Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

McCoy stroked his chin and nodded repeatedly.

"I understand now. Ethan, you're planning to create a video game competition show, right?"

He had played Street Fighter and knew what an incredible game it was, so he immediately understood what Ethan was trying to do.

"Ethan, since we're both sitting here, let me be completely honest with you."

"Your concerns are correct. The overlap between video game audiences and television audiences is indeed not very high."

McCoy gestured for his assistant to pull out a simple chart.

"Compared to watching television, young people generally prefer renting videotapes or playing console games. Especially for our Channel 29, as most of our revenue comes from local car dealerships and convenience stores, and our average viewer age is relatively high."

He paused briefly before laughing self-deprecatingly.

"But just look at us, we even broadcast college preparatory football games. We don't exactly have the luxury of being picky, and if we can't find a program that attracts younger viewers next quarter, Channel 29 might as well shut down."

As the saying went, sincerity was the ultimate weapon. This time, McCoy truly laid everything on the table.

A partnership with GAMENOVA was undoubtedly a tidal wave of traffic and attention. Whether they could actually capitalize on it was another matter entirely.

"We also want to conduct an experiment and see how audiences react to this type of program."

The reason Ethan had chosen a small television station on the verge of closure wasn't merely because it was cheap.

"Mr. McCoy, let's talk about broadcasting times."

"Of course! Ethan, what time slot do you think is appropriate? Late night? Or perhaps the afternoon?"

McCoy brought over several programming schedules listing the flagship programs of major television stations. He tried to find the perfect gap, avoiding competition while attracting as many viewers as possible.

To put it bluntly, given Channel 29's current situation, they could practically broadcast whenever they wanted.

"Why choose some obscure corner of the schedule?"

Ethan shrugged.

"Has your station's prime-time slot already been booked?"

Prime time naturally referred to weekends between 8 PM and 11 PM. It was the period when most families had finished dinner and gathered in the living room to watch television.

It was also the most expensive advertising slot, and in many cases, the advertising revenue from prime time alone was enough to keep an entire television station afloat.

"Huh? You want to broadcast during prime time?"

McCoy froze before pulling several schedule sheets from the stack and placing them in front of Ethan.

"Ethan, we can certainly arrange that for you. However, your ratings would probably end up lower."

For a small station like theirs, prime time wasn't exactly friendly territory. The sitcoms, variety shows, and movies of the big three networks had already monopolized that audience.

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Even WWF had chosen to avoid direct competition, instead occupying weekend afternoon slots.

"Those are all elite opponents!"

With Channel 29's size, entering prime time was basically volunteering to become cannon fodder.

"Elites? Then those are exactly the people I want to fight."

Ethan waved dismissively.

"Young people watch television too, Mr. McCoy. Can you really bear to let them waste their precious weekends just watching movies and sports?"

...

One week later, Electronic Games published a new announcement.

GAMENOVA had reached a partnership agreement with a local California television station and would soon host a gaming tournament called the Evolution Championship Series, abbreviated as EVO.

According to the announcement, the competition would be a professional fighting game tournament organized by GAMENOVA.

Featured events included Street Fighter, Pokémon, and a new arcade fighting game that would be released in the future. The first round of competitors would be selected directly by GAMENOVA, while future participants would qualify through local tournaments.

Sitting in front of his computer, Ethan stared at a sketch of Mai Shiranui displayed on the screen and fell into thought.

He had been so busy organizing the tournament that he had forgotten to solve the problem of the competitors.

Never mind future prodigies from the post-'89 generation, even the legendary Daigo Umehara was only five years old right now.

The famous esports players Ethan knew from the future hadn't even begun touching fighting games yet, so sighing, he shook his head.

"At least the visual spectacle has to be guaranteed and looks like we'll have to settle for exhibition matches."

Looking up, he saw Sam and Carmack locked in fierce combat nearby.

"Overhead! Ah, why didn't it connect again?"

Sam slammed the arcade stick in frustration. He had no idea how many opportunities he'd already lost because of combo execution mistakes.

To be honest, while combos were undeniably addictive when they worked, dropping them was equally frustrating.

KOF relied heavily on rapid decision-making and execution speed. In many ways, hand speed determined everything.

Even though he had already developed a certain amount of muscle memory, he'd still occasionally drop combos due to joystick precision issues or other factors.

"K.O.!"

In the end, Carmack proved slightly faster and defeated him.

Sam waved his hand, signaling that he wanted a break. He looked at the webbing between his thumb and index finger. The skin there had cracked and peeled from constant high-speed friction, leaving it red and irritated, even the base of his palm had developed thick calluses.

"I distinctly remember wanting to make a simple fighting game..."

Sam increasingly felt that the game's development path had drifted completely away from his original vision.

Ethan just laughed. The version Sam and Carmack were playing was still the high-speed Street Fighter prototype. While it already carried some of the flavor of The King of Fighters, there were still many mechanical differences.

Particularly because when Street Fighter had originally been developed, their hardware capabilities hadn't been especially advanced, resulting in relatively few special moves.

As a result, Street Fighter's input windows were extremely forgiving. Players rarely experienced situations where they attempted an input and failed.

But KOF was different. Its commands were already longer and more complicated, and the game itself was significantly faster. Using the original Street Fighter input system inevitably created the exact problem Sam was encountering.

"Try this version. I added something."

Ethan quickly typed the final line of code and called out to Sam.

...

"Huh?"

After performing a combo, both Sam and Carmack let out surprised exclamations simultaneously.

"How did you do this? It actually feels smoother."

Sam cautiously tested a few moves, confirming that the command list itself hadn't changed.

"I call it an 'input buffer.'"

Ethan stepped over, took the joystick, and rapidly executed a combo.

"The current version allows characters to begin accepting player inputs before their current action has fully completed."

He had observed the problem carefully. Sam wasn't dropping combos because his reaction speed was too slow, it was quite the opposite.

It was because he was entering commands too quickly and too early that the character failed to register the complete inputs.

"Is it really that simple?"

Sam blinked in surprise. He had assumed Ethan had designed some sophisticated algorithm.

"It's really that simple."

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