Five days later, on January 17.

I don't know what means Edmund Perry used and what kind of over-the-counter PY trading he played.

Howard, the programmer responsible for the accident at Atari, actually agreed to apologize in the public media to the families of the two mentally ill out-of-control customer service who were indirectly killed by his malicious game.

On January 13, before Yardfarmer Howard agreed to apologize, the families of the two deceased had filed a lawsuit against Morris Consulting Services (the labor dispatch company that outsourced customer service to Atari) and Atari in the District Court in San Francisco, California.

Considering that it takes a day or two for the court to make a decision on acceptance, and it also takes time for the defendant to be served, the case will officially start the judicial process around January 17.

Of course, the grounds for the accusation are lack of labor protection, illegal excessive overtime, and lack of mental health monitoring and protection for employees.

scolded two lives to commit suicide by jumping off a building, how can you have to pay more than $10 million for one life. (Low prices in the 80s)

The media also began to report on relevant objective events, and occasionally commented on the content of the law -- the conscientious, modest, and cold media only objectively reported on the death itself;

In later generations, the judicial system in the United States still strictly controlled public opinion, requiring all media not to make any legal evaluation of unfinished cases, or to guide the public to believe certain evidence that has not yet been cross-examined.

The main purpose of this is to prevent "popular trials" from hindering judicial independence.

However, all this was not strictly enforced until the "Simpson Wife Murder Case" in 1994, because it was through this case that Americans realized the unprofessional interference of public opinion in justice. Before 94, it was still relatively casual, and the media would not be more serious about the court if they said a few more words.

However, because of the existence of "video games", in the United States in 1982, it was still relatively niche after all, and the Americans who played games were only 5%~10% of the total population. So more than ninety percent of the public don't care about the scandals and gossip of game companies.

Ordinary TV reported for a day, but there was no response, so I didn't follow up on the report. The newspapers also generally mentioned one, and then it may have been stuffed with a small red envelope by Atari and accepted it when it was good.

Only a few industry magazines similar to China's "Popular Software" and "Computer World" in later generations chose to continue to follow up and report.

As of Jan. 17, fewer than 10 million U.S. citizens had noticed what had happened at Atari, and 1.5 million of them had bought the game and were eager to spray it. The remaining 200 million Americans, it doesn't matter at all.

The situation, on this evening, took a major turn.

……

On the night of January 17, Atlanta, the core city of the southern United States and the capital of Georgia.

CNN TV Headquarters.

CNN boss Ted Turner, for the sake of Gu Biao's support for the show last year, chose to pay off Gu Biao's favor today.

On the 8 p.m. "Larry King Live" program, the gold medal host Larry King will interview a coder who has just been fired from Atari Corporation, that is, that Howard.

When the time came, the lights in the studio came on, and next to Larry King, who was wearing denim bib pants, a raunchy bearded and curly-haired man appeared.

The scumbag doesn't seem to be very good at words, he is a tech nerd, and Larry King has changed his aggressiveness when interviewing public figures in the past, and has given more patience and guidance.

This opening made the audience in front of the TV very curious, because they had never seen such a technician take the initiative to go on TV and be dug by the host with iron teeth and copper teeth.

Larry King: "Mr. Howard, can you tell us who you are?" ”

"I used to be an engineer in the game cartridge development department at Atari for 5 years. Last year, I made the best-selling game in the company. ”

Howard was not fast, but when he talked about his former pride, his speed of speech became a little higher and faster, which seemed very unfeeling, and at the same time gave the audience the impression that "this is an honest man".

Larry King immediately grasped the element of the question: "You just said 'used to be'? Does that mean you're not now? Have you been fired? Or have you resigned?"

Howard looked guilty: "It was indeed fired." But let me be clear that I have no complaints about being fired. The game "ET Aliens" cost a huge amount of money to introduce, and I had the mentality of breaking the jar and breaking it, and I let it cause losses to the company, and of course I was fired at my own fault.

However, I still have to repent of my impulse today, I did not expect that my deliberate disgusting of consumers would have such a counterproductive effect that would result in the loss of two innocent lives - the families of Mark Payne and Linda Connor, if you are in front of the TV, please accept my apology. ”

Howard said, standing up and bowing to the camera.

Because it was very hot in the studio, when he was on the show, he was still wearing a long-sleeved plaid cotton shirt on the upper body, and the lower half of his body was just shorts.

If you finish recording the show while sitting, you won't be able to shoot the shorts. But he planned to stand up and bow, and all the leg hair on his thighs was captured by the camera.

I don't know how many viewers are snickering and complaining in front of the TV: ", this should be a 'broadcast accident', I don't know if the host of CNN will be deducted from the bonus!"

But then, most viewers who didn't know about the previous scandal immediately attracted their attention to the keyword "two lost lives".

The host Larry King also gave the right guidance: "Can you tell me more about it?"

Howard said bitterly, "I don't regret the very fact that I have ruined the company's commercial interests. Doesn't the company always feel that 'profits are created by marketing, not technology', then I will let them see what happens if technology does not create profits, and I have a clear conscience. Anyway, I've already paid the price of not wanting the year-end bonus, overtime pay, and being willing to be fired.

However, I didn't expect that in the era of electronic media, a broken jar and broken product could attract such a big wave of consumer complaints. The statistics I heard afterwards were that the two outsourced customer service colleagues I still don't know had an average of more than 10,000 abusive calls in three weeks, an average of 50 or 16 hours a day.

I think a new media company should face up to the ways and difficulties in dealing with consumer opinions, rather than just a blanket of them. In the past, we didn't pay attention to this industry because there were few letters from readers who praised it, only letters from readers who were bait. Including developers, they regard the large number of insults as a complication of the large number of shipments, and even become complacent about it, and now that they reflect on it, they really regret it. ”

Larry King rubbed his chin and thought, "I don't know much about the video game industry, do you mean, in the video game industry, players who have fun rarely interact with companies and praise them? They only criticize? That's really different from TV stations, newspapers, magazines." Many of the letters from readers in the print media are praise, and the hotlines of TV stations are more benign interactions. ”

Even Larry King noticed this on the show.

The reason why the "customer service" of TV and newspapers are not sprayed is that many times it is because TV is free to watch, even if it is a monthly subscription, you have a lot of channels to choose from, and if you don't like to watch it, you can change the channel. The same is true for print media, unless the quality of a column changes drastically, it will always attract people who like the subject and style.

Just like the book review area of the later online article, although there are trolls, they are not all trolls, and there are more normal people.

However, Atari's current model has reached $40~60 for a cassette, and you don't even know what the game is like until you buy it back and take it apart. This leads to a very serious problem of trolls, and the crisis of trust in the industry always erupts.

After a moment of in-depth discussion, Larry King came to a rough conclusion, and then concluded: "So, should we assume that the current transaction model and lack of credibility in the video game industry are causing the rampant anger?"

Can we call on the relevant authorities to strengthen the review of the content of sales and reduce rampant money fraud? Who will protect the rights and interests of consumers in the field of video game software, and even the rights of customer service practitioners?

After 30 minutes of high-concentration ideological dialogue, the program ended. The 9.8 million TV viewers continued the discussion.

CNN's audience hotline was once again blown up. It's just that this time, the hotline customer service ladies are all concerned, and they feel that they have endless energy when they answer the phone.

Although there were many people who called, they were a little more polite than usual.

Everyone was infected by the news of customer service suicide, and for the first time, there was a reflection on things like "online violence", although the "Internet" does not yet exist, only the offline phone groups of game lovers exist.

……

Two weeks after the end of the TV program, relevant industry associations and regulators in the United States issued some urgent speeches, calling for the regulation of consumer rights feedback channels in related industries.

The condemnation of Atari was also very loud.

Originally, it was expected that Atari's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" would sell 20,000 units nationwide in the week of January 10-16 (5,000 on Monday and Tuesday), but the final result was only 13,000 units.

In the week that began on the 17th, it fell to the point where no more than a few hundred units were sold every day in the United States.

The rate of fame on the street accelerated several times in an instant.

On January 21, Atari shares ceased trading on the NASDAQ market.

In fact, the stock price has been falling for three weeks before the cessation of trading, with an average daily decline of 2%~3% in the first week, which does not seem obvious, like a normal adjustment. In the week of January 10th, the daily decline expanded to 5%~7%, and after the 17th to the last 4 trading days before the suspension of trading, it fell by 10%~20% per day.

In other words, the day before trading stopped, Atari's market value had fallen by three-quarters compared to the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

On the day the stock ceased trading, Atari also announced a bombshell news: the company laid off 1,700 employees and downsized its business lines.

All the giants of the consumer electronics industry, seeing this scene, exclaimed that it was too sudden.

An industry overlord that announced its annual sales of $3 billion a month ago has collapsed.

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