Chapter 45

David Rosen's eyes were drawn to a true full-screen shooting game, not a simple shooting game like Space Invaders, where the player could only move left and right at the bottom of the screen. The game, titled *Tank Battalion*, had very refined graphics, making *Samurai* and *Hunting Africa* look crude and inferior in comparison.

David Rosen quietly stood aside and watched for over ten minutes. Whether it was the graphics, sound, or the game's playability, this new game from an unknown company far surpassed his *Samurai* and *Hunting Africa*.

This conclusion shocked and disheartened him. The scene of *Space Invaders* dominating the market two years ago flashed through his mind, making him feel a bit intimidated. No, he had to do everything possible to prevent the emergence of another Taito. So, David Rosen asked Takaaki Nakayama to investigate the background of this new Japanese company.

"Have you talked to them? Can we get the licensing rights for these two games?" David Rosen asked Takaaki Nakayama, who had just returned from the neighboring booth, with some urgency.

"I didn't meet the company's owner, but the person in charge of their booth clearly refused me!" Takaaki Nakayama said with a gloomy expression.

"When did this Japanese company appear? Have you heard of it in Japan before?" David Rosen asked his business partner.

"They are not Japanese, but a Hong Kong company!" Takaaki Nakayama shook his head and said.

"What did you say, a Hong Kong company?"

David Rosen had always assumed that the group of black-haired, yellow-skinned Asians must be Japanese. Could there be game companies in other Asian countries? At least he had never heard of them before.

While the two Sega bosses were feeling disheartened, another person was also in a bad mood. George Thomas, the newly appointed director of the game creation department at Atari, was under the new CEO Ray Kassar. Unlike Sega, which focused on the arcade market, Atari's core business was home video game consoles.

The Atari 2600 game console was the most popular gift that American parents gave their children this past Christmas. Like Sega, Atari had also recently undergone a management change. In 1976, Atari's founder, Nolan Bushnell, sold the company to Warner for $26 million. After a three-year transition, the conflicts between Bushnell and Warner finally came to a head.

At the end of last year, the Warner board of directors finally decided to kick Bushnell out of Atari and appointed Ray Kassar as the new CEO. The departure of the founder also led to the resignation of several company veterans. George Thomas was appointed as the head of Atari's game department under these circumstances.

The success of a video game console depends not only on whether its design meets the players' needs but also on the quantity and quality of the accompanying game cartridges. Compared to the two Sega bosses who were more interested in *Tank Battalion*, George Thomas immediately noticed another game—*Hong Kong Blocks*.

George Thomas did not think *Tank Battalion* was bad; on the contrary, he believed it was a classic game. However, for the home video game console platform, *Hong Kong Blocks* was more suitable.

This was a simple yet addictive game that could make people lose track of time. More importantly, with his years of experience in the video game industry, Thomas keenly noticed another detail.

*Hong Kong Blocks* was not a game that relied on combat and shooting to excite boys. The game appealed not only to the current largest group of console owners—boys—but also to girls.

According to the professional market research company hired by Atari, parents bought video game consoles for their sons much more often than for their daughters. If *Hong Kong Blocks* could be ported to the Atari 2600, would countless girls also fall in love with Atari's console?

The thought of this possibility made Thomas's heart race. He could almost see his boss giving him a promotion and a raise. Excitedly, he approached the person in charge of Oriental Electronics to discuss the possibility of licensing the two games, but reality gave him a cold shower.

Li Xuan refused without hesitation. It was a joke; how could Li Xuan possibly give away the licensing rights to *Hong Kong Blocks*? This small game would later sell over 125 million copies worldwide, appearing on handheld devices, video game consoles, computers, mobile phones, and PDAs.

While some were in a bad mood, others were in a good mood.

Wayne Rooney from the UK was now very happy. He was a journalist for an electronic game magazine. Well, the small magazine called CVG, where he had just been hired, had only been established for less than a month and hadn't even issued its first issue.

Originally, Rooney had come to San Francisco for a vacation, but he heard about the Western Electronic Show and decided to check it out. With his press pass, Rooney easily obtained a ticket to the exhibition.

When he wandered to the game exhibition area, he noticed a booth that was particularly crowded. With the keen sense of a journalist, he immediately rushed over. There, he indeed found the news he was looking for—two never-before-seen but incredibly fun games that he couldn't bear to leave the arcade for.

It wasn't until the people behind him got impatient and forcibly pushed him away that he remembered his identity as a journalist. Besides playing games, it was more important to gather news material. He felt that with these two great games, he could write a groundbreaking article for the magazine's first issue. So, Rooney found the Oriental Electronics booth attendant and, after showing his press pass, was led to Li Xuan.

When Li Xuan heard the name Wayne Rooney, he thought of the bald, chubby player from Manchester United. Do all people named Rooney look sturdy? Putting aside these random thoughts, Li Xuan carefully examined the business card Mr. Rooney handed him, which read "Journalist, CVG Magazine, UK."

The full name of CVG, printed in parentheses after the initials, was "Computer and Video Games," which roughly translates to "电脑和影像游戏" in Chinese. In Li Xuan's memory, the UK had never produced any notable works in the arcade or computer game fields, but it was surprising to see a professional game magazine so early. The development of the media industry in London was indeed well-deserved.

In Li Xuan's memory, there was a magazine in China called *Home Computer and Games* that he had read in arcades when he was young. He hadn't paid much attention to foreign game magazines.

However, he quickly refocused on answering the journalist's questions. Who came up with the ideas for *Tank Battalion* and *Hong Kong Blocks*? Why these ideas? Are there any stories behind them?

Li Xuan felt that the most frequent thing he had done since his rebirth was making up stories. He couldn't tell the journalist that he was reborn and had played these games before, so he had his team copy them.

So, he said that he liked playing with building blocks as a child, but his family was poor, and his parents couldn't afford to buy him toys. So, he used to draw puzzle pieces with a pencil and play with them. After starting university, he began to use computers and suddenly thought it would be interesting to turn his childhood drawings into computer programs.

A very inspiring story was thus fabricated by Li Xuan. As for *Tank Battalion*, he found it easier to explain, saying he was inspired by shooting games like *Space Invaders* and combined them with real tank battles.

While Li Xuan seriously answered the questions from the journalist, who seemed more like a game enthusiast, he also considered whether it was time to develop the European market.

In fact, the European market was second only to the American market. If developed, the sales would definitely be larger than the Japanese market. However, with many European countries, each with its own language, the difficulty of market development would undoubtedly increase.

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