Atari: Game Over Page #5

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So,

back in the early '80s,

movie licenses for

video games were just

starting to come into vogue.

And I think Raiders

was the first one.

So they needed someone to

do Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I think what happened was,

Yar's was very successful,

and so they wanted

me to do a big game.

And then it was up to Spielberg.

So when I went down

and met with Spielberg,

and if Spielberg would

have said, you know,

I don't think he's really

right for the game,

they would have

sent someone else.

Can Indiana Jones

escape from the forces of evil?

In Atari's Raiders of the

Lost Ark adventure game.

What was the

reception to the Raiders

of the Lost Ark game?

It was another million seller.

Raiders was huge.

I mean, I can honestly say

I'm the only programmer

in the history of Atari

where every one of my games

that was released

was a million seller.

The word meteoric comes to mind.

And now,

Steven Spielberg brings us

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.

Spielberg says, well, you know,

my pictures, they open slow.

And they build, and they

hold, and da da da da da.

And I just looked at him,

and I didn't know anything.

I said, not this one.

It was E.T.

I said, it's going to open huge

and it's going to stay huge.

OK, the movie comes out.

It's a huge hit.

And we want to do

the cartridge of it.

OK?

You know, every time you try

to take some kind of a property

and move it into another medium

for a pure profit motive,

you get trouble.

Specifically, with respect to

games, you know, it's like,

oh you know, like,

let's go see if we can

exploit this movie as a game.

You know, maybe we

could make extra money

out of a profitable franchise.

Now, there was a negotiation

going on between the Atari

people, and the

people at Universal,

about what we're going to pay.

And Steve Ross, who was the

CEO from Warner, got in,

and for whatever the reasons, he

agrees to a deal that is so off

the chart nobody believes it.

But he does it.

N was $20 to $30 million,

it was some crazy number.

Steve Ross basically was trying

to woo Steven Spielberg to come

to work for Warner,

because he recognized

that Spielberg was a genius.

And that all plays

into this story.

Well, we acquired

the rights to E.T.,

and it was... we had to have

the game out for Christmas.

And that's a problem.

One afternoon, I'm sitting in

my office, and a call comes in.

And It's Ray Kassar.

And he's calling from Monterey.

So I take the call, and Ray

Kassar comes on the phone,

and he says,

Howard, can

you do E.T. in five weeks?

And I said, yes I can.

And he goes...

OK.

In two days, I want you to be

at San Jose Executive Airport.

There'll be a Learjet

waiting for you.

Be on that jet.

Be ready to propose

the game to Spielberg.

During that meeting, when I

flew down on a Learjet to go

meet Spielberg and

present the game to him.

Even though I only

had five weeks,

I still wanted to innovate.

So I proposed a 3D

world that the game

was going to take place on.

And the huge scope what

I was trying to achieve,

it walks that line between

really trying to make something

happen and venturing

into the impossible,

and walking off a cliff.

The emotionality of

the game was supposed

to come out through

the interaction

with the characters.

You have the FBI agent who's

interested in what you have.

That's why the FBI

agent just steals

stuff that you were holding.

You have the scientist who's

interested in who you are.

The scientist actually

carries you back to the city,

because they want to study you.

And Elliott comes

in to save you.

There's times when

you can call Elliott,

and he will help you out.

And so, those are

the kind of things

that I had that I thought

created, possibly,

some sentiment.

And at one point, Spielberg

says to me, he goes, you know,

couldn't you do something

more like Pac-Man?

No, Steven, we need to

do a game that's fresh.

We need to do something that's

really worthy of this movie.

It's not how simple you can

make a complicated game.

It's how complicated

a game can you

make subject to the constraint

of easy learnability.

My job is to produce

a cartridge that

is going to sell for Atari.

A typical VCS game at the

time took five or six months.

And this is going

to be in five weeks.

You might think, no, nobody

can do a game in five weeks.

Like most people in the

department would think.

But I don't think that way.

I think, yeah, I can do that.

The word hubris comes to mind.

I mean, whatever it is I

might have been full of,

I was overflowing

with it at that point.

Because if the game can't

make the Christmas market,

the game is a total waste.

They're going miss their window.

So that was the big thing.

It was the $22 million

bet that you could turn

the game around in that time.

I had a development

station moved into my home,

so I could be basically working

on this game almost 24 hours.

We found that there was a

good probability of success.

We took a coin operated game and

just ported it over to a game

that we could play on the VCS.

E.T. didn't have that.

Hello?

Is somebody out there?

E.T. video game?

Wow.

It's

the video game that

lets you pretend you're E.T.

OK.

So the game's done.

And one of the

conditions I asked for

was that Steven

Spielberg is the one

who approves the final game.

So Steven Spielberg

played the final game

and approved it for release.

Howard, who is a

certifiable genius,

went off and, about,

a number of weeks

later came back with a

concept and a game plan.

I was amazed at how difficult

it was, yet at the same time

how much fun it was to play.

I've seen the final game.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's my favorite.

Of course I'm biased,

I made the movie.

Steven

Spielberg thought it was OK,

so I thought, all right,

I'm good with that.

And... not that I'm

blaming him for anything.

No, of course not.

But...

But it's his fault.

The video game that

lets you help E.T. get home

just in time for Christmas.

After E.T. was released,

there was a great

sense of relief

that we'd actually

made the schedule.

And everything was good.

And then the game

went out into market,

and it was very high

on the billboard list.

And again, things were good.

I got E.T., I think

it was Christmas of 1982,

if I remember correctly.

And I thought it

was like... I was

to be the guy on the street who

had E.T. before everybody else.

Turns out everybody I knew

got E.T. that Christmas.

After a while,

people start going by

me in the halls... people

from other buildings, people

from marketing, and management.

And they're saying things like,

you know, you know something,

Howard, you did a great job.

We don't blame you.

That was really

something, what you did.

You really came

through for us there,

and we don't want you to

think we think anything else.

This really isn't about you.

Don't feel bad.

It's OK, it's cool.

And I'm thinking, like, what

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