Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

Ethan had always assumed that the place where Vivian worked was some cutting edge graphics laboratory.

He never expected it to be VideoSoft.

It was the company Gerald had founded after leaving Fairchild Semiconductor.

A video game development company.

"Wait, the company where you work part-time is VideoSoft, and yet you've never played games?"

"No."

Vivian shook her head.

"Although our boss designed a few game prototypes, none of them were ever completed.

I mostly handle miscellaneous graphics optimization work. The boss said it was because of Atari..."

Bang!

Ethan suddenly slammed his hand on the table and sprang to his feet, startling Vivian so badly that she swallowed the rest of her sentence.

"Thank you, Vivian. You've helped me tremendously! Oh, and watch the store for me. I need to go out!"

Vivian had given him a huge wake-up call.

The opportunity created by the Atari crash wasn't merely a brief vacuum in the market.

As the undisputed king of the American video game industry, practically every domestic third party game developer depended on Atari for survival.

When Atari collapsed, the North American gaming market evaporated almost overnight, and nearly all third-party developers went bankrupt.

Among them were Gerald Lawson and his VideoSoft.

If Ethan remembered correctly, Lawson's original reason for founding VideoSoft was to develop games for the then booming Atari 2600.

But that had been in 1980.

No one could have imagined that just two short years later, the entire gaming industry would be shaken so violently.

At this moment, VideoSoft should already be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and at the latest, it would shut down completely in early 1985.

Gerald Lawson was about to become one of countless dream chasing game developers swallowed by the tides of history.

Thinking of this, Ethan couldn't help swallowing.

The solution had been sitting right in front of him all along!

...

Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California.

This city, which had transformed from an agricultural town into a technological hub alongside Silicon Valley's rise, now gathered some of the brightest talents in the industry.

Ethan found the place he was looking for on a quiet side street.

The low office buildings stood unevenly along the road, and the entire street felt lifeless, nothing like a proper business district.

He spotted VideoSoft's sign immediately.

It was a weathered board with curled edges, bearing the company name in a somewhat dated space age font.

Looking through the window beside the door, Ethan saw an office space of roughly eighty square meters. At least half of the workstations had already been cleared out.

The computer monitors on the remaining desks were dark as well.

Only an aging Atari 2600 remained powered on, displaying crude pixel graphics on its screen.

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At least the doorbell still worked.

Ethan saw a somewhat bulky figure emerge from deeper inside the office.

The man wore a plaid shirt and had a pair of sunglasses resting on his forehead, and signs of aging were already visible in his beard and hair.

It was Gerald Lawson.

He pushed open the glass door, and Ethan could clearly hear his heavy breathing.

He was only forty four years old, yet he already looked like an elderly man in his twilight years, devoid of any trace of youthful vigor.

Ill fated.

Ethan could think of no more fitting phrase to describe the hardware master before him.

[Gerald Lawson]

[Overall Evaluation]: S "Tragic Entrepreneur"

[Hardware Engineering]: 153 "Growth Potential: S"

[Script Writing]: 11 "Growth Potential: D"

[Programming Development]: 51 "Growth Potential: A"

[Administration & Finance]: 21 "Growth Potential: D-"

[Status]:

[Unrecognized and Frustrated]: Final value of all attributes -50% (rounded down)

The large, rainbow-colored "S" nearly blinded Ethan.

A hardware engineering attribute exceeding one hundred points spoke for itself.

"Hello? Can I help you with something?"

Gerald looked tired. Seeing that the visitor was a young man, he revealed a puzzled expression.

Ethan politely greeted him.

"Mr. Lawson, Vivian told me about you."

Understanding immediately appeared on Gerald's face, but it quickly turned into a bitter smile.

"Sorry, but we're not hiring at the moment."

"Mr. Lawson, I'm not here looking for a job."

Ethan's gaze drifted past him toward an unpowered arcade cabinet standing against the wall.

"I'm a game developer, and I'd like to ask you some questions."

Gerald showed little reaction to those words and simply looked at him in silence.

After a long moment, he sighed and stepped aside to let Ethan enter.

He rummaged through boxes and piles of clutter before finally finding a bottle of water.

It was already the most courteous form of hospitality he could offer.

After listening to Ethan's self-introduction, Gerald nodded and sat beside him.

"Ethan, this isn't a good time to enter the video game industry."

The way he said it sounded almost self mocking.

The more spirited and ambitious he had been during his days at Fairchild Semiconductor, the more destitute he was now.

"Why?" Ethan asked, despite already knowing the answer.

"Video games are dead."

Gerald had long since come to terms with it.

"Atari built the tombstone itself. It's sitting in New Mexico, not too far from California."

"That tombstone was built for Atari."

Ethan shook his head.

"I don't think Atari represents video games."

Gerald let out a faint sigh.

Once upon a time, he had been just like Ethan, full of passion and convinced he could make something of himself.

"I used to work as an engineer at Fairchild Semiconductor..."

"I know. The Channel F was your work. The programmable cartridge design was nothing short of brilliant!"

"Hmm... perhaps."

Gerald neither confirmed nor denied it.

At this point, it was one of the few achievements he still had left to be proud of.

"But do you know how many units that 'excellent' machine sold?"

He made air quotes with his fingers, his words dripping with sarcasm.

"Three hundred thousand units."

"And Atari? They stocked game consoles on store shelves like household appliances. The Atari 2600 alone sold more than thirty million units! Thirty million!"

On average, nearly one out of every ten people owned an Atari 2600.

No matter how stubbornly Ethan argued, Atari remained the unquestioned symbol of the American gaming market.

Gerald waved his hand, unwilling to continue debating the matter.

"So, what is it that you wanted to ask me?"

"I'm developing a new game and have run into some hardware limitations.

Algorithm optimization can only take me so far now. Vivian said I could consult you about this kind of problem."

Ethan made no attempt to persuade Gerald immediately.

For a prodigy who had been thoroughly screwed over by the colossal disaster known as Atari, words alone were powerless.

But Ethan knew what was effective. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two black chips. They were the EPROMs for Tetris and 1942, those things packed a punch.

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