Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

"Wait... What?"

Vivian stared at the display in disbelief, almost doubting her own ears.

"So... that demo level was built using this tool?"

"That's right."

Ethan nodded and pulled up a file.

A layout identical to the level Sam had been playing immediately appeared on the screen.

"Each tile can be represented by three numbers. This entire map takes up less than 1 KB of storage."

He typed a command on the computer, and the previously clear map instantly transformed into a matrix of numbers.

Each tile clearly displayed three values.

After only a glance, Vivian immediately understood how revolutionary this simple and intuitive system was.

"The first two numbers represent its rendering position, and the third number tells the graphics processor what it looks like?"

"Exactly. The texture only needs to be loaded into video memory once. After that, all we need are the indices."

Ethan had actually already created a prototype of this technology during the development of Contra.

However, turning it into a dedicated program like this was an idea he only came up with while developing Metal Gear.

With tiled maps, both memory and video memory usage were dramatically reduced.

All the space saved could be invested into animations and special effects.

Vivian no longer knew what to say.

She silently sat down in front of the Commodore 64, intending to try out the map editor herself.

"Oh, right. The language you were using earlier wasn't Assembly or BASIC, was it? What language is it?"

Just as she was about to type something, she suddenly realized she didn't actually know how to use the program.

After examining the command history, Vivian discovered that it didn't seem to belong to any programming language she knew. Even so, it was remarkably easy to understand, using straightforward English naming conventions throughout.

"You can call it the N. Well, Nova programming language. It's a programming language I'm currently developing."

"?"

Vivian watched as Ethan pulled a thick stack of printed documents from a drawer.

It was the specification manual for N Language.

"With its help, the development process becomes much simpler."

Ethan flipped through several pages and stopped at an example.

After only a few glances, Vivian seemed to realize what source code she was looking at, and her breathing stalled.

"...This is Tetris?"

"That's right. Rewriting it in N only requires this single page of code."

Sitting nearby, Sam was handling things much better than the already dazed Vivian.

He had long since gotten used to Ethan's absurd technical abilities. Still, he was genuinely fascinated by the map editor. Taking the keyboard, he began designing a map according to the instructions in the manual.

More than ten minutes later, a simple cross-shaped corridor had been created. After compiling the data and burning it into the chip, Sam restarted the game.

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The map had indeed become exactly what he had designed. This practically reduced game development difficulty to baby mode.

Anyone could quickly learn how to create maps.

"Do you still think making 200 stages is difficult now?"

Ethan spread his hands.

He knew he no longer needed to explain anything.

With this technology, they could even split development into dedicated design and programming teams.

The design team would only need to sketch out level concepts on paper, while the development team would translate those concepts into game maps.

This was a revolutionary next-generation development model.

...

October.

Kwok submitted a report.

The graphics card designed using the brand-new ASIC integrated circuit technology had finally been born inside the former VideoSoft office in Santa Clara.

This new technology had practically consumed every dollar GAMENOVA had earned from its arcade business over the past few months.

Yet no matter how much Sam complained about it, Ethan had remained determined to use it in their first graphics chip.

And now, this semiconductor technology that ran counter to mainstream thinking was finally about to start generating revenue.

Ethan understood very clearly that ASIC technology was the key reason ATI, a company that had started with only a few hundred thousand dollars in funding, had eventually been able to defeat industry giants.

"Sam, take a look at this."

In his hand was the first graphics card sample Vivian had sent over after fabrication.

Compared to previous graphics cards, it looked significantly cleaner and contained noticeably fewer external components.

"It took all that time just to make it a little smaller?"

Sam checked GAMENOVA's financial reports every day and naturally knew how much money had gone into designing this chip.

Ethan smiled and didn't answer.

Instead, he shook the chip lightly and asked, "Guess how much this graphics chip costs."

"Forty dollars?"

Sam often chatted with manufacturing partners and had a rough sense of industry pricing.

Ethan shook his head and held up three fingers.

Sam's eyes widened.

"Thirty dollars? That's a huge reduction in cost!"

But Ethan shook his head again before slowly saying,

"No. Three dollars."

"Huh?"

"Of course, that's the cost at large scale production volumes. Right now it's still around ten dollars."

Ethan set the chip aside and picked up another quotation sheet.

It detailed the manufacturing costs for the Metal Gear arcade board.

"If we can produce it at that price, our hardware costs can be reduced to under two hundred dollars.

Including the cabinet and assembly labor, the production cost per machine will only be around five hundred dollars."

Sam took the quotation sheet with trembling hands and repeatedly checked to make sure Ethan wasn't joking.

"I did say I wanted you to make a cheaper arcade machine... but this is completely insane!"

A five hundred dollars arcade machine was practically unheard of.

For comparison, an Atari 2600 cost two hundred dollars.

That meant the price of two home consoles could buy an entire arcade cabinet!

"Even after transportation and storage costs, the retail price would only be around a thousand dollars... My God, that's the same price as Pac-Man!"

Sam felt dizzy.

The shock of that price point was simply too overwhelming.

Ethan, on the other hand, wasn't particularly surprised.

Modular manufacturing.

Low-cost graphics chips.

An 8-bit processor.

From the very beginning, he had planned to drive prices as low as possible.

Everything he had arranged was finally beginning to pay off.

...

Meyer finally received the phone call from the person he had been eagerly waiting for. Without asking a single unnecessary question, he immediately set out and arrived in front of Ethan.

"Ethan! I've missed you so much!"

"There you go. This is the prototype for METAL GEAR. Want to give it a try?"

"Of course! Of course!"

Meyer nodded frantically and immediately sat down at the arcade machine.

Half an hour later, Meyer once again realized just how terrifying Ethan was.

Breathing heavily, his face flushed red, he waved his arms around like a madman, spittle flying everywhere.

"Ethan! This game can definitely sell for no less than Contra! Just name the price! I'll pay in full for a hundred units right now and I can also help you connect to new distributors!"

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