At the beginning of April 1982, the number of employees in the North American New Venture Branch exceeded 100, although most of them were management and marketing personnel, but also formed a research and development team of more than 30 people. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Among them, half of the backbone of the North American R&D team comes from Atari recently laid off employees. Some of them are even veterans of the video game industry with a decade of game development history, and even if they don't write their own programs anymore, their understanding of the game industry alone is a very valuable asset.

It's not that Bushnell helped poach the company, but that the company has gone crazy and is laying off people in the wake of the recent massacre within Atari. In less than a week, at least hundreds of people were laid off, many of them even excellent technicians.

The vast majority of those who have been laid off will easily find a new job in Silicon Valley, after all, Atari is a well-known star company in the United States, and even if the employees are laid off, they are welcomed by the game industry or the computer industry in Silicon Valley.

The reason why the new venture electronics company was able to get more than 10 former Atari employees to defect is because the new venture electronics company recently invested in the restaurant of Nojan Bushnell, this ambiguous news has aroused the reverie of many former Atari employees.

Many former Atari employees are convinced that Bushnell is mostly using the restaurant as a guise, but in fact, most of them are preparing to join forces to bring down Atari. It is precisely because of this that these people are willing to join New Venture Electronics.

John Smith is a former Atari employee who, unlike other colleagues who chose to join the new electronics company after being laid off, was an undercover agent.

Before leaving, Atari President Ray Caesar called him into his office and talked for less than half an hour, after which he became a commercial spy.

"Remember that your wife has a chronic illness and needs tens of thousands of dollars a year in medical bills, and it may be a bit inhumane to lay you off at this time. But, listen ......," Ray Caesar, president of Atari, leaned back in his boss's chair and pulled out a stack of money, "here's a $50,000 deposit, lurking in the new startup electronics company, reporting everything related to Nolan Bushnell, and if you can find out that Bushnell is really developing a game, then you can give a $500,000 reward." If definite evidence, such as audio and video recordings and photographs, can be sued, then $1 million can be awarded...... In addition to Nolan Bushnell's news, other valuable news, such as new ventures and new projects, can also be rewarded according to the value of intelligence. If you don't agree, it doesn't matter, just because I didn't say it, after leaving, you will really be laid off! Of course, you don't want to take this benefit!"

John Smith was a little short of breath: "...... I don't have a choice, do I?!" John Smith, who is nearly 40 years old, is facing financial embarrassment and can only do something dishonorable to get a quick buck.

"Yes, as long as you don't care about money, you have a lot of options!" said Ray Caesar sarcastically.

"I care a lot about money, who doesn't?" said John Smith, who accepted an undercover assignment to become a commercial spy.

Of course, John Smith wasn't the only undercover agent, at least one-fifth of the former Atari employees who were sent to the new electronics company were undercover.

This shows that the current president of Atari is afraid of the rival New Venture Electronics and Nolan Bushnell.

Yes!

Ray Caesar was ostensibly dismissive of Bushnell, but he knew that Bushnell had paved the path for Atari's growth, but the console sales did not meet expectations in a short period of time.

In 79~81 years, the Atari 2600 sold wildly for three consecutive years, which only released the R&D dividend of the Bushnell period.

After Bushnell's departure, Ray Caesar used crowd tactics, hiring a large number of salespeople to convince every distribution channel above the size to sell the Atari 2600 console and game cartridges.

At the same time, the parent company Warner Group, in its controlled CNN, HBO TV network, hundreds of TV channels, constantly bombarded Atari 2600 advertising. The value of these advertisements is difficult to measure in monetary terms, and perhaps the cost of Warner's acquisition of Atari and the cost of product development in the past is not as good as the investment in these advertisements.

This level of advertising support, even if it is a mediocre product, there will be a large number of fools to buy it, not to mention the Atari 2600, which itself has the temperament of a popular model? Therefore, the Atari 2600 host is undoubtedly able to quickly occupy the North American market and be invincible in the global market, becoming a big-selling host with a total sales of nearly 30 million units.

Jobs, a former Atari employee, founded Apple, whose sales of Apple computers during this period were far inferior to the sales performance of his old employer, Atari's home game consoles.

And at the beginning of 82, Atari's old technical capital has almost been eaten up. Players already feel that the Atari 2600's console performance is outdated. During this period of time, some competitors have relied on the performance advantage of the console to eat away at the market share of the Atari 2600, if it weren't for the large scale of Atari users, then the third-party game development companies and channels would have abandoned the Atari company long ago.

It is precisely for this reason that Ray Caesar is afraid of Bushnell, afraid that he will suddenly cooperate with his opponent and come up with a more powerful console, subverting the industry status of the Atari 2600!

……

"The sales performance in the North American market is gratifying, and the orders for the arcade machine "Breaking the Sky" have exceeded 10,000 units. Peter Zhang, CEO of the North American company, took out a gratifying report and said, "In this, the former Atari employees contributed to the list of Atari distributors, and through this list, we have the contact information of most of the game dealers in North America." This information alone saves us a lot of time and effort. ”

Although the investment of the new venture electronics company in the North American branch amounted to 50 million US dollars, which seems to be a lot of money, in fact, it is not a lot of money in San Francisco, USA. A bunch of high-tech companies, even start-ups, are likely to have more money. If you want to make a difference and spread your distribution and after-sales network across North America, this money is not enough.

However, the biggest support of the new parent company for the North American subsidiary is not the investment of $50 million in cash, but the exclusive agency of the company's North American business is completely handed over to the North American branch. This exclusive franchise can contribute far more than $50 million in cash in revenue and profits.

For example, the parent company of the most profitable arcade machine "Breaking the Sky" at the moment gave the North American branch a gross profit of $1,500 per unit. Recently, the North American subsidiary generated a gross profit of $15 million before tax. Even after deducting taxes and paying the company's expenses, there can be a large surplus of funds.

Lin Qi nodded and said, "Very good! The company's sales network in North America is not just an arcade sales network. It also includes handhelds, and it is necessary to spread the distribution network of handheld computers all over the United States, and in addition, to cultivate third-party game developers for handhelds. Third-party game developers are the focus of the business. However, we can't let third-party game developers proliferate, but need to pass our review, a game company with a certain level can become a third party, and before the third-party game is listed, it must pay a deposit of no less than 500,000 US dollars, and the quality of the game must be passed.

"No problem!" Peter Zhang, who was originally the founder of Atari's third-party game development company, certainly understands that those garbage games on the Atari platform cause damage to the interests of most game developers. It is for this reason that Peter Zhang recently sold the company he founded for $2 million and chose to join the new venture electronics company. The fixed annual salary of the management of new start-up electronics companies is not high, for example, Peter Zhang's annual salary is only $50,000, which is a low salary that will be abolished in Silicon Valley. However, New Venture Electronics also gives a lot of incentives to North American companies, such as sales performance and a large performance commission for the management team. In addition, teams with limited performance are also expected to receive equity incentives from subsidiaries or parent companies.

It is for this reason that Peter Zhang is convinced that joining Xinchuang Electronics is more promising than his previous company.