Three hundred miles north of Los Angeles is the city of San Jose. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Fifty miles north from the city of San Jose into the San Francisco Bay Area, the main strip of Silicon Valley.

In fact, a little north of San Jose is the southern part of San Francisco Bay, a narrow inland harbor bay formed by Silicon Valley along the east and west coasts until the Golden Gate Strait in San Francisco enters the Pacific Ocean westward, and further north there is a harbor.

This is where Electronic Arts is registered, Sequoia City, about ten miles further south of San Francisco International Airport, just a stone's throw from South San Francisco. The west shore of the Bay Area juts out a section of the Redwood Shore to the opposite side, giving Sequoia City the only deep-water port south of San Francisco, and the Kings Avenue, which runs from San Francisco to San Jose, is also its main northeast-southwest road.

The Electronic Arts building is located at the starting point of the Sequoia Shore District jutting into the bay.

It's easy to find a location, so when Alice rushes to the building in high spirits, she even complains, why doesn't the boss press the company inside the peninsula?

"But isn't it more convenient to get around?"

Slowly parking the Lincoln sedan in the car, Lawrence, who accompanied him, smiled: "And the bay is full of Sequoia City residential areas, if you really arrange the company there, it will be troublesome in terms of business contacts." ”

Alice just snorted.

At this time, the Electronic Arts was only a five-story building, and when Lawrence's Lincoln car stopped, someone was already at the door to greet him.

"Welcome, Mr. Lawrence, and Miss Wang. ”

The greeter, who was in his early thirties, with a big square face and thick black hair, walked straight up from the door of the company and said enthusiastically, "I've been waiting for you for a long time!

"Hello, Mr. Hawkins, I'm here as a venture capital agent. ”

Seeing that Hawkins was the first to shake hands with him, Lawrence hurriedly reminded with a smile: "Be a professional assistant for Alice's investment matters." ”

In this way, Hawkins set his eyes on Alice and was slightly surprised.

When he received the call earlier, Hawkins recognized him before Lawrence could finish his introduction. Roger Lawrence, the owner of DreamWorks Inc., has recently been a name louder than a well-known actor for Hawkins, who loves to watch movies.

The acquisition of Electronic Arts was a bold offer, but Hawkins immediately agreed, at least agreeing to negotiate with the other party, rather than rejecting it outright.

It's not just because the caller is Lawrence, but Hawkins knows very well that the reason why he wants to set up Electronic Arts is just to make a high-quality game. Although the company's current performance is also good, if it can get a high investment from the big guys, so that the company can develop more quickly and produce more high-quality games faster, why not?

So half an hour before Lawrence called to inform him that the car was going to arrive at Electronic Arts headquarters, Hawkins was already waiting in the front lobby. Smoking one cigar after another, he could only make himself more excited, and when Lawrence actually revealed that the investor was the famous director of "Ghost Record", little Alice, his excitement was simply overflowing.

"Oh my God, you're my idol, Alice!"

Hawkins strode forward, clasping Alice's outstretched right hand with both hands: "That "Ghost Record" is really cool! Really! I watched six shows in one breath! Alice in one breath, and then I watched it fifteen times in the whole schedule!"

"Uh...... Belch...... Really?"

"yes, yes, it scares the hell out of me! You don't know, Alice, it's not uncommon for me to play games and not sleep in the middle of the night. As a result, you have a good film, and you specialize in filming some haunted things in the middle of the night after people go to bed!"

With both hands tightly clenched Alice's right hand, Hawkins' mouth couldn't stop as soon as the train started: You don't know, every time I worked in the middle of the night, I had to make the bedroom brightly lit! And I live on the second floor, and I have to turn on the porch light, turn on the living room light on the first floor, and close the bedroom door to work. Otherwise, I'll have to turn around in three seconds!"

"Uh...... Belch...... All right...... I'm honored to ......"

Alice knew that there was absolutely no difficulty in acquiring the business......

After Hawkins had calmed down, the three of them went to his office together. In fact, although this building is large, the work area of the employees is very concentrated, and when they pass through the office area, more than a dozen people in front of several desks, all of whom look at Alice.

"Hey, boss, isn't this Alice?"

"No, the new boss of the company is actually Alice? Haha, Tripp, I said how did you agree to be bought so easily, it turned out to be an idol!"

"It's a good idea for Alice to join! and if she asks us to write the game script, wouldn't it be a hot seller!?"

This was really an unexpected situation for Alice, looking at the surprised look of the sloppy programmers at the dozen or so tables, she smiled dryly: "It seems that I am still a little famous in your company, are you an otaku god?"

It seems that there is such a posture, because there is not a single woman in the room......

Hawkins blushed a little, he is also a thirty-year-old boss anyway, a fan of a middle school girl, this kind of thing knows that it is okay, and if he says it, the shame is a little too high.

"Shut up!"

He shouted, "Do your job!" Lao Tzu is going to talk to Alice about some very important things now, and I will be far away from Lao Tzu's office!"

"Okay boss!"

"you!"

"Hurry up, I'm busy!"

You shout and I shout and everyone shouts together, Alice knows, Electronic Arts is worthy of Electronic Arts, just this kind of relationship between superiors and subordinates, it's strange that you can't make a good game~

As soon as he walked into the CEO's office, Lawrence said, "This kind of working atmosphere is really important for a game company, and it's really unusual that your company can achieve what it is today in four years." ”

Entering the house, Hawkins became modest: "But after all, our scale is still a little small, if we can usher in a high expansion, even if we immediately challenge Nintendo, I will hold me!"

Well, is this modest or show-off?

However, Alice will choose to acquire Electronic Arts at this time, which can be said to be stuck.

Electronic Arts is Tripp Hawkins, a former Apple employee who founded it in 1982 and had only one employee for the first six months, with the original 12 veterans coming together. As for the full development, it was postponed until '84, when Larry Probst, vice president of sales, joined the company. After that, Electronic Arts really developed at a high speed.

So, since it has been developing at a high speed since '84, it will be much more difficult if Alice doesn't take advantage of the acquisition now, but wants to do it later.

That said, as a typical programmer, functionality in Hawkins' office is far more important than comfort. Aside from the necessary guest sofas, there is hardly any frills in the room, but it is on the wall......

"Jurassic Park?"

A large poster is attached to it, and Alice looks at it with a strange expression.

"If it weren't for the technical skills, I would have planned to make it into a game!"

Hawkins said happily: "The plot is like this, after being chased by the rampaging carnivorous dinosaurs, the protagonist has to find a way to escape from the park. But although the idea was good, I couldn't think of how to design it for a while. ”

Alice nodded in agreement: "Judging from the current performance of the host, whether it is a building, a character or a monster, it is just a simple pile of color blocks. This kind of plot idea is equivalent to making a game as an interactive film, which is not something that today's game consoles and home computers can easily support. ”

This is Alice's heartfelt statement, after all, from her point of view, not to mention the eighties, the game graphics in the nineties are all miserable. Think about it, when a person is used to playing all kinds of triple-A masterpieces of the 21st century, and suddenly looks back and faces Super Mario in the 80s, that feeling......

"Interactive Movie?"

However, although it was just Alice's casual remarks, it immediately made Hawkins stand directly in place as if he had fallen into an evil spirit: "The game will ...... Make it like a movie, Alice, is that what you mean!?"

"Any game can have a story, even the simplest snakes, Tetris, etc., if it is cleverly designed, it can unfold a story. ”

The acquisition itself was no longer in suspense, and seeing that the topic was inevitably moving towards discussing the game, Lawrence was naturally happy to be an audience. Serving a cup of coffee, after taking on the duties of the driver, he happily sat down on the sofa and said nothing.

"Think about it, Nintendo's new Super Mario, isn't the ending just to rescue the princess? It's just that the current computer performance is still very poor, and even if there is a plot, it's just a simple subtitle display. ”

Alice, of course, was happy to give Hawkins some inspiration: "But I think you've probably heard of Moore's Law, right? You know, the more a game with a story can stimulate the interest of more players, if we directly based on a movie-like script, appropriately add game operation elements, are we afraid that players will not be addicted?"

To be able to set up a game company and lead it to the top of the world, Hawkins's talent needs no more to say. Listening to Alice's announcement, his eyes immediately lit up. (To be continued.) )