested in 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.359 that model. And when in high school, he would attempt 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.080 to make his own version of various types of games. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.720 Like he would take inspiration from games that existed that 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.280 he enjoyed and try to make his own. He was 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:50.160 particularly interested in games that simulated sports. He himself loved sports, 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.560 and so these games kind of gave him an outlet 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.400 to kind of imagine himself being part of, like a 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:01.000 top class athletic team. According to later interviews, Hawkins enjoyed 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.720 board games but saw that many of his friends preferred 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.640 to spend their spare time watching stuff on television, and 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.200 during a visit to the home of his father's coworker 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.800 that the aforementioned Lane Hawk. He saw something that would 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:21.480 spark his imagination for a future industry. So Lane was 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.599 fascinated with games as well, just like young Trip Hawkins. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.480 And he was also really into computer systems, which at 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.760 the time were not a consumer product. This is the 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.640 early seventies. This was even before there were hobbyist kits 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.279 to purchase. Lane had spent a lot of money, like 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.960 more than five grand, which in the nineteen seventies wasn't 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.760 even more princely some than we would think of today, 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.200 And five thousand dollars is a lot of money, but 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.720 he spent that to buy what today would be an 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:55.000 incredibly primitive mini computer. But at the time it was well, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.400 it was kind of showing its age at the time, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:04:59.520 but it was at one point state of the art. 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.039 It was called the PDP eight. Now, when this computer 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.720 first debuted in the nineteen sixties, when it really was 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.359 you know, cutting edge type of technology, it costs a 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:14.600 whopping eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars, but this was well 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.840 beyond the heyday of the PDP eight. And it was 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.120 also a really big computer. It was like the size 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.360 of like a cabinet like a wardrobe or a small refrigerator. 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.680 It was a twelve bit machine, meaning it could handle 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.919 a range of integers from zero to four thousand ninety five, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.720 or you could do from negative two thousand forty eight 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.120 to two thousand forty seven. Zero would be taking up 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.320 that pesky spot in the middle. And programming for the 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:48.000 machine was, from what I understand anyway, not intuitive. It 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.599 was not an easy thing to program for. But Lane 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.240 wanted something that he could kind of work on in 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.320 his spare time to putter around with. It was almost 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.000 like a project car for someone who's a gear head. 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.320 For Lane, it was a PDP eight and he hooked 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.400 up this computer to a teletype printer. There was no display. 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.800 There was no monitor for the PDP eight, so you couldn't, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:12.640 you know, look at a screen and see what you 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.000 were working on. And instead you used a teletype printer 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.880 and the printer would print out the information that you 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:21.760 were working on with the computer. You would read it, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:23.839 you would make changes, it would print on a new page. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.640 It's a pretty painstaking process. Well, Lane created a game 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.479 he called MoU m oo, as in what cows say. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.839 At least in the United States, and the game was 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.599 pretty simple. The game would generate a four digit number 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.960 and it would keep that number secret. So the game 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.400 has a four digit number, and it was your job 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.920 as the player to figure out what that four digit 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.040 number was, and you would submit your own guests. You 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.640 would put in a four digit number, and the computer 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.680 would tell you how many digits, if any, you got right, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.479 and whether or not any of those digits were in 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:03.080 the right place. So let's say that the secret number 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.320 the computer comes up with is eight to nine five, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.480 and my guess is one five nine three. The system 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.200 would tell me I got one correct digit in the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.640 right location because I got the nine correct and it's 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.920 in the right spot. And I got a second digit correct, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.560 but it's not in the right spot. My five is 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.400 in the wrong position of that four digit number. So 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.800 it's similar to a board game that would come out 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.520 a little later called Mastermind. That one uses colors, not numbers, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.400 but it's a similar idea. Now, move did this using 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.840 moves and cows. A cow would indicate that you had 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.240 the right digit, but it was in the wrong place. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.360 A move would indicate that you had a right digit, 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.880 but and it was in the right place, but you 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.000 wouldn't be told which one was which right. You wouldn't 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.680 be told which of the digits was the correct one. 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.000 You would just know, Oh, I've got, you know, two 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.200 moves and a cow, and then my fourth digit is wrong. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.840 So I've got to start changing this out and narrowing 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.360 down what that four digit number could possibly be. And 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:10.880 I assume you had to do it in a certain 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.920 number of turns, But none of my research found anything 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.400 about that. But for our story, the important part is 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.760 when Trip Hawkins saw Lanes set up, something must have 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.200 switched on in Trip's brain. He saw the potential for 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:30.160 computers to bring together the world's of television and board games. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.120 He imagined a world where one day people could play 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.160 games on computers with displays, and that's what he wanted 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.960 to do. He wanted to make games for computers. There 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.959 was no real way to do that at that time. 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.600 There was no way for the average consumer to even 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.240 get hold of a computer at that stage, but Hawkins 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.600 was certain this is where things were going to go, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.280 and Lane Hawk would go on to develop some early 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.760 arcade games, but that's a story for another time. According 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.840 to Trip Hawkins himself, around nineteen seventy five, he laid 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.640 out a long term plan that would lead towards the 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.400 founding of a computer game company by the year nineteen 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.640 eighty two, but he had a lot of challenges to 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:19.320 overcome to actually make that happen. Now, he applied and 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.000 was accepted at Harvard, and he was a student there 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.640 in the early nineteen seventies, and he wanted to work 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.320 in an industry that just didn't exist yet, and that 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.800 also meant he faced a lot of challenges when it 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.240 came to his studies. It's not like there were degrees 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.520 and what he wanted to do, because the thing he 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.400 wanted to do wasn't a thing yet. So he started 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.000 to kind of put together his studies in a piecemeal fashion, 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:47.040 you know, taking classes and computer science and programming and 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.440 related topics. And at the end of his stay at Harvard, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:56.199 he hadn't just earned a degree, he had essentially invented 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.800 a degree in applied game theory and design. Hawkins then 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.920 went on to pursue postgraduate work at Stanford, where he 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.360 earned an NBA in nineteen seventy eight. By this time, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.600 technology was slowly starting to build the foundation that Hawkins 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.280 would need to pursue his dream of creating a video 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.640 game company. UH. The twenty hundred he debuted the year 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.240 before he got his m b A, and that took 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.080 a leading position in the new field of home video 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.560 game consoles. That same year, nineteen seventy seven, Apple would 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.360 unveil the Apple to computer, which was the first personal 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.439 computer from Apple that took aim beyond the relatively small 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:42.040 harp hobbyist market. The original Apple computer was a kit uh. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.800 You might even see pictures of old Apple one computers 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:51.320 in wooden cabinets. That's the original Apple. But the Apple 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.960 two was the first real consumer personal computer, and it 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.360 was still too soon for Hawkins to really pursue his 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.160 plans to make a video game company. In addition, while 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.600 in college, Hawkins had made, marketed, and sold his own 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.240 board game after taking a loan from his father. His 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.520 father loaned him the princely some of five thousand dollars, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.520 which again that's a lot of money. And people liked 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.400 the game that Hawkins made, but there weren't enough people 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.280 who actually bought it to make it a success. It 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.720 was a failure, and that failure, I think convinced Hawkins 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.280 that he really needed to be methodical and patient before 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.040 launching his business. It would be a bad idea to 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.160 rush into things. He had already seen what you know, 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.880 a misstep could do. It could be a very expensive mistake. 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.319 So Hawkins would conduct the first complete study of the 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:50.880 personal computer market in nine that's back when it was 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.959 a very young field. There were a lot of different 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.120 computers out there. The Apples, the trs a D or 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.400 trash a D computer, the you know, the Tan Indie, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.240 the Commodore sixty four. Those were coming out around this time, 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.439 some of them a little later, and he started to 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.480 get a feel for where things were headed and how 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.440 he might best be able to take part in a 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.440 technological revolution. While in school, he attended a computer fair 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.520 and he actually saw the Apple two debut in person. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.840 He was at that computer fair and he decided that 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.400 he would apply to work for a computer company upon graduating, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.880 and he did. He applied to a lot of different 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.199 places and the one that gave him an offer that 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.160 he accepted was Apple. The company was happy to bring 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.400 him on board. He was the first MBA in the company, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.480 which he joking Lee said, is always a scary thing. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:47.560 You never want to be the first m B a 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.320 in a company, but he joined when there were somewhere 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.120 between twenty five and fifty people working. Their sources don't 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.679 fully agree on this, which is often the case when 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.600 I researched stuff in computer history. The Hawk himself has 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.360 said there were about fifty employees. However, twenty five of 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:09.720 them were primarily responsible for physically assembling the computers. So 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.400 maybe really the sources kind of agree. It's just that 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.680 some of the sources ignore the assembly line workers and 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.440 only focus on the you know, the Apple management and officers. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.280 That seems a bit elitist to me, but maybe that's 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.600 what's going on anyway. This was right as the Apple 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.360 two started to get some traction. As one of the 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.960 earliest successful personal computers that was available on the market. 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.720 At Apple, Hawkins would gain a lot of real world 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.120 experience while taking on an increasing amount of responsibility. He 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.520 helped guide Apple's efforts to getting computers into workplaces, and 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:49.080 he encouraged the development of various productivity applications like spreadsheet programs. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.400 Hawkins has said, quote, I didn't invent the spreadsheet, but 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.840 I did bring the first spreadsheet apps into Apple end quote. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.200 This would allow Apple to compete in markets where previously 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.559 IBM was real the king of the castle. Four years 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.840 after joining Apple, Trip Hawkins was the director of Strategy 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.280 and Marketing, which, you know, that's a heck of an 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.720 achievement to go to a director level position within four years, 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.719 even if you and you know take into account the 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.400 fact that the office staff had really only numbered twenty 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.440 five employees when he joined the company, and Apple had 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.120 just held its initial public offering and that ended up 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:30.600 making Hawkins a pretty healthy amount of cash. But this 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.000 means that we were just getting up to two And 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.440 if you remember what I said a little earlier in 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.720 this episode, that was the year that Hawkins had predicted 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.120 way back in that he would launch a computer game company, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.240 or at least that's what his plan had called for, 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.560 and other computer game companies were already getting off the 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.120 ground around this time. At home video game consoles like 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:02.080 the Atred had spawned numerous game develop companies. Hawkins made 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.320 his move to follow through on his plan that his 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.200 younger self had created, and he left Apple to found 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.080 his computer game company, now Trip. Hawkins says that at 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.840 the time he thought video game developers were on the 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:22.680 whole not treated so well. They were frequently treated like 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.280 cheap contract labor on a game by game basis, and 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.160 Hawkins aim to create a company that would turn that 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.240 on its head, and that was the birth of Electronic Arts, 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.400 better known today as e A. And it was back 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:42.120 in two When we come back, we'll give a super 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.440 high level overview of hawkins vision of e A and 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.600 how that would lead him to found another company, the 0:15:50.640 --> 0:16:01.760 three D O Company. But first let's take a quick break. Today, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.960 the name e A has I guess it's fair to 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.760 say a little bit of baggage along with it. The 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.520 company has a reputation for doing some stuff that rubs 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.800 gamers the wrong way, the big one being that it 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.080 has a history of scooping up smaller video game developers 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:23.680 and then kind of sapping the intellectual property those video 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.240 game developers had created and just draining it dry and 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.840 having the developers languish a bit before shutting them down. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.360 E A has done this to companies like Origin, which 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:40.680 made The Wing Commander and Ultimate Series, Maxis, Pandemic bul 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.760 Rug Studios. The list is long. In two thousand twelve, 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.680 e A even made headlines for a really not super 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.440 awesome reason. It was voted the worst company in the 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:58.200 entire United States, but back in two it was a 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.520 very different company. Hawkins said that he funded e A 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.520 out of his own pocket for the first six months, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.280 and at the very beginning he was the only employee 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.280 and he was working out of his home until he 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.320 was able to secure some office space in California, and 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.359 then he started to hire on employees, and it was 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.320 only in October, months after he had started. He got 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.679 started in the spring of nineteen eight two. So the 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.120 following night two he got together with his twelve employees. 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.520 This is starting to sound a little biblical, and together 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:35.800 they brainstormed up the name of the company, Electronic Arts. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.240 And Hawkins had really wanted to stress that games can 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.960 be a form of art and that video game developers 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.200 are artists and they should be recognized as such, and 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:51.520 Electronic Arts was born. E A's early identity centered around 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.480 compensating and crediting game developers above and beyond what the 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.160 competition offered. You know, like most video games at the time, 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.200 you had no idea who worked on that game. If 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.600 you found out, it was only because some industry magazine 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.560 wrote up an article about the person. Chances are you 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.639 just knew which titles went with which companies if you 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.159 were even paying that close attention. Hawkins wanted to change that. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.320 He wanted to say, no, you will start to recognize 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.240 the work of specific video game developers, and the ones 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.840 that make the stuff you like, you'll know to keep 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.200 getting their stuff. That was the idea, and the company 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.520 launched early titles like Mule m u l E. It 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.919 was a combat simulation game, and our Con, which was 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.040 one of my favorite early computer games. It was a 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:45.159 chess like game in which players would control pieces that 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.160 represented different sort of magical and mythological creatures and characters, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.919 and you were trying to take control of a board 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:57.480 by controlling the space occupied by your opponent. So you 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.280 can move a piece into an opponent's square, and that 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:06.480 would initiate an arcade style duel where you would try 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.960 to beat the other player or your computer opponent in 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.439 a little arcade style game, a little shootout, and different 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.919 pieces had different abilities. Some of them were super fast 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.320 but not very powerful, some shot very powerful beams but 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.280 moved slowly, and so on. Anyway, I'm getting off track, 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.560 but it was a great game. It's again one of 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.679 my favorites. Any ar Con fans out there, give it 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.439 a shout out, because, man, that was one of my 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.680 favorite early computer games. Hawkins, however, his favorite games were 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.479 still sports titles. One early e A sports game was 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.240 Dr J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which, 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.520 if you're not you know, up on the sports ball, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.040 it's a basketball game. Uh you know. Dr J and 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:55.119 Larry Bird both famous basketball players, amazing basketball players, and 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.440 Hawkins himself designed the game, or at least was very 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.399 heavily involved in the design of the game, and he 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.640 also brought both of the basketball stars into the design 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.760 phase and the marketing of the title, and that gave 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.520 it some prestige in the market to actually, you know, 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.119 attach real world athletes to this video game title. And 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.520 if you know your video game history, you also know 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.080 that this early period of e A coincided with a 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:28.600 catastrophic market event around the home video game market began 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.800 to wobble and by it was in the shambles. And 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.960 I've done full episodes about the video game crash of 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.760 eight three, but the short version is that there were 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.600 a confluence of problems from a flood of bad games 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.959 by fly by Night developers. There were a series of 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.359 terrible business decisions at multiple companies. There was the overproduction 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:56.280 of titles that meant that the once lucrative industry imploded. 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:01.760 Then there are other elements to like licensing popular games 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:07.359 or or entertainment franchises that ended up being a cost 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.080 that you could never recoup that kind of thing. There 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.000 are a lot of really bad decisions, and entire companies 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.480 disappeared within a year, and video games in general we're 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.720 seen as a failure, so much so that retailers didn't 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.960 want to carry video games or video game consoles. And 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.200 it was only by kind of pivoting toward computers that 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.360 companies related to the video game space could stay afloat. 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.880 And you know, e A had primarily been developing titles 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.119 for computers, but it wasn't immune to this problem either. 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.639 The company shifted a little bit in its initial strategy. 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.720 You know again that was originally to promote games by 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.639 associating those games with the designers who made them. But 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.000 now e A was focusing more on promoting specific game 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.560 titles and making franchises out of them, rather than saying, oh, 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.280 this is a game by so and so. The company 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.439 focused exclusively on developing games for various computer platforms like 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:07.480 the Apple computers you know, IBM PCs, the Commodore sixty four, 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.679 and others at that time. Then Nintendo came along and 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:16.160 managed to do what most analysts thought was impossible. Nintendo 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.679 was able to bring consoles back from the dead. The 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.119 Nintendo Entertainment System here in the United States, also known 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:28.000 as the Famicom, became a grand slam home run of 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.480 a hit. I thought I would use an analogy that 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.040 Trip Hawkins himself would probably appreciate, But it would take 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.080 many years for e A to start to develop games 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.480 for console systems in earnest because Hawkins was one he 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.160 was wary of consoles after the crash of three and two, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:46.919 he was pretty sure the PC was going to be 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:51.119 the future of gaming. When Sega launched the Sega Genesis 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.680 a k a. The Mega Drive in nineteen eighty nine, 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.440 at least in North America, launched in different parts of 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.680 the world at different times. It launched in Japan and earlier, 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.000 for example. But Trip Hawkins would relent a bit and 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:08.560 negotiated a favorable but not perfect deal with Sega for 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.439 the E E free a tow to publish games on 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.520 Sega's console and at that point, e A would also 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.040 develop a few games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.960 got a little bit out of that niche market of 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.880 just developing computer games. Now we get to a point 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:26.879 where we start to see where the three D O 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.320 Company idea starts to creep into hawkins mind. Now, to 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.119 understand why Hawkins would try to get into the console 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.879 market after he had kind of grown wary of it 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.800 after the Crash of three, you have to know a 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:45.600 bit about the relationship between video game developers and the 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:49.959 companies that actually manufacture the hardware that those games run on. 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.639 The main the console manufacturers. In other words, Sega in 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.600 particular was kind of a thorn in the industry side, 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:02.600 particularly for Trip Hawkins. Sega would insist on steep royalties. 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:05.960 Now that meant that game publishers would have to pay 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.159 a certain amount of money per games sold back to 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.960 Sega in order to have the games run on Sega machines. 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.720 So let's say that you, as a consumer, are going 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:19.639 out to buy an e A game for the Sega Genesis. 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:22.560 Who is getting paid, Well, it turns out a lot 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:25.719 of people are getting paid. First, there's the brick and 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.520 mortar store where you bought your game, because again this 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.160 is back in the late eighties, there's not really any 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:35.520