Chapter Nineteenth Sweeping Across America

  The sales of "American Blocks" are hot.

  Although the four retailers led by Schwel Group set its retail price at a terrifying $8,000 per unit, businessmen from arcades all over the country, despite their curses, flocked to grab all the arcade machines loaded with "Tetris".

  50,000 seems like a lot, but in reality, when averaged across 50 states nationwide, it's only 100 per state.

  For the entire vast US market, it's just a drop in the bucket.

  To know that Donkey Kong was only $2,000 per unit back then, but they sold over $1.02 billion worth of arcade machines in a year.

  The current "American Square" is far worse than they are.

  And these merchants have come to California and seen how hot this game is, and also saw the miserable scene of those arcades without "Pong".

  Isn't it just $8,000? Ten days! At most half a month and I can earn it back!

  In their eyes, "America" has now become a hen that lays golden eggs.

  It must be obtained at all costs, no matter what.

  Even Jester couldn't help but marvel at how crazy Americans are in this era.

  In fact, the US in the 1980s under Reagan's neo-mercantilism was no less crazy than those giants from 1900 to 1930, and even more so.

  It is actually reckless. Behind this seemingly prosperous market, there are turbulent waves hidden.

  It wasn't until Black Monday three years later that all this came to a screeching halt.

  But this has nothing to do with Jester.

  However, very realistic problems also presented themselves in front of Jester.

  Insufficient production capacity.

  The production capacity of just a few Atari plants in Orange County was insufficient to meet the surging demand.

  Even the 5,000-unit order signed with four retailers has only completed over 2,000 units so far. Moreover, after Atari saw the popularity of "Asteroids", when Jester proposed to re-sign a larger OEM contract with them, they actually raised the price by 30%!

  This made Jester furious beyond measure.

  Do you think you're the only ones in all of America who can make arcade games?

  However, after searching around, Jester made a pessimistic discovery that there were indeed many other factories in the US that could meet his requirements.

  But the problem is that either it's too small in scale and can't meet his production requirements, or if he finds n companies at the same time, then it's hard to coordinate.

  Either it needs to reform the production line, and in a short period of time, it may not be of much use.

  In the end, he made a somewhat sad discovery: that in all of America, there was only one company with a large number of factories that didn't need to be converted and could immediately produce arcade games - Atari.

  Under duress, Jester had no choice but to sign a new contract with Atari for 5,000 units, bringing the total to 10,000 units, for which Jester would have to pay a total of $4.6 million.

  But Jastrow and his Mars Entertainment can get at least $60 million in revenue, plus 20% of the profits from those four sales companies.

  Despite this, Jester, who had previously swindled those merchants with relish, found it hard to swallow being swindled by Atari this time, and such a swindle was unbearable for him.

  He can only take advantage of others in distress and extort them, but he cannot let others take advantage of him in distress and extort him.

  He has decided that the next thing to be solved is the problem of not being able to produce his own products, otherwise it would be like being strangled by others. It's still a small matter now, but if he's taken advantage of in the future, it'll be too late for him to do anything about it.

  Moreover, Jester thought at the same time that he had offended the four salesmen of the Schwel group this time, and they were in a predicament due to the collapse of Atari. They might have been able to catch their breath through his "American Block", but next time's cooperation wouldn't be so easy.

  Find another seller?

  Jest smiled coldly. These salesmen are not so simple, they're all in cahoots with each other. And aren't there plenty of software companies that have been swallowed up by publishers throughout history?

  It is necessary to establish its own distribution and sales network. A game company without its own distribution network can only be considered a slightly larger studio, and it is far from being called a giant.

  The circle of the game industry is small, especially at a time when the game industry has shrunk to an unrecognizable size. Mars Entertainment quickly caused a stir throughout the entire video game industry.

  A game that earned $600 million in less than a month, this is not something that any ordinary game company can do, and it's even possible to say that even in Silicon Valley, there aren't many new tech companies that can achieve what they have.

  Even Pingguo was not working at that time.

  Of course, the game industry is dead was a consensus among Americans, so even if Mars Entertainment made the arcade market hot again, it didn't get enough attention, and some people thought it was just a flash in the pan.

  For example, Jack Tramiel, Atari's new boss.

  "What I mean is that consoles are worthless, the future belongs to PC, what consoles can do, PCs can also do and do better, and what PCs can do, consoles will never be able to do. That's my point, Atari will never, never, never come back to electronic games."

  That's exactly what Tramel said in an interview with ABC.

  Jester watched this report and instead of getting angry, he laughed happily: "You'd better never come back."

  Indeed, just $600 million in sales data is not even a drop in the bucket compared to Atari's $2 billion annual profit two years ago, but the problem is that it's no longer two years ago.

  The times have changed.

  Now those Atari game consoles are being sold at a discount in stores, and the inventory of game cartridges stored in warehouses may not be much less than what they buried in New Mexico.

  The entire video game market is now deserted.

  Only Mars Entertainment's "American Block" arcade machine sold out in the market.

  And when the Easter egg hidden in "Pac-Man" was exposed, it further fueled the popularity of "Pac-Man". I don't know how many kids would rather skip class to practice their skills, just hoping to put their name on a machine so they can show off to their friends, classmates or crushes.

  "Look! I'm the best at playing Tetris in America!"

  Even some unscrupulous merchants who doubled the price of in-game currency for "Monopoly" could not deter these crazy players' enthusiasm.

  In some places, there have even been cases of young people stealing and robbing in order to play " Tetris", and some media outlets are still shouting that "Tetris" should be banned from sale.

  Of course, this can only become a joke.

  In short, "American Blocks" has become a phenomenon.

  Things have two sides.

  Although "Tetris" became a phenomenon, the future of video games was still not looked upon favorably by mainstream society and media.

  Atari's host is still being treated as garbage at a discount, and the number of people who ask about it is still very small.

  "American Pie" is like a stone thrown into a stagnant pool of water, although it stirred up layer upon layer of ripples, the stagnant water remains stagnant.

  But for those who truly love video games, Mars Entertainment is like a ray of light in the dark environment.

  That is where hope lies.

  When Mars Entertainment recruited employees who truly loved video games to work in this seemingly hopeless industry with the slogan "Make the best game", it received an extremely enthusiastic response.

  These respondents, apart from those game designers who are lost after leaving Yadailei, also include a large number of real game enthusiasts.

  Some were from the East Coast, some from Florida, and others from the Great Lakes... These people all came to California from afar.

  They want to join Mars Entertainment and make the best games.

  They want to prove to everyone that e-sports is still not dead.

  Mars Entertainment's recruitment program is set as Jest reference after Blizzard's recruitment program settings.

  The concept of Blizzard is very similar to that of Jester, there are many excellent technical personnel in the world, but a person who does not love games, no matter how high his technology is, cannot make a good game.

  Game companies aren't places for showing off skills, but rather places for designing games.

  The only right thing people here did was making a good game liked by players.

  Even if it's just simple pixel blocks, as long as players like them, that's correct.

  So, the first principle of Mars Entertainment recruitment is that, first and foremost, no matter how good your skills are or how high your education is, you must be a passionate gamer.

  Of course, this is just the recruitment standard for software development. As for hardware research and development, Jester doesn't know much about it, so he lets his father take full charge. His father has been engaged in the research and development of arcade hardware for ten years and is also very famous among Atari's hardware engineers.

  Mars Entertainment's recruitment efforts went smoothly, and with the help of Jester's father's relationship with Mark Cerny, a large number of software and hardware designers who had left Atari and were still looking for new jobs joined Mars Entertainment.

  The recruitment of the hardware R&D department was even smoother.

  Especially when Jester approached the development team of the previous Atari VCS 7200 with the banner of "revenge against Tramiel, proving him wrong", those excellent hardware developers at Atari almost left Atari without hesitation and joined Mars Entertainment when they knew that Mars Entertainment was going to make an 8-bit mainframe better than VCS 7200.

  This nearly drove Trammel into a rage, but he was also helpless.

  This is an ideological conflict and belongs to irreconcilable contradictions.

  Mars Entertainment, new employees' first day of work.

  In a conference room set up in a warehouse, more than thirty young people who had just joined Huo Xing Entertainment gathered together.

  They were informed that before they started work officially, their boss, who was also the designer of "American Blocks", wanted to have a brainstorming session with them first.

  I want to discuss with them what game we will play next.

  These people are almost all loyal fans of "American Blocks", and their enthusiasm for the game is unparalleled, so they are all looking forward to what will happen next.

  But now their boss has not arrived yet, these young designers are listlessly looking at everything in this room.

  Among them are students who have just graduated from university, designers with previous game development experience, and pure electronic game enthusiasts.

  The only commonality is that these people all have a deep love for video games and various fanciful ideas.

  This conference room doesn't have rows of neatly arranged chairs like other companies, but instead has sofas scattered all over the place, various snacks and toys, including Lego bricks and even this year's newly released Transformers.

  There were even two color TVs, and these two color TVs were connected to a VCS 2600 and an FC that had not yet been released in the United States, which most people here had only heard of.

  Of course, game cartridges are also indispensable.

  These young people find it amazing, does this company still allow employees to play games during meetings?

  This makes these young people feel somewhat restless.

  But these young people who hadn't figured out the situation yet didn't dare to touch those two game consoles, and at most they just picked up some of the snacks that were piled up like a small mountain to satisfy their cravings.

  At this moment, two young people walked into the conference room.

  These two people were very young, one with a head of blond hair, looking very shy, wearing glasses, and the other was an Asian, with black hair and yellow skin, but he was very tall and had a strong physique.

  But this just made these thirty or so young people take a second look, and didn't cause much of a stir.

  There are many Asians in the United States, with millions on the entire West Coast.

  They thought these two were also new employees at Mars Entertainment, just like them.

  Jester and Maxine exchanged a glance, both of their eyes gleaming with a mischievous smile.

  Jester shrugged, while Maxine raised her chin, pointing at the FC that no one dared to touch.

  Then Mark Sweeney came over to the side of the FC and turned on the TV.

  Jie Si Te also skillfully flipped out a game card from a box filled with various game cartridges, and skillfully inserted it into the FC's slot.

  Then the FC was turned on, accompanied by a pleasant electronic sound. The TV screen, which had previously been showing snowflakes, now displayed the game's opening pattern. However, because it was in Japanese, most of them couldn't understand what was being displayed.

  But they don't care about these things.

  They looked at these two young people who had just walked into the conference room with incredible eyes.

  oh，my－god！

  How dare they casually touch these things?

  Aren't they afraid of being fired?