Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 220: Limitations of the Times

It will be very common for video games to have plots in the future. In other words, if a game has no plot, it would be like a bird without wings, a monkey no longer stealing peaches, and Little John no longer telling the story of Tongliao. At first glance, everything is wrong.

But in this day and age, abandoning the plot is the norm.

It's not that the engineers' technology is not up to standard and they can't write a popular game plot; nor is it that the software and hardware manufacturers are too lame to allow designers to present a complete game story to players. It's simply because the "new" thing like storage chips is too expensive!

When the consumption capacity of the general public cannot keep up with the development of technology, castration, castration and re-castration are the only things designers can do. This is the helplessness of designers and also the limitation of the times.

Since this is an obstacle that cannot be avoided, then Ethan...

Just accept it.

However, after he expressed his thoughts, the worry on Evelin's face not only did not dissipate, but she shook her head with a wry smile, sighed, and said, "I have thought about cutting the plot, and I have even done it, but this idea is not feasible."

The girl flipped through the manuscripts in front of her, picked up the one containing the plot, and said, "After cutting out the plot, the size of this game is still 64KB, which is no problem to make into a cartridge, but the cost of purchasing the memory chip alone is eighty dollars. When the production cost of a game is so high, how much should it be sold for? One hundred and fifty dollars? One hundred and twenty dollars? Or one hundred dollars?"

"Even if we don't make money from these games, people still can't afford them!"

"After cutting out the plot, 64KB is still too large. We have to compress the game content again! Only when it reaches 40KB can the cost of this cartridge be controllable!"

"When the game size is 40KB, based on the retail price given by the storage manufacturer, the manufacturing cost of the cartridge for this game will be twenty dollars. In this case, when it is released together with the home console, we can continue to make a profit because the production cost we have reserved for the game is twenty-one dollars."

"Snake can be solved with 1KB of storage, and Minesweeper only consumes 4KB of storage without random maps. These storage technologies are very mature. If we purchase them jointly with Apple, the price will be even lower than ordinary people can imagine. They can reserve at least $ of production space for the Alien game. If we use Intel's storage, then our expected profit per machine should be around $. If we don't use Intel's storage, then we should be able to reduce costs by % and guarantee a profit of $."

"That is to say, 40KB is the maximum size of this game. If it is any bigger, all we can do is watch it lose money!"

Evelin’s tone was very serious.

This fact also made Ethan ponder.

Although it is a consensus in the electronic game industry that selling machines at a loss in the future is a must, those who can really burn money to sell machines are all wealthy. For example, when Microsoft was burning money on XBox, they already had two cash cows in their hands: office suites and operating systems; the same is true for Sony, which is fighting a console war with them. Before promoting PS, they had already made a lot of money in the field of consumer electronics.

But even so, they felt very painful, and Ethan...

To be honest, Ethan dares to spend money, but the speed at which the Destiny Game makes money cannot keep up with the current speed of burning money.

When the price of memory chips remained high, even if he had 100 million in cash, they couldn't hold on for too long. As for maintaining business by releasing new games? Ethan had countless ideas in his mind anyway? This idea was great, but the problem was the same. When the price of memory chips could not be lowered, the more excellent games were copied, the more losses they would suffer.

After all, this is 1978.

Not 1983.

The gap of nearly five years allowed Ethan to trample on all friendly companies at will, but at the same time...

Hardware costs will also give him a headache.

Therefore, what Evelyn said about continuing to compress became the only option.

In this way...

"Then we can only cut levels."

Ethan looked serious as he flipped through his sister's manuscript. After he found the level production diagram and the related production size, he made a decisive decision -

“The first level must be retained because it is the protagonist’s first battle after arriving on the alien planet. We must create a visible alien world for the players.”

"All the card-breaking designs in the second level were cut, firstly because the gameplay of this level is similar to Star Wars, and secondly because the upward shooting while moving left and right also takes up too much space."

“The downward exploration in the third level will be retained, but all the cutscene effects will be deleted. It will just be a black screen with the map. No more text effects like ‘you are going down’, ‘you feel a cold wind’, ‘you smell a foul odor’ or elevator sounds.”

"The card for the fourth level has also been deleted. This thing was originally a carbon copy of the second level."

"The cave in the fifth level is preserved. It is necessary for the player's encounter with the Alien."

"The pursuit in the sixth level is also retained."

"The final battle of the seventh level is also left behind."

"Oh, by the way, if you can, it's best to keep the opening story."

When Ethan transformed into a yellow leather jacket and wielded the machete with clear thinking, his precise knife skills ruthlessly split the designed game into pieces. The original seven levels and fourteen minutes of game process instantly became only five levels and nine minutes.

According to Evelyn's rough calculations, a 40KB storage chip should be able to take it down.

Compared to the games of later generations that took two hundred hours to complete, the progress of the "Alien Contra" that Ethan got at this moment was indeed a bit short, but...

Concentration is the essence!
In Ethan's opinion, such drastic changes were actually normal. After all, when he was making plans in his previous life, the most common thing he encountered was adjusting the plans according to the current situation. However, Evelyn was a little sad.

Staring at the draft plan that she had been working on for more than a year, she blew her nose.

The tiny sound made Ethan raise his head and asked with a smile: "Are you sad?"

"No."

"Nonsense, you're about to cry."

This joke made Evelin raise her head and try hard not to look at her own work.

The sad look also made Ethan sigh, he could understand his sister's feelings.

These things that were cut off were made by Evelyn at a great cost and she had put a lot of effort into them. More importantly, the reason for their being cut off was not because of production failure, but because the general public could not afford them.

It is hard to accept that you have to bear all the consequences even though you have done nothing wrong.

"Oh Evelyn, this is my fault." Ethan took the blame. "If I hadn't made a mistake in designing the game, none of these problems would have happened."

"It's my fault. I apologize."

Ethan raised his hands in surrender.

Evelyn ignored him.

After a stalemate with no response, Ethan changed his attitude and said, "Oh Evelyn, don't worry. Although I made some cuts to the game, those deleted contents can still be seen by players. Your efforts will not be in vain."

Evelyn stopped looking up at the sky after hearing this. When she gave Ethan a look of surprise, Ethan continued, "It's just like you made multiple versions for our home consoles. We can also make multiple versions for video games."

"Next, the game that will be released with the console is called 'Basic Edition'."

"That's five levels and nine minutes."

"In the future, we will release a 'complete version', which will be seven levels and fourteen minutes long."

"We can release it when memory chips are cheap, and we can also release it in arcades." "This way, players can see the original appearance of the entire game."

This plan made Evelin's eyes light up.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something.

But before she could express her surprise, Ethan spoke even faster and continued, "After the full version is released, we can also release a 'collector's edition' in a few years. We will organize the hand-drawn maps we made when designing the game and your design manuscripts when making the game, bind them into a book and sell them together with the game."

“Let the players see our hard work.”

"In a few years, for example, when the game is five or ten years old, we can make a commemorative edition with the game's production process, such as how painful it was for me to design the game, and how reluctant you were to make the game. We don't want to cut the complete game, but Intel is a fool..."

"If people still have a good impression of this game at that time, we can make a 'remastered version' based on the technology at that time, give the whole game a big upgrade, and then make a two-player mode to let those players who like the game recharge their faith!"

Ethan couldn't control his mouth as he spoke, because this kind of cutting leeks - ugh! It's so cool to think about becoming a family with the players!
As he spoke, Evelyn, who was still a little sad, went from surprise to astonishment to confusion in just one minute. When Ethan stopped with an unsatisfied look, there was only shock on her face.

"Oh - Ethan - you really are a genius! A genius in business!"

The girl raised her eyebrows and commented loudly.

"Oh - thanks for the compliment."

Ethan rubbed his hands and accepted it with pleasure.

And when he wanted to say something, Evelin had already pulled her face down, “Get lost!”

"Hey." Knowing that he was doomed to fail, Ethan did not hesitate and went out happily.

The two entered the house when it was dark. When they came out again, the east of Palo Alto was already turning pale. Although it was already daybreak, they had no intention of going to work. They simply washed up and began to rest.

After they woke up, they filled their stomachs with some food, and Evelyn went straight into the study to delete levels, while Ethan disassembled the consumer version of the console and designed its appearance.

Although Ethan had never studied design in his previous life, he had seen pigs run, and he knew that the square box that Evelyn had made for the consumer version of the console lacked industrial aesthetics, so he drew on the excellent ideas of his previous life and made a diagonal cut on the button panel side of the box.

Suddenly, Sony's classic PS4 trapezoidal design appeared on the sketch.

This design has two advantages. First, Evelyn has placed all the function keys of the entire console on the same surface. Modifying only this surface will not affect the function of the machine and will also allow players to see the design of the entire machine at a glance. Second, the original flat interface will affect players when taking the cartridge. When the cut surface appears, users will have a point of force when changing games.

In addition, Ethan also referred to the design of Nintendo's classic console FC and made card slots on the left and right sides of the console so that players can place the handles instead of scattering them around.

Although Evelyn was busy modifying the game every day and had no time to take care of him, making the shell for the console was something Ethan could do very well. After all, he had made the shell of the "Snake" arcade machine with his own hands when he was very poor, and he also made the shell of the "Pac-Man" with his own hands.

He may have slacked off in the past two years, but craftsmanship is something that is best restored.

Just as Ethan was working hard for his future, the summer of 1978 quietly passed away. With the arrival of September 1st, Paramount, which had been depressed for several months, held a new product launch conference and showed off its two games - "Star Trek" and "Jack the Ripper".

The game "Star Trek" is similar to "Star Wars", but the gameplay is slightly different. The gameplay of "Star Wars" is to shoot planes, while the gameplay of "Star Trek" is to avoid meteorites.

Like "Star Wars", the spaceship controlled by the player can only move horizontally left and right at the bottom of the game, and the endless starry sky above the screen will constantly spit out meteorites.

If the player's spaceship is hit, they will lose a life. When all three lives are gone, Game Over will appear on the game screen.

If it were just that, then this game can only be described as garbage. This kind of crude plagiarism is unlikely to have a market. Therefore, in Paramount's design, in addition to avoiding meteorites, players also need to help spaceships drifting in outer space.

Those spaceships will appear from the top of the screen together with the meteorites. When the player controls the spaceship to touch them, he can save the lives on them and get ten points.

At the same time, the player's spaceship fleet will also grow.

For example, if a player saves three spaceships, the player control area at the bottom of the game will show four spaceships aligned in pairs. This change in size will make it more difficult for players to avoid meteorites. However, Paramount's engineers also left a way out for players.

Every once in a while, the rescued spaceship will leave after being repaired, fundamentally achieving the goal that video games cannot put players in a situation where they are bound to die.

“Wow, this is an interesting design.”

Ethan, who was watching the press conference, gave his own evaluation.

"If you want to score points, you have to accept the increase in the difficulty of the game. If you want the game to continue indefinitely, you have to endure the pain of not getting any points."

“The engineers at Paramount have ideas.”

"good."

Although the background of this game is similar to "Star Wars" and the gameplay is very similar to "Skyfall", how can artistic creation avoid fusion of ideas?
The act of copying but not copying completely is called plagiarism.

After introducing "Star Trek", Paramount brought out "Jack the Ripper". Perhaps it was because this name was notorious in history, or it may be that this guy was already associated with killing, so Paramount designed the game of this theme into a competitive game.

In a map full of bunkers similar to Pac-Man, the player's character, Jack the Ripper, will appear at the bottom of the map, and he needs to cross the entire map to reach the exit on the other side.

In this process, players need to avoid the police scattered on the map. Once Jack the Ripper controlled by the player and the police face each other, that is, appear in the same space without cover, the opponent will chase the player. As for the way to escape, there are two ways...

The first is to use coquettish movements to avoid the patrolling police. The police have four states: one is the front profile, which means he is looking down; one is the side profile, which means he is looking to the left; one is the back profile, which means he is looking up. When their judgment states are so clear, players with a God's perspective will definitely be able to show off;
The second is to attack the police directly and shoot them.

Yes, this game can kill people.

As long as you press the confirmation button on the arcade machine, the sound of biu will bring out a bullet. Although this process has a visible delay, in the case of a sneak attack, the first shot will definitely hit the target.

However, once the player chooses to kill, the police on the entire map will instantly change their mode from fixed-point patrols to pursuit upon hearing the sound, and they will also shoot and kill the criminals.

Of course, this hunt will only last for one map.

After the player passes the level, everything will be restored to its original state.

When Ethan saw this, he immediately smacked his lips.

To be honest, he thinks the inspiration for the game "Jack the Ripper" is pretty good.

The idea of ​​combining maze and shooting is really interesting. Like MGM's "Tom and Jerry", they are both products that are carefully designed and produced.

"It's really true that the creative industry cannot be monopolized."

Ethan cursed and asked the bald-headed Ballmer to pay more attention to Paramount's sales trends.

However, just when Ethan estimated that the "Jack the Ripper" arcade machine would be able to sell at least 10,000 units and that their Destiny game had a strong competitor again, Paramount's arcade machines had only been on sale for a few days when a big news made the front page of the New York Times.

[The New York Police Association issued a statement saying that "Jack the Ripper" is a disgusting video game! Paramount is trying to spread their dirty ideas to every corner of America! ]

Note: ① Regarding what is written in the article, the behavior that users can get games when they buy a console is strongly influenced by the times. In our era, you cannot get free games when you buy a game console like the Xbox One, Xbox One, or Xbox One. That's because game consoles have been promoted for many years and have a very stable target group. In those days, all console manufacturers gave away games. The world's first home console, Magnus Odyssey, gave away games, Atari also gave away games, and even the extremely stingy Nintendo gave away games. This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of FC. In July, The Guardian wrote a special report on the 40th anniversary of FC, which mentioned that Nintendo gave away games such as "Donkey Kong" and "Duck Hunt" to players for free when promoting the machine. Under the guidance of Arakawa Minoru, they even gave away 600,000 copies of "Mario" in North America. Giving away games is a must for marketing the home console product when it was pioneering. I didn't write it wrong.

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(End of this chapter)