CH16 - Exidy

The next day.

Ethan once again drove the Ford F-150 borrowed from Thomas (Uncle), with the Snake game console wrapped in an oilcloth, speeding towards Sunnyvale, 23 miles away.

In the future, this city would be a renowned part of Silicon Valley, but for now, the only well-known establishment here was a massage parlor.

Of course, Ethan wasn't here to visit a massage parlour. After wandering the streets of Sunnyvale and receiving directions from a kind lady, he finally stopped in front of a fenced factory building. A sign on the spiked gate read "Exidy" in red letters on a white background.

He honked the horn, and a white man in work attire emerged from the factory. Upon seeing the expensive Ford pickup, he jogged over and inquired, "Sir, may I ask whom you're looking for?"

"I'm looking for Pete Kaufman," Ethan said, removing his sunglasses.

The handsome face, reminiscent of Tom Cruise, made the white man pause. He then said, "Sir, I'm Pete Kaufman."

He continued, "Are you, Ethan Jones? The Ethan Jones who called me yesterday?"

"Yeah, Pete, I'm Ethan."

Ethan confidently patted the steering wheel, extended his right thumb, pointing to the back of the car, and said, "I've brought the machine I introduced to you over the phone yesterday."

"Ah, great! Ethan, welcome to our Exidy game company."

Pete Kaufman nodded quickly, opened the iron gate, and gestured for Ethan to park wherever.

Indeed, Ethan's purpose for coming today was to seek collaboration with Exidy, a coin-operated game console manufacturer.

This decision was based on the information he had gathered in the past two months about the current state of the electronic gaming industry.

The gaming industry has a fascinating history.

Although the world's first electronic game was born in a laboratory in 1947, it wasn't until 1960, with the introduction of the first commercially available mini-computer, the PDP-1, that electronic games moved from scientific laboratories to institutions of higher learning.

Even though creative MIT students developed "Spacewar" the following year, and in 1971, the world's first text-based game, "The Oregon Trail," was created at the University of Minnesota, these games produced in over a decade were limited to universities and never successfully commercialized.

The common reason was the high cost of computers.

Scientists believed that electronic games born from computers couldn't become popular when computer prices were prohibitively high. Students in universities also thought that people wouldn't be able to experience this novelty in the short term.

However, in the same year "The Oregon Trail" was released, a man named Nolan Bushnell felt that electronic games didn't need the computer as a medium. The game feedback could be achieved using basic physical technology, and everyone else was heading down a dead-end!

So in 1962, inspired by the MIT students' "Spacewar," Nolan Bushnell created the electronic arcade version using the simplest physical technology, naming it "Computer Space." This was the world's first officially commercialized electronic game.

But "Computer Space" failed for the same reason as when Jack Ma Yun criticized Alipay engineers:

"Many researchers always like to design products according to their own thinking, completely disregarding the feelings of ordinary people. They always think that segmentation is the best, but they don't realize that segmentation only brings visual confusion to ordinary people. Users want simplicity."

"Computer Space" was a cumbersome product, and the game created by the pride of the company owner was incomprehensible to ordinary people.

But no worries because the next year, in 1972, Nolan Bushnell attended the launch event of Magnavox Odyssey and saw a simple game: Pong.

Since Magnavox priced the Odyssey at $100, an unaffordable cost for American consumers in 1972, Nolan Bushnell, with his coin-operated arcade, offered the experience of electronic games for just 25 cents per play.

Thus, he decisively copied the Pong game and placed it in bars, and Countless people heard the legendary story.

Low prices plus novelty made Atari soar! Nolan Bushnell successfully opened the door to the gaming industry!

Although Nolan Bushnell's act of copying is a fact, he is still the father of electronic games because he smashed the high threshold of computers while others were contemplating how to get the masses to play electronic games on computers.

This unconventional approach left other engineers speechless.

Nolan Bushnell's actions immediately attracted countless imitators. In just two years, coin-operated arcade games dominated the entrances of bars, pool halls, and bowling alleys across America.

Because the most challenging part of promoting the industry had already been done by these game manufacturers, when Ethan decided to step into the field of electronic games, he abandoned the idea of personally visiting and selling door-to-door.

Firstly, it was due to the insufficient purchasing power of the masses.

Since the prices of electronic arcade games were too high, when merchants equipped arcades for a thousand or even twelve hundred dollars each in the past year or two, they undoubtedly aimed to earn unlimited profits with limited costs, not to phase out arcades in a short time.

At this point, even Atari dared only to offer motherboard replacement services to promote new games. They would take away merchants' old arcades, replace them with new game boards, and bring them back, achieving game renovation at the cost of just one motherboard.

When even Atari didn't dare to mention phasing out, Ethan certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to seek trouble.

Secondly, Ethan remembered a saying from his finance teacher during his previous life: "Make money early when risks are bearable. If you don't make money early, you'll be impoverished for three generations."

In Ethan's view, to make money in this industry, to make big money, he had to erase the time spent on groundwork and directly collaborate with arcade game manufacturers who already had intimate connections with the market, selling products through existing channels!

If you had no reputation, you had to offer discounts!

And once you gain fame, why worry about money?

Therefore, before leaving Magnavox, Ethan directly copied the list of all arcade game manufacturers collected by his former employer.

Exidy was the closest arcade game manufacturer to Ethan's home in Los Gatos, founded in 1973. They were now a game machine supplier for many bars and pool halls in the San Francisco area.

As Ethan drove in, several white men rushed out of the warehouse upon hearing the commotion.

Upon learning that Ethan was here to sell electronic games, everyone present showed strong enthusiasm.

"Ethan! Glad you chose us!"

One middle-aged white man, wearing suspenders and a bowler hat, shook hands with Ethan, then clapped his hands and shouted to the others, "Boys, move quickly, unload the game console from Ethan's car!"

Ethan found the heightened enthusiasm a bit strange, and Pete Kaufman, standing beside him, introduced with a smile, "This is my partner, Samuel Hoyt. Ethan, to be honest, if your machine is as great as you say, I think we have a chance to cooperate. After all, people are getting bored with the games on the market now."

Ethan understood Pete Kaufman's words.

Although Atari had already unleashed the storm of electronic games in 1972, so far, there hadn't been a truly original game developed by merchants themselves. Everyone was copying from one another.

The reason was simple: when outstanding works came from students in universities without a clear copyright owner, the world's easiest way to make money—copying—would naturally be instinctively used by everyone.

And when everyone began to copy, the homogenization of games played by consumers became very severe.

Initially, people might play due to interest, but later, all arcade manufacturers had to face the fact of self-development.

It was because Ethan understood this point that he decided to get involved in the electronic gaming industry.

TL Note:

Exidy: Famous for "Death Race," an extremely violent racing game where players drive cars to hit people. Its intense violence led to coverage in The New York Times and influenced the creation of "Mad Max" and "Road Rash."

The 1975 gaming environment mentioned in the text is true. Nolan Bushnell himself joked about it, saying he copied Magnavox's Pong, and others copied his "Pong." The market environment at that time was indeed absurd.