Chapter Thirty-Four: Trial Play Meeting

  Due to the tight schedule, Justest only had one day for promotion, so this time's player trial was only conducted in the Costa Mesa area, which also made Justest a bit disappointed, as he originally wanted to make his company's first trial and release conference more grand.

  But that will have to wait until next time.

  But to Jester's surprise, aside from the Costa Mesa players, there were also other Orange County enthusiasts of "AmeriCone Dream" who drove in to participate.

  They also want to see what the next game is from the company that made "American Blockbuster". This is extremely rare and precious in today's America, which has lost confidence in the video game industry.

  The time was originally set at 8:30 in the morning, but before 8 o'clock, hundreds of enthusiastic players had gathered in front of the Mars Entertainment Company building.

  They kept shouting out the name of Mars Entertainment and some held up display cards written with "American Blocks" in colored pens.

  Seeing this scene, Jester knew that it had far exceeded the capacity of those 15 new arcade machines, so he decisively opened ahead of schedule.

  Then he made a decision in his heart that next time when the press conference is held, he must make several more arcade machines, otherwise it will be impossible to entertain these enthusiastic players.

  This trial play is free, and each player will receive a number plate. According to the order of the numbers, 15 players will be allowed to enter at a time, and they can choose one of the three games to play for one round or up to ten minutes.

  The staff maintaining order were recognizing cards but not people.

  Those with permits may enter, those without may leave.

  If you want to continue playing, then the player has to find a way themselves. Jester won't stoop so low as to sell number plates, but players' private transactions can't be stopped.

  "Fifty dollars!! Give me your ticket! I'll give you fifty dollars!" A somewhat stout white man, who had just been forcibly dragged out of the trial hall by security guards, struggled to push through the crowd and shouted loudly at the next batch of players waiting to enter the trial hall.

  The man's expression was agitated, his face flushed, and his clothes were neat and clean, not like he was ill. His actions also made the people around him cast their eyes on him one after another.

  It's worth noting that $50 isn't a lot, but it's not little either, especially in '84 when the monthly salary of an ordinary TV host was less than $2,000.

  Moreover, it was just a short, few-minute opportunity to try out a game, although it was the latest development from the company that developed "Tetris", and although I liked playing "Tetris" very much, who knows if their new game is fun or not? After all, Atari had produced countless classic games before making "E.T."!

  Then, two players hesitated and traded their number plates to the somewhat fat man. The man then took out $100 and handed it over to each of them. He then snatched the two number plates from his opponents' hands with a swift motion, like a vicious dog grabbing food.

  It seems like he's afraid the other party will back out.

  After that, the man walked towards the trial hall with his head held high again. When he reached the gate, he showed the security guard who had just stopped him the card in his hand and followed this group of players into the gate.

  One token corresponds to one game opportunity, and the two tokens of this man correspond to two game opportunities. This is also what Jester had instructed the employees of Mars Entertainment here earlier.

  This time, the man chose "Gemstone Labyrinth" - an arcade machine with a strange shape, no joystick or buttons, but only a beautiful curved mouse.

  This oddly-shaped machine caught his attention the first time he came in, and at that time, he wanted to get close to it to take a closer look. However, he was not the only one who had this idea, because the appearance of this machine was so attractive that it drew people's eyes, but among the 15 machines, there were only five "Gemstone Mazes".

  In the end he could only go play a game whose name alone made him dislike it, "Puzzle Bobble".

  "Mobile puzzle? What a rotten name......" At that time, this somewhat chubby Bayern man was complaining while reluctantly starting his trial with the help of staff.

  He didn't think much of this game with such a weird name.

  Puzzle Bobble is the English name for Bubble Dragon, a puzzle game originally released in 1994 by Taito.

  Perhaps now this is a name that has not been heard for a long time, and few young new players have heard of it. Even the company was acquired by Square Enix at the beginning of the new century, but in the entire history of electronic games, Taito has a very important position.

  This company is one of the oldest active video game companies in the world and a founding member of the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association (JAMMA).

  In February 1967, Taito, Nakamura Manufacturing (Namco), and Sega, which at the time occupied four-fifths of Japan's coin-operated machine market share, founded Nama. This association had a huge influence, covering almost all Japanese game industry giants except for Nichibutsu.

  Taito, like Sega, and the vast majority of video game companies at that time, started from pinball machines. If it weren't for one person's appearance, Taito might have ended up like most electronic game companies, disappearing in the torrent of history, just like over a hundred Japanese game companies at the time whose names are now unknown.

  One day, a young man named Toru Iwatani joined Taito. He was a self-taught TTL logic circuit designer during his university days and had a strong passion for game creation. After joining Taito and especially after seeing Atari's "Pong!", he became thoroughly passionate about creating games. Several sports games he designed based on "Pong!" were highly popular as soon as they were released, even being sold back to the United States, earning a huge profit for Taito.

  If that's the case, there may not be anything worth writing a big book about, but on a certain day in 1978, inspired by Taito's previous game, Tomohiro Nishikado designed an epoch-making electronic game, Space Invaders.

  Maybe with a different name, you'll be more familiar with it. This game is also affectionately known by its loving players as - Little Bee.

  There is an interesting story about this game, as the 100-yen coin used as the game's currency at the time caused a severe shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan. Some people even bought 100-yen coins at twice their face value. Some arcades had rows and rows of nothing but Space Invaders machines, as players ignored other games in favor of it.

  This is a very great game, it directly created the heyday of arcade games, and later Space Invaders was also selected by IGN as one of the fifty milestones in the history of electronic games.

  Nishimura Tomohiro also had his name permanently engraved in history.

  "What! The game is over? It's already over?" Two minutes later, the white man who had just gotten a hang of it was suddenly attracted to the refreshing feeling of the game, and when he saw the "game over" words that suddenly appeared on the screen, his face instantly showed an annoyed expression, and he completely threw away his previous disdain for this game.

  The white man originally wanted to continue trying, but was discovered by the staff that his trial had ended. Seeing him struggling and not wanting to leave, he was finally taken away by the strong security personnel summoned by the staff.

  This time, the somewhat stout white man who came in second rushed to the arcade machine with an arc-shaped mouse operation that he was very interested in when he first came in, which made the other fourteen people look at him in confusion.

  "Treasure Maze", the name sounds like a great game, the last one was fun but had a terrible name...... The white man started playing with the help of the staff, his hand grasping the mouse that looked very comfortable to him, operating quickly, and an incredible expression appeared on his face.

  "This feel is simply unparalleled!"

  A white man was exclaiming as his movements were rapidly moving, continuously clicking on adjacent gems within the screen matrix. He saw the three connected gems he operated on disappear from the screen, and then the gems above fell down to re-form into three connected gems that immediately disappeared again. Then, new gems kept falling down from the top of the matrix, like an avalanche, and a large number of gems were eliminated at the same time.

  Listening to the pleasant sound effects of the gem disappearing, watching the special effects when the gem disappears, this white man's face is full of excited expressions.

  The thrill of this game seems to be much stronger than "Tetris" and "Puzzle Bobble" in the white man's feeling, especially the smoothness of manipulating with the mouse, which makes him unforgettable. He originally had some intention to play again, but it seemed that he thought of something, then he showed his second badge to the staff and walked towards the only game he hadn't touched, "Zuma".

  Players outside the trial hall were even more excited after hearing the accounts of those who came out after the trial.

  Especially when players who are still enthusiastic about the game buy trial number plates with US dollars, starting at $50, the price of $50 can be accepted by everyone, but as more and more people go inside to try out the game, more and more people start spending US dollars to buy number plates that can re-enter the trial hall for trial.

  The prices of these license plates have also risen sharply, with some even reaching nearly $100 at their peak.

  And the three-person camera crew sent by ABC was also stunned, watching all this with wide eyes, and then faithfully recorded it with their own lens. In their eyes, it was simply unthinkable that someone would spend $100 without hesitation just for a few minutes of game time.

  If converted into money, the time they spent inside yesterday afternoon would be enough for them to buy a decent mansion in Los Angeles.

  The white man's face turned red with excitement after playing all three games, and he looked at the three game consoles in front of him with a somewhat excited gaze, as if looking at three golden mountains.

  "I want to see your boss, my name is Adam Edgar, I'm a businessman, I have a big deal that I want to discuss with your boss, it's about these three game consoles!" The man directly walked up to one of the staff members and pulled out a delicate business card from his pocket, handing it over.

  The Mars Entertainment staff member looked at the man who claimed to be Adam Edgar seriously, confirmed that he didn't seem to be joking, took his business card and said "Please wait a moment." After that, he whispered a few words to his colleague, turned around and walked towards the second floor.

  The white man was also standing on one side waiting for the result without any anxiety.

  But even if Jester had received the staff member's report, he might not have had time to see Adam Edgar, who called himself a merchant, as he was meeting a guest who would definitely come earlier than expected.

  Also can help him temporarily solve his production capacity shortage problem guests.

  After meeting him in hell, he expected that the people from this company would definitely come to the door, but unexpectedly, the other party actually dragged on for so long.

  "I've met with President Lee, and below him is Yu Suzuki, who is Sega's representative this time. Originally, President Nakayama was going to send someone to make contact, but as you know, our Sega arcade business completely collapsed in the US last year, so in order to minimize losses, we had no choice but to sell off our American branch. As a result, discussions with headquarters about sending someone over were delayed for a long time, and I'm truly sorry."

  In front of Jester was a young Asian man, with the same yellow skin and black pupils as him. As soon as he saw Jester, he immediately bowed ninety degrees, looking extremely sincere and fearful.

  "Yū Suzuki?" Jest heard the young man's name, and a curious expression involuntarily appeared on his face. He carefully sized up the young man in front of him who was only in his early twenties.

  Is this the future of Sega's soul, Yu Suzuki, who is on par with Shigeru Miyamoto?

  PS: I can only write this much today, not enough words and no votes are sought. Watching Douyu Bai Jie 2's live broadcast delayed time in the evening, and considering my own writing style and the shortcomings of celebrity collection addiction, so I wrote about 4,000 words. Tomorrow will try to make up for it, and from tomorrow on, I'll try to divide chapters. Generally, there won't be any more large chapters like 7,000 or 8,000 words.