When it comes to Christmas in 1982, it is a nightmare memory for many people.

At Ray Caesar's urging, Atari finally spent seven weeks making and launching the "Atari 2600 version" of Star Wars.

In the eyes of Ray Caesar and the Atari employees, this may be the last chance to save Atari.

The overwhelming publicity, the "Star Wars" gimmick has indeed attracted a lot of players, and many parents deliberately chose this cassette as a Christmas gift for their children during the Christmas season.

The Star Wars game version eventually sold 1.5 million units during the 1982 Christmas slot......

In other words: the game version of Star Wars ruined millions of American children this year's Christmas.

Atari overestimated the sales of its game cartridges - this time Atari made four million cassettes ......

As for the quality of the Star Wars game version...... It's a mockery of human civilization: if you call a low-quality game from a third-party game development company that just wants to make money a landmine, then it's not an exaggeration to call Star Wars a nuclear bomb.

It turns out that before "Star Wars", consumers were still lucky to think, "If the overall quality of games developed by third-party developers is relatively poor, then there will always be no major problems with games from Atari's own first-party studios, right?" ”

Unfortunately, on the contrary, Atari completely destroyed all American confidence in Atari with the Star Wars game version.

Even the major American media outlets have a surprisingly unanimous evaluation of "Star Wars":

"Star Wars Game Edition has the most terrifying art, the most inexplicable setting, and the most unbearable sound in the world...... And the worst part is that no matter how you control it, you will have to spend most of your time in the game tormented by bugs.

Millions of gamers are feeling the frenzy this Christmas. ”

And there is one thing that has become the focus of everyone's attention: "Why can Caesar alone make an intriguing, high-quality classic mini-game in two or three hours?"

And Atari organized a studio of dozens of people and did such a black Christmas in seven weeks? ”

The media, gamers, and non-gaming audiences all can't help but ask, "Why is there such a big gap?" ”

Is Caesar too capable, or are the other game makers led by Atari too careless? This is no longer known.

Atari began the layoffs......

Although the pace of destruction has changed somewhat, and the game that caused Black Christmas has changed from "ET" to "Star Wars" in the previous life, as in the previous life, Christmas Day '82 was always the beginning of the collapse of Atari.

After the New Year's Eve of '83, Caesar was still paying attention to this matter.

Why?

Because Caesar began to absorb Atari's employees when they laid off employees, he was surprised to find that in addition to those who were interested in making Zuò games, other hardware and program employees had been divided among Intel, IBM and Microsoft with high salaries.

Caesar slapped his head in hindsight, no wonder when he contacted the other party's employees in advance, those employees' answers were all ambiguous, it turned out to be a waiting price and selling?

Of course, no matter how much Caesar competes with these companies, it can be regarded as an indirect good deed.

At least none of the people who were laid off one after another by Atari were unemployed, some flew to Seattle, and some went out to turn left, anyway, they went out of the Atari gate one by one, and ran straight down the house with their bags.

By May '83, when the filming of "Angels in the World" began, Atari had fired about 2,000 people.

According to the financial report, Atari lost a total of $540 million from January '81 to May '83.

Atari's warehouse is full of game cartridges and consoles that can't be sold...... No one buys these backlogs even if they are cleared at ultra-low prices, and Atari has to pay high warehouse management fees for these garbage.

Ray Caesar, who had long since resigned, has been decadent at home for two months.

Today on a whim, he drank beer and ate last night's cold pizza, turned on the TV and looked at it, and went to the MTV game channel. As a result, a sip of beer squirted on the TV screen.

Atari officially announced that it will crush five million boxes of various unsalable game cartridges, two and a half million boxes of Star Wars game cartridges, and some other unsellable consoles or other goods, and send them to the Alamogordo Landfill in New Mexico for complete destruction as waste.

On the TV screen, the camera of the reporter can be seen that forklifts are loading entire boxes of "Atari garbage" into several giant muck trucks through the guò elevator.

Ray Caesar's tears finally welled up uncontrollably in his eyes at that moment, blurring his vision and immediately wiping it away with his sleeve, and he wanted to look at the Atari product twice, because it might be the last picture.

However, the tears burst like a bank to block the vision and feelings.

He could only cry silently, waiting for the screen to let tears continue to pour out, and his mouth kept pouring wine.

Knock knock knock......

Listening to the footsteps, it seemed that before Ray Caesar could open the door, the knocker had already entered.

"Unwilling?" When Caesar noticed that Mr. Ray was too decadent to lock the door, he walked slowly through the door to the cheap apartment.

If there is one person in this world who can make Ray Kaiser recognize who it is even by just listening to the sound, and even if it is carbonized, he can make Ray Kaisa recognize a few pieces, it must be Kaiser von Lawrence Lee.

Ray didn't turn around, he didn't want his opponent to see him in tears. Just as he was about to use some position to secretly wipe away his tears, he heard Caesar Lee laugh.

"What? Still want to secretly wipe away tears? The company that I have been fighting for for half my life has come to an end, and I can't cry twice? Who can laugh at you for what? ”

How could Mr. Lei bear this when he heard this, he turned around angrily despite the tears in his eyes being seen by the enemy. But when he saw Caesar Lee's sincere and gentle smile, he was stunned.

"Put away your crocodile tears, I'm really busy, I don't have time to run to admire my opponent's embarrassment."

"You know, I've never seen you or Atari as a rival.

It's not about humiliating you, it's about the fact that Atari was doomed from the day the 2600 was first released, and it's not something you or anyone else can avoid.

You have a little bit of responsibility for the end of Atari where it is today, but the main reason is the limitations of the times. ”

In a few words, Mr. Ray's interest was aroused by Caesar, he no longer cared about face, and after sitting down, he wiped away his tears with his sleeve in front of Caesar, and put on a deaf look.

Seeing this scene, Caesar smiled even more warmly.

"The 2600 made a fatal mistake when it first came out, and you didn't even take over as CEO at that time.

Remember? For the market share of the console, 2600 is a completely open platform, no threshold, no audit, whoever wants to make games on it can do it. ”

"At that time, it was a decision made by the elders of Atari after collective discussion, and now they can't find anyone who is responsible for it."

"When you found out that my playbox is a fully enclosed platform, you must have noticed something wrong, right?" Caesar turned around and turned off the TV, then stood in front of the TV to talk to Mr. Ray.

Faced with Caesar's question, Mr. Ray thought for a moment and nodded.

"You figured out the problem, but you didn't know what was wrong at first...... When it is completely understood, it is no longer possible to sue a third party or close the 2600 platform. ”

In fact, no one but the Creator could save Atari at this time.

I've simulated what I would do if I were in your position...... In the end, I sadly discovered that the only way I could do it was to have a phlebotomy or a broken arm to survive. ”

"It was completely discontinued, and it was announced that Atari was recalling the 2600, and then re-launched a closed console platform, and the new console had to be backward compatible with the best games in the 2600.

All third parties must be vetted before they can be released. Mr. Lei suddenly took over the conversation excitedly and said loudly.

Then he immediately withered, "I also remembered this method after I was forced to resign, but unfortunately, what's the use of mentioning this now?" ”

"Of course it works. You can think of this method, which shows that it is not that you are not level enough, but that you are blinded by the dark curtain of the times.

After all, Atari is a pioneer, and since he is one step ahead, the price he needs to pay is more than half the chance of stepping on thunder.

Regardless of the industry, the danger of pioneers is far greater than that of those who come after them, and even more dangerous is that once they step on it, the chance of survival is less than half.

Eventually, the Pioneer's ghost becomes the experience of the Latecomer...... This is the game world that Atari pioneered. ”

"Would you like to come to my latecomer's company to continue this business? Right now. ”

[Ask for a collection, shameless for a recommendation ticket! ] 】