Rebirth of America, this is my time

The next day.

Ethan Jones once again drove the Ford F-150 borrowed from Thomas Johnson, carrying the "Snake" game console wrapped in oilcloth and speeding toward Sunnyvale, twenty-three miles away.

In the future, this city will be part of the famous Silicon Valley, but now, the only famous companies here are massage parlors.

Of course, Ethan didn't come here to find a massage parlor this time. He wandered around the streets of Sunnyvale for a few times and accepted the advice from a kind-hearted aunt. After driving around a lot of twists and turns, Ethan finally found his way to a massage parlor. He stopped in front of the factory door surrounded by iron bars. On the spiked door, there was a sign that read Exidy in white letters on a red background.

After honking the horn, a white man in labor uniform emerged from the factory. After seeing the valuable Ford pickup truck, he immediately ran over and asked, "Sir, who are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for Peter Kaufman." Ethan took off his sunglasses.

That face that was as handsome as Tom Cruise made the white man stunned for a moment and said, "Sir, I am Pete Kaufman."

Then, he asked: "Are you Ethan Jones? The Ethan Jones who called me yesterday?"

"Yeah, Pete, I'm Ethan."

Ethan patted the steering wheel sharply, extended his thumb with his right hand, pointed at the back of the car, and said, "I have already brought over the machine I introduced to you on the phone yesterday."

"Oh okay! Ethan, welcome to our Exidy Game Company..."

Peter Kaufman nodded quickly, opened the iron door, and motioned for Ethan's car to park wherever he wanted.

That's right, Ethan came here today because he wanted to seek cooperation with Exidy, a manufacturer of coin-operated game machines.

And this is a decision he made based on the intelligence he collected in the current video game industry in the past two months.

The emergence of the video game industry is very interesting.

Although the world's first electronic game was born in a laboratory in 1947, it was not until the emergence of the world's first commercial minicomputer PDP-1 in 1960 that electronic games were brought from scientific laboratories to advanced technology. School.

Even the next year, creative MIT students developed "Space War". In 1971, the world's first word game "Oregon Journey" was born at the University of Minnesota, but in the 10th century The games created in the past few years have only been circulated in major universities and have never been successfully commercialized.

The reason is the same, that is, computers are too expensive.

Scientists believe that video games based on computers cannot be popularized when computer prices remain high. University students also believe that the public may not be able to access this gadget in a short time.

But in the same year that "The Oregon Trail" appeared, a man named Nolan Bushnell felt that video games did not need the computer as a medium at all, and its game feedback could be displayed using the most basic physical technology, and no one else could. We've hit a dead end!

So he used the simplest physics technology to create an electronic arcade version of "Space War" created by MIT students in 1962, and named it "Computer Space War". This is also the world's most popular game. The first officially commercialized video game.

But "Computer Space War" failed for the same reason as Ma Yun criticized Alipay engineers -

'Many R\u0026D personnel always like to use their own ideas to design products without considering the feelings of the general public. They always think that subdivision is the best, but they don't know that subdivision will only bring visual confusion to ordinary people. , what users want is simplicity. ’

"Computer Space War" is a cumbersome product, a game made by a talented person that ordinary people cannot understand at all.

But it doesn't matter, because the next year, in 1972, Nolan Bushnell saw the most simple game, table tennis, at the press conference of Milova Odyssey.

Because Mirowa priced the Odyssey at one hundred dollars a unit at that time, which was not a price acceptable to American consumers in 1972, and the coin-operated arcade machine manufactured by Nolan Bushnell only cost 25 cents. It allows consumers to experience a new thing like video games.

So, feeling that the opportunity had come, he decisively copied the table tennis game, made it into "Pong", then put it in the bar, and then...

Legendary stories that countless people have heard appeared.

Low price + novelty made Atari emerge!

Nolan Bushnell also successfully opened the door to the video game industry with his Atari!

Although Nolan Bushnell's plagiarism is a fact, he is indeed the father of video games, because when a group of engineers were thinking about how to let the public play video games on computers, he directly referred to the computer as a high-end technology. The threshold was smashed.

This broken-windows idea of ​​not building a house without laying a foundation is what left other engineers speechless.

Nolan Bushnell's approach immediately attracted countless people to follow suit. In just two years, a new thing like electronic arcade machines occupied the entrances of major bars, billiard rooms, and bowling alleys in America. .

It is precisely because the most difficult promotion process of an industry has been completed by these game manufacturers, so when Ethan decided to get involved in the field of video games, he directly gave up going door-to-door to promote in person. idea.

First, the purchasing power of the masses is insufficient.

Because the current price of electronic arcade machines is too expensive, when merchants equipped arcade machines last year, or at most the year before last, for a price of one thousand or even one thousand two hundred US dollars, they must have wanted to use limited costs to earn unlimited profits. , rather than eliminating arcade machines in a short period of time.

At this time, in order to promote new games, Atari only dared to launch a motherboard replacement service. They took away the old arcade machines from merchants, replaced them with new game motherboards, and brought them back to them to renovate the games. , and what the merchants paid was only the price of a motherboard.

When Atari didn't dare to mention elimination to the merchants, Ethan was even less likely to scold them.

Secondly, Ethan remembered that when he was in school in his previous life, the teacher who taught finance said something -

"You have to make money early, risk will not defeat you. If you don't make money early, three generations will be miserable." ’

In Ethan's view, if you want to make money in this industry, if you want to make big money, you have to erase the time of land promotion, directly cooperate with arcade manufacturers who have maintained close contact with the market, and use existing channels to sell goods!

If I had to describe it, it would be the same as Hollywood movie production routines.

After making a movie, independent production companies with production capabilities but no distribution capabilities will take the movie copy to the Eighth Congress and ask for help in distribution. Although the Eighth Congress charges a high fee in the process, Independent production companies can also try to achieve success by using a wide range of channels.

If you don’t have fame, you have to give in!

And once you become famous, are you still worried about not having money?

Therefore, before leaving Mi Luohua, Ethan directly copied the list of all arcade machine manufacturers on the market collected by his old club.

Exidy is the video game machine manufacturer closest to Ethan's home in Los Gatos. Founded in 1973, they are now a game machine supplier to many bars and pool halls in the San Francisco area.

As Ethan drove in, several more white people ran out of the warehouse after hearing the noise.

Knowing that Ethan was here to promote video games, several people present showed strong enthusiasm.

"Yo! Ethan! So glad you chose us!"

One of them, a middle-aged white man wearing overalls and a round hat, gave Ethan a high-five, then clapped his hands and greeted the people around him: "Young men, be quick and clear Ethan's car." Unload the game console for me!"

The high enthusiasm made Ethan feel a little strange, and Peter Kaufman beside him smiled and introduced: "This is my partner Samuel Hawes, Ethan, to be honest, if you The machine is really as great as you said, I think there is a chance for us to cooperate, after all, people are tired of the games on the market now."

Ethan can understand Peter Kaufman's words.

Although Atari caused a video game storm as early as 1972, so far, there is no real game on the market independently developed by the merchants. Everyone just copies it.

The reason is also very simple. When excellent works come from students in universities and there is no clear copyright owner at all, plagiarism, the easiest way to make money in the world, will naturally be used instinctively by everyone.

And when everyone starts to copy, the games that consumers play will become very homogeneous.

In the beginning, they may play it out of interest, but later on, all arcade manufacturers will have to face the fact of self-research.

It was because Ethan learned this that he got involved in the video game industry.

no way!

Who knows that at the age of twenty, he already has forty years of research and development experience?

(laugh~

Note: ①Exidy: Exidy, the most famous work is "Death Race", which is a very violent racing game. Players drive their cars to hit people. Its crazy level of violence once made it to the "New York Times". And influenced the creation of "Mad Max" and "Motorcycle". ②Although Nolan Bushnell plagiarized, he is still the father of video games. This is recognized in the industry because his success was not in plagiarizing games, but in breaking people's thinking deadlock and making video games without computers. . ③The game environment in 1975 written in the article is true. Nolan Bushnell himself complained about it. He copied Milowa's table tennis game, and others copied his "Pong". The market environment at that time was so outrageous. And funny.