Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 20 The Old Era and the New Era

'San Francisco Video Game Expo?'

Mr. Furber's words caused countless question marks to appear on Ethan's forehead.

Because in his memory, he seemed to have never heard of such a rally?

"Mr. Furber..."

"Call me Frank!"

"Okay Frank." Ethan changed his tone very decisively, "Uh... I don't understand what you mean."

He pursed his lips and said seriously: "Can you explain it to me?"

"Hehe~" Ethan's curiosity made Frank on the other end of the phone laugh.

Although there was no face-to-face communication, Ethan always felt that the guy on the other end of the phone had a smug look on his face?
"I knew you didn't know!"

Frank's laughter entered Ethan's ears. "Actually, I didn't know at first. I even thought it was a scam meeting. But after I asked clearly, I found out that this damn video game exhibition is actually the original arcade trade show!"

"Oh! Sxxt! These guys are so boring! Changing names randomly!"

"When I asked them why they changed the name, they told me that no one has been making traditional arcades in the past two years. Everyone has switched to making video games, so they changed the name of their trade show to keep up with the times. In their words, the video game trade show sounds much more high-end than the arcade trade show!"

After Frank's explanation, Ethan finally understood what the San Francisco Video Game Expo was.

For people living in the 21st century, when the word "arcade" is mentioned, electronic games such as Street Fighter and King of Fighters may come to mind. Even Baidu Encyclopedia defines arcade as an electronic game.

But in fact, before the emergence of electronic games, the concept of arcades already existed in the world. Those machines placed on the streets and alleys that could provide entertainment to people were arcades.

For example, claw machines and coin machines.

Since the arcade industry emerged in an era when communications were underdeveloped, everyone developed in isolation at the beginning.

You sell machines in San Francisco, and I pay protection money to Al Capone in Chicago. We both keep to ourselves and have a bright future.

But after occupying the local market, frictions arose as companies expanded overseas.

then……

These companies are fighting to protect their market share and to encroach on other people's business areas.

In this commercial war, many weaker companies disappeared in the long river of history. Since the claw machines and coin machines they sold at that time did not have any special technical content, they had to reduce prices and promote sales if they wanted to gain market share. Therefore, when many companies found that fighting to the death would only benefit consumers, they immediately tacitly stopped the war.

Then they changed direction and focused on research and development, attempting to crush all competitors through innovation.

When they embarked on the road of winning through research and development, in order to better promote and sell their new machines, related trade fairs were spontaneously organized by these businesses.

Of course, this trade fair also has regional protection. The exhibition covering Illinois is generally held in Chicago, while the exhibition gathered by California is generally held in San Francisco.

These exhibitions have been held since the 1960s, but...

When Nolan Bushnell came out with "Pong" in 1972, traditional arcade manufacturers were pushed to the brink of death by video games overnight.

Therefore, these traditional arcade manufacturers were forced to change their business, but they would naturally not give up their previous channels. So they put on the old-fashioned name of the arcade trade show a glamorous vest of the new era and transformed it into a video game exhibition.

When Mr. Foberle told him this piece of history, Ethan immediately understood why he had no impression of the exhibition.

Because Miluohua never made arcade machines and didn't pay attention to this matter at all, he couldn't collect relevant information from Miluohua.

Electronic games have only been around for a short time, and the popular companies on the market today are all newly created by electronic engineers and have nothing to do with traditional arcade companies.

Therefore, Ethan didn't think about these guys at first.

But now...

Emerging companies are unwilling to cooperate, but traditional companies are eager to enter the market?

"That's an idea."

Ethan's eyes lit up. "When is the exhibition?" he asked.

"Hey! Bro! I knew you'd be interested!"

Mr. Foberle laughed and said, "The day after tomorrow, April 19th, will you come?"

Ethan glanced at the calendar next to the phone. The 19th was Saturday.

"Here, the address."

"Just come to my store and see me." Mr. Foberle was very happy on the other end of the phone. "Then, see you on Saturday."

Just as Mr. Furber was about to happily hang up the phone, Ethan shouted again, "Wait, wait!"

"I want to ask, can you get a booth?"

"Ah huh?" This question was asked to Frank.

The person on the other end of the line suddenly fell silent, as if he was thinking about something, but the sound of him groping around was more like he was taking something out. After a moment, he said, "Milohua Marketing Manager... Ethan Jones..."

When this voice appeared, Ethan immediately slapped his forehead!
He suddenly remembered that when Frank gave him his business card that day, he gave him one in return without thinking!
And that one seemed to be the one he used when he was working at Miluohua!
Sure enough, when Ethan explained to Frank that he had resigned from Milova and that it was just a misunderstanding that day, there was a surprised roar on the other end of the phone.

"What? You've resigned from Milova?"

"Oh! Fuck! Why didn't you tell me earlier!"

"Dxxn! I've already filled out the hazardous chemical sales form!"

'...'

Ethan was stunned for just a second, and then he understood why Mr. Foberle called him!
I guess 99% of the time, people want to know whether their number is real!

So as to avoid involving him in any accident!
'Damn it... I thought he was a good person...' Ethan cursed in his heart.

Ethan truly admired Mr. Foberle's caution.

Considering that this guy really helped, Ethan didn't bother to make a fuss about it.

He responded with a few simple words and then hung up the phone. When he looked at his family again, a smile appeared on his face.

"Looks like we don't have to run around anymore."

Since all the traditional arcade manufacturers in California and nearby areas would gather in San Francisco, Ethan temporarily put aside his plan of promoting the products on the road. On the next day, April 18th, he had a good rest at home. On the morning of the third day, April 19th, he set off directly and rushed towards San Francisco.

After an hour and a half of driving, he arrived at the door of San Francisco Electronic Supply Company at around 7:30. When he knocked on the shutter door, the "clang clang" sound attracted a loud shout -

"coming!"

In less than half a minute, Mr. Foberle, who was always alert, appeared in front of Ethan. After seeing the machine wrapped in oilcloth on the Ford pickup truck, his pupils flashed with relief.

"Is this the game console you were talking about yesterday?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, it's great."

Mr. Furber gave Ethan a thumbs up and said, "Brother, have you had breakfast?"

"What do you think?" Ethan tilted his head slightly and pointed at the sky covered with haze.

"Hahaha~ So I made an extra sandwich and fried an extra egg this morning."

Mr. Foberle smiled and made way for him. "Come in, brother."

Note: ① There are three eras of arcade machines. The earliest one is the mechanical era, which is pure mechanical game machines and the real charm of engineering, which can be traced back to 1920. The next era is the circuit board era, and the charm of circuits was brought by Nolan Bushnell. The third era is the microcomputer era, and its representative point is that arcade machines use CPUs. So the statement on Baidu Encyclopedia that arcade machines were officially born in 1971 has certain limitations, as it abandons the mechanical era. And now, there are still alive, and there are arcade machines that have been made since the mechanical era, such as Sega.

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(End of this chapter)