Chapter Twenty-Three Return to Los Angeles

  The last remaining option 'View' also gave Jester a little surprise.

  After opening this option, there is only one item in it.

  Fans.

  Jester's fingers had just touched the fan when three different dialogue boxes appeared on the virtual screen.

  Mars Entertainment, American Blocks, Jest Lee.

  The highest number is "American Block", the number of fans has reached more than 500,000 - this made Jester overjoyed, although he knew that "American Block" was very popular in the US, especially in California where he had promoted it, but after all, adding the 900 units he had sold himself at the beginning, a total of less than 2,000 machines were shipped, and orders for 10,000 units would take one and a half months to complete.

  So there aren't many people who have actually played this game.

  Due to limited number of people.

  More than 500,000 is already an incredible number of data, which means that each machine has provided more than 200 fans.

  After seeing the success of Jester's previous marketing, the four salesmen of Schwiller Group also learned from Jester's original promotion plan in California and promoted "American Blocks" across the United States. After seeing an extremely enthusiastic market reaction, they immediately placed a new order for 5,000 units.

  Of course, according to Jestar's shamelessness, it must be prepaid in full, and if you don't pay the full amount, they won't even give you an order.

  So, another 30 million dollars is in hand.

  This made Jester sigh, Americans are really foolish and rich at this time. It seems that the saying is true: whoever dares to underestimate the intelligence of Americans can make a lot of money.

  However, according to Jester's estimate, the annual sales of his "American Block" arcade machine would be around 30,000 units, which is a good number but not particularly surprising.

  For example, Nintendo's Donkey Kong sold about 60,000 units in a year, while Atari's Defender was higher than this number.

  This is not because "Pitfall!" is inferior to "Donkey Kong" or "Defender", but because the delivery price he gave was too high, only when the profit situation is very strong, those arcade owners would rush to buy, if many people bought, it would inevitably dilute their average profit, and as a result, they would inevitably slow down their buying enthusiasm.

  In other words, his "American Blockbuster" will not follow the gentle curve of a long-selling game, but instead its sales curve will be like a roller coaster, with extremely high sales in the first two months and then a crazy drop to the bottom.

  This is also an unavoidable thing, Jester knows that if he sells it out at a price of $2,000 or less, the annual sales may reach 600,000 to 700,000 units or even higher. However, the problem is that in the case of insufficient production capacity, even if the initial sales are more explosive, he cannot sell more machines than now, and the orders will not be more than the current orders. In other words, he has no way to get as much prepaid payment as now at the beginning.

  For him now, money is most important, especially quick money.

  As long as there is enough money to recruit excellent R&D personnel and make a good enough host, the arcade machines of "Merritt's Brick" will be earned back.

  Moreover, the largest market for "Tetris" was not arcade machines, but handheld game consoles.

  In order to achieve a certain goal, temporarily sacrificing previous profits is well worth it in Jester's view.

  Moreover, Jaleco plans to release its own home console around the end of the year, by which time the initial purchasing fervor for "Tetris" arcade machines will have almost died down. By releasing a home version at that time and then drastically cutting the price of the "Tetris" arcade machine, it should be possible to create another new wave of buying fever, thereby squeezing out potential.

  Moreover, most importantly, they can leverage the popularity of "Minecraft" to boost their own console sales.

  At this point in time, it's not easy to sell a home console in the US. Even Nintendo back then didn't know how many methods they tried - using R.O.B. and the Zapper with various tricks up their sleeve - but none of them were able to completely solve this difficult problem. In the end, it was Super Mario's invincible dominance that allowed Famicom's sales issues to be resolved effortlessly.

  As for Jester Lee and Huo Yan's fans, neither of them have a high number of followers.

  After all, Jester only made a game, and apart from those who are too fond of asking questions, not many people would specially ask who the designer is.

  The number of fans of Huǒ Xīng Entertainment is slightly higher than that of Jie Shi Te, but it's still limited and the gap with "Mei Lì Jiǎn Fāng Kuài" is still quite large.

  In other words, this time only the game "American Blocks" became famous, while Jester Lee and Mars Entertainment did not become widely known.

  Exiting from the 'View' page, Jester had intended to try out Snow Bros. and take note of some details within it for reference in design, but unfortunately, at this time, the phone that had just been installed in his office rang.

  It was his mother who called him.

  His grandfather's West Coast Chinese gathering is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and he hopes he can go help out tomorrow.

  Jester promised he would definitely arrive this afternoon before dinner.

  After that, Jester could only temporarily terminate his plan to try out "Snowman Brothers" and left the office when he saw that it was about time. He came to a special work area set up for game developers.

  Because it had just been cleaned up, although several dozen brand new computers were already placed on the tables, the second floor of Jester's mother's supermarket still looked a bit empty.

  More than thirty new employees saw for the first time a work scene that seemed like working in a large warehouse.

  Many couldn't help but let out curious gasps of amazement.

  This strange setup somehow gave them a sense of unbridled freedom.

  Jest didn't actually know much about how to set up a workspace for a game company, but he remembered watching a documentary about the history of games that had footage of interviews at top game companies. He recalled it was either R* or B Corp when they showed a shot of their work environment, which looked like this - a large warehouse-like floor with rows and rows of desks, each person having their own spot without any dividers.

  At that time, Jester liked this layout very much and felt a kind of freedom.

  Everyone can move freely throughout the entire company.

  He thinks game designers must work in such a free and easy environment, so he took the opportunity to replicate this layout without hesitation.

  Then Jester assigns tasks to these designers.

  He had already obtained the specific parameters of the arcade machine board they were going to develop next from his father, and with the specific parameters, game development could begin.

  Of course, although formal development still needs to wait for the arcade board to be done, the hardware R&D department specially made a development machine for this board - but not having a development machine does not mean that games cannot be developed.

  It's too difficult for Jester to consider, and "Snowman Brothers" is not a game that these designers can design independently without their own conditions. Moreover, his design draft for this game has not been completed yet, and he plans to start designing after returning from Los Angeles.

  Jest thought for a moment and felt that taking advantage of the popularity of "American Blocks" to continue launching several elimination-type games to make money might be more suitable.

  It just so happened that he had mentioned several elimination-type game design schemes when giving a lecture to these employees on how to design a good game, so Jester didn't waste any words and let them try their hand at these three games first.

  Bejeweled, Zuma and Bust-a-Move.

  He had already mentioned the general idea of these three games before, but a game's design document is not just about one idea.

  So he divided these employees into groups of ten and had them each design a game, however...

  Mark Senyi looked at Jester with some annoyance, dissatisfied with the way Jester had just assigned tasks on his own without asking for his opinion - if he didn't also have a game of his own that needed manpower, he actually thought Jester's previous assignment was very reasonable.

  It was only then that Jester remembered Mark Cerny's fighting game, "Avengers", and it was to meet the requirements of this fighting game that Jester had his father increase the performance of their arcade board design by thirty percent.

  It can also be seen from this that Jester is full of expectations for this game which looks very much like Double Dragon.

  To make up for his previous negligence, Jester had to apologize repeatedly and agreed to let Mark Sennet choose ten people from the thirty or so to help him complete the game "Avenger".

  Then he watched as Mark Sweeney picked out the best of these people.

  Among them was Will Wright, who Jester intended to cultivate particularly.

  It pained Jester greatly.

  The design text of the game "Avenger" has been almost completed by Mark Cerny, but as a designer who wants to make the best game, he still wants to make it more perfect, especially the level and character actions. After all, Jesse's speech had a great impact on him, especially when Jesse designed three games that were not inferior to "American Blocks" in a very short period of time, which brought him shock.

  He even contacted a Chinese martial artist in Los Angeles who teaches Wing Chun and has studied Jeet Kune Do to help make the action scenes in The Avengers more realistic.

  Moreover, Mark Zeng himself is not a professional painter, and many setting pictures need to be remade.

  All of this takes a lot of time, after all, "Avengers" is a very large game in this era, and just looking at the volume of design documents from Mark Sweeney to Jester, there has never been a work that can match it on the American game market.

  This is no small feat, in fact, in the production process of a game, design is the most time-consuming place, and program implementation takes up less time in the R&D process of a game.

  After finishing these seemingly trivial things, it took more than three hours. After that, Jester, who was in a hurry, left the company in a hurry and drove to Los Angeles.

  The car was a Ford Mustang that he had just bought, Jester had always been fond of this powerful American muscle car in his previous life, and was not very interested in those coffin-like supercars.

  When he arrived in Los Angeles at dusk, Jester felt a little hungry and drove directly to the Chinese restaurant opened by his grandfather in Los Angeles.

  His grandfather's restaurant, called Guangyuan Building, is very famous in the Chinese community on the West Coast, with more than a dozen branches, and business is booming. Many Americans also love the taste here.

  Jester used to come here to help out when he was studying at UC, so as to earn some pocket money.

  His eldest uncle originally wanted to give it to him directly, but was sternly refused by his grandfather, saying that boys need to be tempered and let him know that only after paying can they get gains.

  The Jester before also thought his grandfather was right, so he came running here as soon as he had a chance during the holidays.

  His grandfather usually resides in San Francisco, which is the stronghold of the Chinese community on the West Coast, while Los Angeles, the second largest metropolitan area in the United States, is personally presided over by Jester's great uncle.

  His great uncle's craftsmanship is not bad, according to his grandfather's words, he has already mastered his true skills.

  But after all, this year's Olympics are being held in Los Angeles, and the Chinese gathering organized by his grandfather also used the Olympic logo, so it was not suitable to put the location in San Francisco.

  And, as Jester knew, his grandfather was actually one of the sponsors of this Los Angeles Olympics.

  Of course, as the first privately sponsored Olympics, Los Angeles had dozens of sponsors.

  When De Zhong arrived at Guangyuan Building near Chinatown in Los Angeles, it was already dinner time, and the building was also packed.

  It's not just Chinese people who come here to eat. Jester took a casual glance around and at least half of the customers were white.

  As for blacks, they are rarely seen, but it's not because they don't like to eat, rather it's that blacks generally can't afford to - this isn't racial discrimination, it's just a fact.

  The salespeople here are all Chinese, and there are even many international students from mainland China. His grandfather and uncle usually take good care of these students from the mainland, and their wages are much higher than those in other black-hearted Chinese restaurants.

  Originally, this would have been a cause for public outrage, but Grandfather Jester's status, especially among Chinese restaurateurs on the West Coast, was such that no one dared to make trouble over it.

  Jester had just arrived when someone informed him that his grandfather was already there, seeing a guest.

  Moreover, his grandfather specifically instructed that if he arrived early, he should go find him directly.

  Jie Si Te wasn't surprised that his grandfather knew he would arrive ahead of time. Before he came, he had specifically asked his mother to call his uncle's place and say that he would be arriving in the afternoon.

  Jester met his grandfather in a private room.

  In this private room, apart from his grandfather, there was also an old white man that Jester was not familiar with.

  He was over fifty years old, with slightly curly hair and a square face. Judging from his somewhat larger nose, he seemed to be a Jew.

  The white man seemed unhappy, with a look of annoyance on his face, while his grandfather kept saying something to him, as if comforting him.

  Jester felt that this white-haired old man seemed somewhat familiar, but for a moment he couldn't think of where he had seen him before.

  Jester's grandfather was nearly eighty years old, but he looked quite robust, with a ruddy complexion and good spirits.

  However, Jester knew that his grandfather had been seriously ill last year and his originally good body had been weak for a long time. It was only in the past one or two months that he had recovered. In March, when it was his grandmother's memorial day, he went to San Francisco to see his grandfather, who looked much worse than now.

  When Jester came in, Jester's grandfather waved his hand, signaling him to come over.

  "Little Jie, this is Grandpa's good friend, Sandy Will. We've known each other since the 50s." Jie's grandfather had a kind smile on his face as he introduced the white-haired old man beside him.

  The old man called Sandy Will also turned his head to Jester, and a smile was squeezed out on his face which was originally full of melancholy.

  Jester could sense a hint of kindness from his not-so-good-looking smile.

  "Sandy Will!"

  But when he heard the name coming out of his grandfather's mouth, Jester's eyes flashed with a shocked expression, and his heart was as if struck by lightning, unbelievable.

  As he gazed at the image on the photo that he had seen in his past life, overlapping with the one in front of him, the name that would shake the world in the future also became vivid in Jester's mind.

  It's Sandy Will!