Game Development Giant

Because time was tight, Jester only had one day to promote, so this time the player trial was only conducted in the Costa Mesa area. This also made Jester a little disappointed. He originally wanted to take his company The first trial session and press conference will be grander.

But that will have to wait until next time.

However, what surprised Jester was that in addition to players from Costa Mesa, there were also other enthusiastic fans of "American Cube" from the Orange area who drove over to participate.

They also want to see what the next game is from a company as good as American Cube. This is extremely valuable in the United States, which has lost confidence in the video game industry.

The time was originally set at 8:30 in the morning, but before 8 o'clock, hundreds of enthusiastic players gathered in front of the Mars Entertainment Company building.

They kept shouting the name of Mars Entertainment loudly, and some people held up display boards with the words "American Cubes" written in colored pens.

Seeing such a scene, Jester knew that this had far exceeded the capacity of the fifteen new arcade machines, so he made a prompt decision and opened it in advance.

Then he made a decision in his mind. When the next press conference is held, he must make a few more arcade machines, otherwise he will not be able to receive these enthusiastic players.

This trial is free. Each player will receive a number card. According to the order of the numbers, fifteen players will be allowed to enter each time. They can choose any of the three games and play a game. Or maybe ten minutes at most.

The staff who maintain order recognize the cards but not the people.

There are cards in, no cards out.

If you want to continue to enter the trial, you have to find a way for the players themselves. Jester is not unscrupulous enough to let others sell the number plates, but there is no way to stop the private transactions between the players.

"Fifty dollars!! Give me your number plate! I'll pay you fifty dollars!" A somewhat fat white man who had just been forcibly taken out of the demo room by the security guard struggled to squeeze through the crowd and faced the crowd. The next group of players who wanted to enter the trial hall roared loudly.

The man's expression was excited, his face was flushed, and his clothes were neat and clean. He didn't look like he was sick. His actions also made people around him look at him one after another.

You know, although fifty dollars is not much, it is not too little, especially in 1984. At this time, the salary of an ordinary TV host was less than two thousand dollars a month.

Besides, it’s just a short, few-minute opportunity to try out a game. Even though it’s the latest one developed by the company that developed “American Cube”, and although I like playing “American Cube” very much, who knows? Whether the new games developed are fun or not, you must know that Atari produced countless classic games before producing "et"!

So, two players really hesitated and traded their number plates to this obese man. Then the man took out a hundred dollars without hesitation and handed them to each other. Then he snatched the two number cards from his opponent's hand like a vicious dog grabbing food.

It seems that they are afraid that the other party will regret it.

After that, the man walked arrogantly towards the test room again. When he reached the gate, he waved his number plate at the security guard he had just said he had set up, and followed this group of people. players stepped through the door together.

One number plate corresponds to one game opportunity, and this man's two number plates certainly correspond to two game opportunities. This is something that Jester has already ordered the employees of Mars Entertainment here.

This time the man chose "Bejeweled", which he had not tried for the first time - this arcade machine had a weird shape, no joysticks and buttons, and only a beautiful-looking arc-shaped mouse.

This strange-looking machine caught his attention when he first came in. He wanted to get closer to take a closer look, but he was not the only one who had the same idea as him, because this machine The appearance is so eye-catching, but there are only five "Bejeweled" machines out of fifteen people.

As a result, he could only play a game that he didn't like just by looking at the name, "Puzzle-Bobble".

"Mobile puzzle? What a bad name..." The fat Bayern man complained at the time, and with the help of the staff, he reluctantly started his own trial.

He is not very optimistic about this game with such a weird name.

"Puzzle-bobble" is the English name of "Bubble Bobble". This is a puzzle and puzzle game originally released in 1994. The original production company was the famous Taito. The Chinese translations are different. Generally speaking, it is customary to call him Taito.

Perhaps it is an unknown name now, and few young new players have heard of it. Even the company was acquired by Square Enix at the beginning of the new century, but in the entire history of video games, Taito is has a very important status.

This company is the world's earliest electronic game industry organization and one of the founders of the Japan Arcade Industry Association (nama).

In February 1967, Taito, Nakamura Manufacturing (Namco), and Sega, three companies that accounted for 40% of Japanese arcades at the time, initiated the establishment of nama. The influence of this association was very great, including almost everyone except Nintendo. Except for all the giants in the Japanese gaming industry.

Like Sega, and like most video game companies of that era, Taito started out with pinball machines. Without the emergence of this person, perhaps Taito would have ended up like most video game companies. Lost in the torrent of history, just like the more than 100 game companies in Japan at that time that even have no names left.

One day, a young man named Tomohiro Nisikado joined Taito. He was a fierce man who had taught himself TTL substrate technology in college. After he joined Taito, he especially met Atari's "pong". ! "After that, his passion for game creation was completely ignited. He based on "pong! "Several sports games designed by ” were very popular once they were launched, and were even sold back to the United States, earning Taito a lot of profits.

If so, it's probably nothing to write home about, but one day in 1978, based on inspiration from one of Teto's previous games, Tomohiro Nisikado designed an electronic device that will go down in history. Game, Space Invaders.

Maybe if you change the name, you will be more familiar with it. This game is affectionately called - Little Bee by the players who love it.

There is an interesting anecdote about this game. Because the game currency used in this game at that time was 100-yen coins, there was an extreme shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan. Some people even paid twice the price to buy them. Regarding the 100-yuan coin, some arcades are even exclusively equipped with this machine, because players only play "Space Invaders" and disdain other games.

This is a very great game. It directly created the prosperous age of arcades. Later, "Space Invaders" was also selected by IGN as one of the fifty milestones in the history of electronic games.

And Tomohiro Nisikado also etched his name permanently in history.

"What! The game is over? Is it over?" Two minutes later, the white man who was attracted by the exhilaration of the game as soon as he started the game suddenly saw the word "game-over" suddenly appeared on the screen, and an angry expression appeared on his face. With a look on his face, he completely threw away his previous disdain for this game.

Originally, the white man wanted to try again, but the staff discovered that his trial had ended. Seeing that he was still struggling to leave, he was finally escorted out by the strong security personnel called by the staff.

This time, the obese white man who came in for the second time immediately rushed towards the arcade machine that he was very interested in when he first came in, which was operated by a curved mouse. This made the other fourteen People see it a bit inexplicably.

"Bejeweled, the name sounds like a good game. Although the last game was fun, the name was terrible..." The white man started the trial with the help of the staff. He grabbed the While he was operating the mouse that was very pleasing to his eyes, he had an incredible expression on his face.

"The feel is simply unparalleled!"

When the white man was sighing, he was also moving quickly, constantly clicking on two adjacent gems in the screen matrix, and then first saw the three connected gems he had operated on the screen disappear. Then the gems above fell and reorganized into three connected gems, which also disappeared immediately. Then new gems continued to fall from the top of the matrix, like a spreading avalanche, and a large area of ​​gems was eliminated at the same time. Lose.

Listening to the pleasant sound effects of the gems disappearing and watching the special effects when the gems disappeared, the white man had a look of excitement on his face.

The pleasure of this game seems to be much stronger for white men than "American Cube" and "Bubble Bobble". Especially the smoothness of controlling it with the mouse is even more unforgettable for him. He originally had some He was still eager to play again, but he seemed to have thought of something, and then he raised the second number plate in his hand to the staff, and pointed to the side of the only game "Zuma" that he had never touched. 》Go.

Players outside the trial room were even more excited after hearing the stories of those who came out after the trial.

Especially when those players who are still interested in playing use US dollars to buy trial license plates, the price of fifty US dollars at the beginning can be accepted by everyone, but as more and more people come to try it out, More and more people began to spend US dollars to acquire license plates that allowed them to enter the trial hall again.

The prices of these license plates have also been rising rapidly, and at their peak, they even reached nearly one hundred dollars.

The three camera crews sent by ABC were also stunned to watch all this, and then faithfully recorded this scene with their own lenses. This was really incredible in their eyes, just for a few minutes. Just spend a hundred dollars on gaming time without hesitation.

If converted into money according to this ratio, the total time the three of them spent yesterday afternoon was enough for them to buy a nice luxury house in Los Angeles.

After the white man finished playing all three games, his face turned red. He looked at the three game consoles in front of him with some excitement, as if he were looking at three golden mountains.

"I want to see your boss. My name is Adam Edgar. I am a businessman. I have a big deal that I want to discuss with your boss. It's about these three game consoles!" This understanding man said directly. He walked up to a staff member, took out an exquisite business card from his pocket, and handed it to the other person.

The Mars Entertainment staff member took a serious look at the man who called himself Adam Edgar, and after confirming that the man did not seem to be playing a prank, he took his business card and said, "Please wait a moment." After that, He muttered a few words to his colleagues, turned around and walked towards the second floor.

And the white man stood aside waiting for the results in no hurry.

But even now that Jester has been notified by this staff member, he may not have time to meet Adam Edgar, who claims to be a businessman. He is meeting with a man who he has expected to come and will definitely come. of guests.

He is also a customer who can help him temporarily solve his problem of insufficient production capacity.

After people from Nintendo met with him, he expected that people from this company would come to visit him, but he didn't expect that the other party would take so long.

"I have met President Li. I am Yu Suzuki, the representative of Sega this time. Originally, President Hayao Nakayama had been planning to send someone to contact us, but as you know, last year our Sega arcade business collapsed across the board in the United States. In order to reduce losses, I had no choice but to sell the U.S. branch, so I wasted a lot of time discussing dispatch matters from the headquarters, and I’m really sorry.”

The person in front of Jester was a young Asian, who had the same yellow skin as him, black eyes and dark hair. The first time he saw Jester, he bent over at a ninety-degree angle, looking extremely frightened. .

"Suzuki Yu?" When Jester heard this young man's name, he couldn't help but reveal a curious look on his face. He carefully looked at the young man in his twenties in front of him.

Is this the future Yu Suzuki who will be as famous as Shigeru Miyamoto, the soul of Sega?

ps: I can only write so much today. I don’t have enough words so I won’t ask for votes. I was delayed watching the live broadcast of Douyu Beijie 2 in the evening, and then I considered the shortcomings of my writing style and celebrity collecting habit, so I wrote four thousand words. I will try my best to make up for it tomorrow, and then I will try to divide it into chapters starting from tomorrow. Generally speaking, I won’t publish big chapters like 7000 or 8000 anymore.

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