game trailblazer

Chapter 24 The Beginning of the Game Industry

Zhang Lexing's goal is very ambitious, but unfortunately the reality is often not satisfactory. When he discussed the idea of ​​designing an FC game console (Nintendo Famicom) with Jim, a hardware engineer in his game studio, he realized that he originally wanted to design a console. The game console is not that simple, and it is not something that can be easily done by knowing a processor.

"Boss, your idea is very interesting, but designing a game console is not that simple." Jim said seriously.

"Then tell me why it's not easy?" Zhang Lexing's determination is not small, and of course he won't give up easily.

"Okay." Jim took a small blackboard and began to draw and talk: "The so-called game console is actually similar to the basic structure of a computer. It is also composed of CPU (central processing unit), system bus, memory, input and output, etc. It’s just that the purpose is more single. In order to design a good game console, many factors need to be considered. It is necessary to choose a suitable processor, which is the core of the game console, and then consider appropriate peripheral circuits and buses for it, and of course storage circuits. And the input and output control circuit. These are only the first steps. Next, we need to make a trade-off between the performance of the host computer and the manufacturing cost. Choosing an appropriate balance point can not only ensure that performance does not affect game development, but also ensure that cost will not hinder sales."

"It's so complicated, it seems that it's really not easy to make a console." Zhang Lexing sighed, and his desire to design a game console by himself has faded a lot.

"More than that," Jim continued with a smile: "There are also the appearance design of the final product, the planning of the game console production line, the control of sales channels, the development of game software, etc. There are many factors that affect the success of a game console. For example, I participated in the research and development of the Atari 2600 mainframe before. At first we used a 1.19MHz 4-bit processor 6507, but later the performance of the processor gradually fell behind, so we had to replace it with 2MHz 6502 processor. Why not use the 6502 processor directly? This is also based on cost considerations. It took us nearly two years to develop the Atari 2600 mainframe, and the research and development costs were as high as It cost $1 million, and the boss Bushnell had to sell the company to Warner to survive, otherwise we would have gone bankrupt."

Zhang Lexing couldn't help being silent. It turned out that it was so difficult to develop a game console. It seemed that his idea of ​​designing a FC console with only the 6502 processor was a bit naive.Seeing that Nintendo's official FC console will be launched in a few months, Zhang Lexing has no ability to be opportunistic in such a short period of time, and he doesn't have so much money to make money. It seems that his dream of a game console is temporarily postponed. .

However, although the console cannot be developed for the time being, you can try to develop some games on the computer, which can be regarded as making some technical reserves for Zhang Lexing's future plans.Of course, these hardware engineers can't be idle, just to analyze and analyze the hardware structure of popular computers, and provide technical support to the game development team.

This year is not the period when PCs will dominate the world in the future. There are many popular computer styles, and there is no consideration for compatibility between them, so the choice of development platform is quite important.Zhang Lexing is relatively unfamiliar with computers in the 80s. He has not heard much about them, and even fewer have played them. He only knows that there are more games on Apple II and C* computers in this period, so the development platform of the studio was chosen. Determined as Apple II, C* and PC.Although Apple II and C* have not been popular for a few years, they are a good choice to maintain a balance of income and expenditure. After all, Zhang Lexing does not want his game development studio to become a money-burning organization, and the choice of PC is of course To face the future.

Talents who are good at Apple II and C* game design are relatively easy to find, and soon the Apple II and C* game development team in the studio was established successfully. Just let go. Game developers on PCs are not easy to find. On the one hand, almost no companies have considered developing games on PCs, and on the other hand, it is too difficult to develop games on PCs.One of the trends in game development is that images are getting more and more exquisite, but PCs are a shortcoming in image processing.

One of the most commonly used graphics cards for PCs is MDA card with monochrome display (green characters on black background), and the other is CGA card with color display. The resolution of MDA card is 720×350 (720 points in width and 350 points in height). But because it is designed for text data processing, it can only display characters and cannot process colors and graphics. If it is used to design games, basically only some pure text adventure games or role-playing games can be considered. Of course, if you are willing to use your imagination, you can also use it. Some more complicated games can be designed, but Zhang Lexing loses interest at all when he thinks of characters floating all over the screen. The CGA card is better. If it is used to design games, the most commonly used is 320×200. In this case, there are four colors available, although it is not comparable to those exquisite high-resolution game screens in the future, and even Nintendo's red and white machines can't compare, but at least some colors can be seen.

After finally selecting three programmers who had been engaged in PC development, plus two artists who left Yalida, and borrowed two offices from VisualSystem, Zhang Lexing's PC game development team was finally established. At the end of March, the first plenary meeting of the PC game development team was held to discuss future development plans.

"Boss, what kind of game should we make?" Program designer A said blankly. He had never engaged in game design before, and he didn't even know what a computer game looked like. Immediately it was blank.

Zhang Lexing saw the blank expressions of the remaining people. He knew that these people could not be counted on. It seemed that he could only rely on himself for this development plan.However, Zhang Lexing has no idea what kind of games can be made under such crude conditions. Although he has played many computer games, they are basically games developed after 1990, which are comparable to the current PCs. The ratio is so different that it can only be used to develop ideas, and it is almost impossible to use it directly.After pondering for a while, Zhang Lexing didn't come up with any good ideas. In the end, he could only focus on "Digging Gold" and "Cube", which he had developed on the Apple II, and planned to start with game transplantation.

Zhang Lexing was busy with his game development studio, and Hawkins on the other side was also busy.Since the establishment of EA, Hawkins has been busy running. First, he recruited troops everywhere, and recruited many elite soldiers from companies such as Alida, Ogilvy, Xerox, etc., and built a powerful team for EA. team.With a working team, Hawkins then began to work hard according to his own goal-"people-oriented, improving the social status of game developers".At this time, game development companies have no status in society, and the status of game developers in game companies is even lower. To put it seriously, they are not much better than slaves. They can only produce a game in obscurity. Another game.

In Hawkins' view, this situation seriously hinders the creativity and imagination of game developers. He hopes to develop the game industry into a mainstream culture like music, and raise game developers to the same level as singers.Therefore, shortly after the establishment of EA, Hawkins invested a lot of money to place advertisements in prominent positions in major computer magazines in an attempt to improve the public's awareness of games.Another move is to package its game developers as stars and push them to the public, calling them "composers in the software industry" to help the public form a more intimate and vivid understanding of games and game developers.And Zhang Lexing, a newly established studio, was also fortunate to catch up with this event. The employees of the three development teams were cramped and nervous, posing in various poses according to the photographer's requirements, or staying in front of the computer and pretending to be working. The photographers had been busy taking work photos all day, and everyone was exhausted before completing the shooting task. However, everyone expressed that they would rather work overtime than participate in such activities in the future.But when the magazines printed with everyone's photos were delivered to the studio, the employees who seemed to have no interest before suddenly became active and competed for those few magazines, and the one who grabbed the magazines looked at it with a happy smirk on their faces Then, those who didn't grab it could only get behind other people, and the original resistance to shooting disappeared instantly.

At that time, the game packaging was still very simple. Basically, it was done in a plastic bag. This was unbearable in the eyes of the art director Nancy Fang. Under her guidance, EA made major improvements to the packaging of computer games. Packaged in the popular record sleeve with a full-color game booklet.

Both game packaging and celebrity packaging are borrowed from the record industry, and the most important part Hawkins learned from the record industry is the distribution system.Similar to the singer signing system in the recording industry, EA signs long-term cooperation agreements with studios willing to join its studios, and EA can also provide development funds, and the works produced are uniformly released by EA.In this way, many small studios were short of funds and unable to turn their ideas into works. Soon, besides Zhang Lexing's studio, EA also signed four other studios.

At the beginning of May, Zhang Lexing's PC game development team completed the porting of "Digging Gold" and "Cube". Other studios under EA also released six games at the same time. The first batch of EA's games is ready to go.

(End of this chapter)