"The Internet?.. Then why do you want me to find a gaming publishers then? If you're already planning on using the internet. " Asked Tom with a confused look on his face.
"That because we want as many channels as we can get." Replied Alex in a composed tone. Taking a sip of his tea that he had ordered a habit he and his older brother picked from their father.
The reason why Alex wanted to use the internet was because he wasn't going to limit the sales channels sales channels for their game. Even though many game publishers wouldn't like sharing. With the previous success of the original Castle Wolfenstein. Which only sold about 500 000 copies in its first year of release. Just using the internet alone, image if add in the console market.
As much as Alex wanted to use the internet as away to distribute the game, the internet was still not efficient enough yet. That's why he wanted to make a deal with a physical game publishers to increase his income. He also wanted to use the success of Wolfenstein 3D to recruit as many talented up coming game programmers as possible.
After explaining to Tom what they wanted him to do the three final departed the diner after two hours and what there separated ways.
"Huhhh.. Why did Mr Henry have to give me this assignment Huhh.." Mattered Tom with a sigh to himself as he and never really got into video games. The game he remembers playing in college was Donkey Kong and Street fighter which he only played a few times with little his nephew.
Walking back to the office Tom took out the contract going over it again. Thanking about how he was going to handle this situation as he didn't have enough knowledge of the gaming industry.
He decided to do some research on the topic when he had time. Alex had assured him that there was no rash since the would release the game for the PC market in the main. There was also the fact that they would need to work on ports for the game for different consoles. After a deal was signed between the parties involved in the negotiation.
In the meantime Alex, Michael, Mark and Gary who was Mark's older brother started moving all their computers and other equipment to their new base of operations. Gray, Mark's older brother was the one who had taught both Michael and Mark how to program and design their own video games.
Gray is currently 21 years old this year standing at 1.78 meters tall with short brown hair that was faded on the sides, green eyes thick eyebrows and a long nose. When Gray and Mark's parents got divorced Gray went to live with his father while Mark lived with their mother and younger sister. Gray use to live in Los Angeles and would come and stay with his mother and younger siblings in the holidays.
However, recently Mark's parents had started living together after his father came back after six years. The both of them had never gotten remarried and had maintained a good relationship with one another over the years.
Then about a week ago Gray and his father moved back in with Mark and his mother. Alex didn't know what caused this however, he had seen both of the divorced people going out to for walks together very happily. During the early morning seeming like new couples who start living together and three siblings seem to enjoy the time they could now spend together.
Gray being a very talented game creator also brought Alex great joy at recruiting some with a little more experience to his team. And what's more Gray had been part of a group of aspiring game creator's who unfortunately didn't have much access in the area.
And Gray upon seeing what Alex and the other two had created by themselves deeply shocked Gray. As he then begged Alex's to join their team and asked to also allow him to invite some of his friends to also join.
Alex's happily agreed however, the only problem he had was that he would have to purchase six plane tickets for them and also help them with living expenses to come here.
Which would tighten Alex expenses a bit as he also had to buy additional equipment and computers. And also pay a monthly salary to the new employees which was the reason why they had agreed to join.
Alex had already decided to start working on two new games at the same time 'Mortal Kombat' and 'DOOM'. Once enough people join the team since Castle Wolfenstein was basically in it final stages of development.
The production of Mortal Kombat would have to start a little later since the original 1992 classic used real people to create the game characters and move sets using cameras. Then rendering those images and motion into the game world meaning they would be filming real life since.
Alex would need to get many things ready before starting to work on Mortal Kombat and since Gray and his six other friends who would join them soon. Who didn't have the need to attend school like the three of them did. They could spend more time working on making the games than the three of them did on Wolfenstein 3D.
After spending the a few minutes driving back and forth transporting their equipment to their new base and setting the place up. As well as arranging everything for their game studio first headquarters.
After which the four of them sit down and listen to Gray tell them about the games he had his colleagues made together they used to call themselves Rage Core.
" So that what happened. " Said Alex nodding his head in understanding. Basically what was the games they made didn't do to well and after a string of unsuccessful titles. The group unfortunately had to break up do to this as they were making enough money to keep them a float.
" Yes, but we didn't have a choice it came to a point where we were making more money from our part time job than making video games." Explained Gray with a sad expression they had dream of making it big in the rising game industry by making highly successful games.
However, they didn't release how difficult it was to make a successful game. They had made only one game that could be considered a success but after that things went down hill from there.
In Alex opinion the biggest problem was with skills of the team. But, the lack of an individual who had a good vision and could help lead the team to excited the idea. It doesn't matter who good the concept was if the execution is poor than the it doesn't matter how good the idea is. This is were Alex knowledge came into play here.
As things started moving along quickly the need for capital to stay float would increase. Currently Alex only had about 225 000 US dollars in his personal bank account. The only problem is that he would always have to ask his parents to go with him to withdraw the money from the bank.
He had already expressed to his parents about placing most of this money in a new account for their Gaming studio. Which had taken a lot of convincing his mother and father, well actually his father seemed more willing at his suggestion. Thinking that this could help temper Alex, character and give him a sense of how difficult it is to be a leader.
Alex had also spoken with his parents about his inability to go to unfamiliar places by himself and had started to see a therapist about. His mother harshly scolded him for a full hour when he told them about it. While his father just stood behind her with an angry expression on his face.
However, Alex was confident enough in himself to get over this tromer in the near future. However, if he couldn't leave the house by himself by the time he became a fully fledged adult it would be very troublesome. So his biggest concern was getting over this fear as soon as possible to move forward in the future.
After contemplating over the matter for a bit Alex decided to start doing his homework before his parents got off work. Alex parents had made a rule that their children after getting home from school and getting some rest. They were to do their homework or start working on their assignments before they got home.
As usual after dinner Oliver and Martha would check on weather they did their homework or projects they had to do. Just because they Duke and Alex got A and B in most of their school work didn't mean Martha and Oliver wouldn't check on their work. And if they sensed that the two of them were start to fall behind on their work they would be punished for it.
Well his parents wouldn't beat them with a belt or anything like that as they would simple just take or get rid of anything they thought took too much of their time. Alex had learned that the hard way after he didn't do his homework before their parents got home. After that they locked the door to the basement and put a password on the computer in the living room.
Alex lost two precious weeks of game development time so now he made sure to always complete his school assignments before they got home. However, their were exception like projects and group assignments that took weeks to complete. There parents would just read about their assignments and make sure that they weren't slacking off while others did most off their work.
What was even worse was that Alex's siblings would also be implicated in the matter and would be punished as well. Since Alex's parents believed that as older siblings they also had some responsibility to make sure Alex's did what he had to and be protected by his siblings as the youngest.
Alex had to admit that it was a very intelligent way of punishment as after day Jennifer, Duke and Ashley would always check up on Alex. As they all had agreed among themselves to not allow Alex to work on his personal gaming projects before completing his other responsibilities.
While Alex completed his homework Tom finally got of from work and drove back to his apartment building. Entering his apartment he slumped on his couch stretching his arms and legs after a long day of work. He looked over the contract again and sighed to himself after three minutes.
He than took out the CD that was in the envelope that Alex had given him. Telling him to play the game for himself before looking for video game distributor. After some hesitations for a bit Tom finally decided to play the game and see how it was.
"Yeah! Yeah!... take that you nazi's hahaha..." Shouted Tom excitedly as he killed nazi's in Wolfenstein 3D forgetting his previous hesitation about playing the game. This game wasn't for little kids but, for teenagers and grown adults who still played video games in their spare time.
After 30 minutes the computer screen went black after Tom completed the demo of the game and a title screen appeared shortly after 'Thank you dare gamer for playing Wolfenstein 3D and please purchase the full game to continue playing on Blue Star ink.web.
'This game is developed and produces by Blue Star Interactive and powered by the Unreal Engine.' After the end credit text finally ended Tom snapped out of his excitement and calmed himself down.
Blue Star Interactive was the name Alex finally decided on as he didn't want to name his company after those that appeared in the future. Even though he planned to make all there famous and most profitable game franchise before they did.
Looking at the time Tom quickly want online and tipped in Blue Star Interactive. web and arrived at the web Alex had created with the demo of the game free to download now.
With information about the content of the game and about their game studio Blue Star Interactive. When Tom, Alex and Michael separated Alex had already launch their website online with a demo of Wolfenstein 3D. With the cover art on the front of the website after returning home from the meeting about finding a distributor.
Alex had told Tom about the website he was going to launch when the two boys met with David in his office. The website would become a place where all their new games would be announced and digital purchase by fans.
The main reason why Alex wanted a physical copy of the game to exist, is that many people still didn't have reliable internet connection or any connection to the internet.
Tom decided to start searching for physical video game publishers for Wolfenstein 3D right away. As he flet that this game would be a huge success when officially launched in the future.