"Gu, in that case, there's no need to talk about it?Okay, you can't afford the 12% license fee, so don't blame us Atari for developing our own side-scrolling shooter arcade game, and then transplanting our own first-party games to home consoles!

We'll only delay the cycle for three months at most, and we won't lose anything. You should know that at present, Atari has an absolute dominant position in the home machine market! 80% of the global home machine sales and 94% of the sales in the US market are Atari's.

When the time comes, don't expect to rely on Earth Defender and MapleStory to make a penny cartridge profit in the home console market! And don't think that by refusing to cooperate, you will be able to maintain high sales and high odds of arcade machines. You can make three more months of money at most, and then you will be completely blocked!"

Dardanelle was obviously very unhappy, seeing that cooperation was no longer possible, and he did not hesitate to threaten with harsh words.

"In that case, then I will not accompany you. I still say the same thing, we at Tiankun Entertainment will never allow the sale of defective products that damage the user experience in order to make money! If you want a copy, you can copy it, anyway, our IP cannot be tarnished! Send off guests!"

Gu Biao drove Dardanelle away in a-for-tat manner.

Perhaps some spectators who don't know the environment at the time will feel unbelievable after witnessing this scene: how could the negotiator sent by Atari be so uncultivated and angry when he was slightly provoked, just like the rich second-generation businessman on Xiaobaiwen.

But in fact, Atari in 1981 was indeed arrogant to this point.

Otherwise, it would not have been fulfilled that "God must first mad man if he wants to destroy him."

Throughout 1981, the total sales of the home game console market in the United States amounted to more than $2 billion, and more than 80% of it was completed by Atari.

Among them, the Atari 2600 home game console sold more than 3 million units at a shipment price of 200~300 US dollars, with a total sales of more than 900 million US dollars.

In addition, the sales of game console cartridges were $1.5 billion.

At its peak in 1982, total sales reached $3.2 billion, including $1.1 billion for game consoles, $4 million for annual sales, and $2.1 billion for game cartridges.

(Note: The reason why Atari only accounts for 80% of the sales of the entire home game market is because only game consoles are sold by almost all Atari, but there are many manufacturers of game cartridges that do it.) So these third-party cassette dealers account for about one-third of cassette sales. ）

In contrast, Gu Biao's Tiankun Entertainment sells electronic arcade machines, and it can barely achieve sales of "10,000 units a month" in the first three months. In the future, after Atari and other "friends" follow up and fully compete, Gu Biao estimates that there will be three or four thousand units left every month, and the sales will be very good.

Throughout 1981, even if Shi Yuzhu and Han Ting worked hard, Gu Biao estimated that Tiankun Entertainment could ship 6~80,000 game consoles in the North American market, which was already very good, and the market would be halved.

With the price of more than $1,000 for a Motorola 68,000 CPU model and less than $1,000 for a Z80 CPU model, Tiankun Entertainment's annual global sales are more than $100 million, which is definitely less than 200 million.

Therefore, a company with annual sales of more than 2 billion US dollars, in front of a company with annual sales of only more than 100 million US dollars, arrogantly, it is indeed capital.

Dardanelle was not at all afraid that any of his insolent remarks would be filmed.

I don't think there's anything wrong with my remarks that "consumers are fart, and Lao Tzu Atari lets consumers play, they have to play".

Because at that time, Atari did not regard consumers as human beings, and it did reach a peak - since there was only this home game console in the world, consumers had no choice, so why should they respect players?

It is the same for any company that has a monopoly to be a big shopkeeper. For example, Didi, which climbed up in the subsidy war in later generations, finally acquired a bunch of opponents, and immediately intensified its efforts against passengers and drivers.

In 1981~1982, there was even such a joke in the American game console market: even if Atari registered a third-party cassette manufacturer, and then stuffed a brick into the cassette shell, it could sell for 50 dollars. Even if the consumer takes it back and finds that he has been deceived and the content of the game does not match the advertisement, there will be no way to appeal.

In the end, the "ET Aliens" incident on Christmas Day in 82 was just a fuse for a general outbreak, in fact, the American people dared not speak out against the entire home machine industry, and they had been brewing for a long time.

……

After throwing a face at the Atari side, Gu Biao had nothing else to deal with in San Francisco for the time being, so he hurried back to Watson to study.

In the three weeks since, there has been nothing new to recount.

As soon as Gu Biao returned to Watsonton, he only prepared for a weekend, and first participated in a presentation hosted by Professor Kissinger, and his academic performance was not bad.

Then, it was two weeks of serious study and thesis. During this period, Gu Biao only had time at night every day, called to learn about the progress of the business, and by the way, remotely commanded the point, and devoted all the rest of his energy to his studies.

He knew that he did not grasp the situation on the front line, so he made decisions very cautiously and tried to delegate power to the people below.

At the beginning of March, it was the turn of the next round of the regular presentation, which was also the end of the mid-term paper.

When Gu Biao returned from Iraq, Kissinger assigned him a big summary. The three periodic reports in the past month or so were all used to show the step-by-step progress of this review topic. Now, it's finally time to officially find a journal to publish.

With Kissinger as his mentor, Gu Biao's dissertation is naturally where he wants to vote. The two major journals in the field of international relations, International Security and World Politics, which have the highest global influence factor, are almost open to accepting manuscripts.

I didn't change it even slightly, and it just passed. The editor later called Kissinger back, saying that it would be visible in the journal next month — of course, the editor did not call specifically for Gu's paper.

If that were the case, he should have called Gu Biao himself, not Kissinger to answer the phone.

In fact, it was the doctoral students of Kissinger who submitted three papers in this issue. In addition to Gu Biao, there are two other articles that have also passed, one of which needs to be repaired and the other is passed directly.

That's why the editor's phone call came to Kissinger's office — it meant "we can take as much as you bring out the papers."

Knowing the news afterwards, Gu Biao also felt that it was not challenging.

It seems that in terms of academics, this level of hard work is enough.

Then, he gradually formed a tacit understanding with his mentor: every month, Gu Biao was allowed to take about ten days of vacation.

Every time, just after the report last weekend and the next stage of the project, he started to work as a trapeze. Then come back after taking care of personal matters and make another report, and stay for two weeks to complete the paper.

……

On this day, it was already March 7th. Gu Biao has just received a reply letter (forwarded by Kissinger) for the adoption of the paper.

At the same time, he also heard that Cameron's side just shut down "Terminator" last weekend and has entered the editing and post-production special effects process.

Shi Yuzhu, on his part, also negotiated the broadcast contract of the "long-term commercial" with several national street TV stations owned by Fox and paid a deposit. Just wait for the "TV shopping" promotional film to be filmed, and it will be officially released.

Each of these is a big deal, and Gu Biao felt that it was necessary to deal with emergencies in person, so he planned to fly to California.

However, Shi Yuzhu reported a situation on the phone, which made Gu Biao change his mind.

"Boss, tomorrow the promotional film crew will fly to New York. We've booked five of the best performing arcades in New York City and New Jersey for round-the-clock filming, and arcade owners are touting the profitability of our two consoles.

If you have time and want to sit in person, you can start with New York Station. As for Watsengton, we won't go, the market is too small. In addition, Applejack is currently idle because the crew has been disbanded, and he will go to New York to meet you, and he will follow you for the rest of the time. ”

"Okay, then I'll go to New York tomorrow. Gu Biao hung up the phone, and then re-got the ticket and hotel through his personal assistant with his Amex card. and informed Shi Yuzhu and the person in charge of on-site filming of his itinerary.

In 1981, Yuntong did not open a platinum card or even a centurion card (black gold card) such as high-end VIP business, only an ordinary "gold card".

However, even if it is an ordinary Amex Gold Card, it is still very convenient to call the secretary of Amex to help deal with air tickets and hotels. It's nothing more than the fact that there is no later top-level club access service, or even one-on-one 24-hour private custom secretary.

Today's ordinary gold card, about you have tens of millions of dollars in assets, and you are a doctor from a top university, you can do it. With the mentor's signboard, even if he is a Chinese, Gu Xiao is no problem, so he took the time to do it last month.

He didn't expect to rely on a credit card to pretend to be forced, he didn't need it. It's like the top boss will never use "I wear a pair of socks for 100 pounds" to pretend to be forced, a reason.

After a night without words, Gu Biao appeared in New York early the next morning.

He first went to the hotel he had booked to check in, and then he was ready to wait for the film crew's car to pick him up and go to the game hall where he was going to interview.

However, when he was taking a break in the hotel, an uninvited guest came to the door.

"Bang bang bang. There was a sharp knock on the door.

"Who? I didn't call any service, why didn't you call?" Gu Biao, out of instinctive vigilance, did not rush to open the door, but first drank and asked a few words.

Then he walked over to the cat's eye and peeked out the door.

A low voice came from outside the door: "It's me, it's me." I don't have any work to do, can I continue to make documentaries with you!"

Gu Biao looked at the figure that was thin and distorted because of the cat's eyes, and finally recognized it as Princess Tiffany.

Gu Biao opened the door: "Why are you here?"

Princess Tiffany flashed in suddenly: "James's side is over, I heard that Lee and Arnold have left with your documentary crew, you can't leave me alone! Give me some work, as long as "The Terminator" is released." ”

"Does Princess Kelly know you're here?"

"Yes. ”

"I'm going to shoot for commercial promotion, which is equivalent to advertising, and I don't think Her Royal Highness the Princess will allow a princess to appear in an advertisement, which is a shame for the royal family. I'll call Princess Kelly to confirm the situation and tell me your mother's contact information. ”

"Oh no, I took you as a friend, and you betrayed me! I won't tell you. ”

Gu Biao ignored the other party's pungency: "Then I have to ask the professor for a phone number - I think President Li Gen will have it there." ”

"You devil! I'll tell you! But I'll ignore you!"