Gallery: 9 Risky Moves That Changed Gaming Forever
01atarisells
Twenty-five years ago, a small company called Nintendo of America took a big risk, launching its Nintendo Entertainment System during Christmas in New York City. Although Nintendo was doing well in Japan, the videogame market in the United States was almost entirely nonexistent. New York City's retailers had been burned the hardest in the Atari crash two years earlier, and stores were loath to stock Nintendo's machine. So, the company rolled the dice, offering to give retailers the Nintendo Entertainment System for free — stores would pay only for the ones that sold. The cutthroat Manhattan market was tough to crack, but [Nintendo's gamble paid off](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1018nintendo-nes-launches/). To mark the anniversary of this winning strategy, Game|Life writers present nine more risky moves that, for good or ill, had profound effects on the companies that undertook them. From uncertain product launches to bold business deals, these were pivotal moments with a lot on the line. Some of these industry players won big, some lost everything, but all were changed forever. We've listed these in chronological order. Vote in the poll below to rate the biggest risks ever taken in gaming. Disagree with our picks? Think we've forgotten something? Add your own choices to the poll. __Above:__ Atari Sells Out --------------- __What happened:__ Atari wanted to launch its revolutionary Video Computer System in 1977, but it didn't have the cash to manufacture it. So [Nolan Bushnell](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wired/archive/13.10/bushnell.html) sold his company to Warner Communications. __Why it was risky:__ Arcade-game king Atari stood poised to rule the nascent home videogame industry. Its only competitors, the Fairchild Channel F and the RCA Studio II, were complete crap. A major cash infusion from Warner could have been just what it needed, but the button-down corporate culture of the massive media conglomerate was likely to clash with the young, pot-smoking Silicon Valley hippies at Atari. __The aftermath:__ Clash they did. By 1978, mercurial entrepreneur Bushnell was out as CEO and business suit Ray Kassar was in. Though he notoriously tangled with Atari's top talent — the company's hostility to creative types caused several of its best designers to quit and form Activision — Kassar turned Warner's redheaded stepchild division into one of the most profitable companies in the world. For a time, that is. By 1983, Atari's antipathy toward quality games had helped to torpedo the console division, and Warner sold it off the next year. *—Chris Kohler* *Image: Wired.com*
02ataripac
Atari Accidentally Signs Pac-Man, Destroys It --------------------------------------------- __What happened:__ An Atari executive went to Japan and, without the permission of his superiors, inked a deal with publisher Namco to make home versions of its games. __Why it was risky:__ Joe Robbins was supposed to meet with Namco in 1978 to discuss the company's current agreement to distribute Atari arcade machines in Japan. But Namco's executives wined and dined him until he agreed to sign a $1 million deal that included the rights to the company's games. "A week later Joe comes back," said former Atari exec Al Alcorn in the pages of The Ultimate History of Video Games. "He's had his picture in the paper, signing this deal with the Japanese and playing with \[Namco President Masaya\] Nakamura on a golf course." Signing the deal nearly cost Robbins his job, said Alcorn. Then, two years later, Namco created [Pac-Man](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2010/05/pac-man-30-years/) and, turns out, Atari has bought the exclusive home rights to the game for a song. __The aftermath:__ In the end, Robbins either had incredible foresight or dumb luck. Pac-Man was the biggest game of its day and Atari made every home version. It didn't all end well, however. Atari took another risk with the 2600 version of Pac-Man, having one designer create the entire thing on a tiny 4K cartridge in just five months. The company was so confident the game would sell that it printed 12 million copies, even though the 2600's install base was only 10 million. Atari sold 7 million copies of Pac-Man, which would have been a huge success were it not for the company's tremendous hubris. *—Chris Kohler* *Image courtesy [The Video Game Museum](http://www.vgmuseum.com/)*
03saturn-flickr
Sega's Surprise Saturn Sale --------------------------- __What happened:__ At its keynote presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1995, Sega announced that its Saturn console, thought to be coming in September, would in fact be available that day. __Why it was risky:__ Sega originally said the Saturn, its 32-bit next-generation machine, would be launched in the United States on Sept. 2, 1995 — a date it was calling Sega Saturn Saturday. The press, retailers and software makers all readied for this date. Sega likely knew that it was forfeiting the ability to really build up hype for Saturnday, but it hoped its surprise announcement — launching Saturn months before PlayStation could make it to retail — would take the wind out of the sails of upstart competitor Sony. __The aftermath:__ Complete disaster. Sega only got Saturn into four retailers, ticking off every retailer that had to wait. (Kay-Bee Toys refused to sell Saturn after the stunt.) The marketing department didn't have time to get would-be buyers excited about titles like Virtua Fighter, and software makers didn't have time to get games ready. Saturn's massively botched launch was the beginning of the end for Sega as a maker of game hardware. *—Chris Kohler* *Photo: [Simon Claassen](http://www.flickr.com/photos/wounded/4444853083/)/Flickr*
04daikatana
John Romero Bets Reputation on Daikatana; Loses ----------------------------------------------- __What happened:__ The outspoken co-creator of Doom spent years hyping up his solo project, Daikatana, going so far as to place ads in videogame magazines that read, "John Romero's Going to Make You His Bitch." __Why it was risky:__ Gamers were equally fascinated and appalled, wondering exactly how Romero would go about making them his bitches. Developer Ion Storm delayed the game again and again, promising that release dates were set in stone, then missing them. If the game did not in fact make anyone Romero's bitch, the designer was not going to come out of this looking very good. __The aftermath:__ And that's precisely what occurred. Far from being the next Doom, Daikatana was one of the biggest flops in history. While Romero was talking up the game, Ion Storm lost more than a hundred employees who quit the Daikatana project over the years. When the game finally shipped in the spring of 2000, it was a [buggy, directionless mess](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/07/37472). Romero's star had fallen and his career never recovered. (Earlier this year, he publicly apologized for the disastrous advertisement.) *—Jason Schreier*
05halflife2
Players Get Steamed Over Half-Life 2 ------------------------------------ __What happened:__ Valve tied its highly anticipated first-person shooter Half-Life 2 to Steam, its then-new platform for online game distribution. __Why it was risky:__ In 2004, Valve's upcoming Half-Life 2 was one of the gaming world's most anticipated new titles. But players were less excited to hear that the game would only run if you first authenticated it through Steam, which the company had released two years earlier. The idea of forcing players to install and run a service as a requirement for playing a game was wildly new at the time, and the company encountered significant fan backlash. __The aftermath:__ The [launch of Half-Life 2](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2004/11/65758) was later considered to be one of the worst of all time. Because of the huge rush to authenticate the software, the servers were clogged and many were unable to play the game until days after release. But Valve was able to overcome these temporary setbacks — six years later, Steam is the predominant platform for digital distribution, with more than 30 million users and a staggeringly large library of games. Estimates place lifetime sales of Half-Life 2 at just under 10 million copies. *—John Mix Meyer* *Image courtesy Valve*
06metroidprime
Nintendo Sends Metroid to Texas ------------------------------- __What happened:__ After leaving its popular Metroid series dormant for seven years, Nintendo said in 2001 that the Japanese game series would be revived by a fledgling American game developer — as a first-person shooter. __Why it was risky:__ Although it was never half as popular as Super Mario or Zelda, the Metroid series of action-exploration games was considered to be one of Nintendo's finest. The idea that the long-awaited next game in the series would come not from its original creators but from Retro Studios — a game developer based in Austin, Texas, that no one had ever heard of and had yet to ship a single game — was preposterous. __The aftermath:__ [Metroid Prime](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2009/03/brief-impressio/) was released in 2002 to overwhelming critical acclaim. Heralded as the perfect translation of fan favorite Super Metroid into 3-D, the game sold millions of copies and spawned two well-received sequels. It didn't feel like Doom with a Metroid skin; it felt like the real thing but with a change in the player's perspective. Retro's next mission is the revival of Donkey Kong Country on Wii next month. *—John Mix Meyer* *Image courtesy Nintendo*
07nintendods
Nintendo Bows Out of High-Tech Horse Race ----------------------------------------- __What happened:__ Nintendo spent decades building game machines with state-of-the-art graphics, but decided to buck the trend with Wii and Nintendo DS, which emphasized new styles of play over cutting-edge chips. __Why it was risky:__ The game industry, Nintendo included, had always been on a single-minded quest for the best possible graphics. Nintendo 64 and GameCube had been even beefier in some respects than Sony's PlayStation and PlayStation 2. But whether Nintendo foresaw that attempting to beat PlayStation 3 was liable to break the bank, or simply realized it wasn't going to get its leadership position back without a radical new direction, the company deliberately went with low-cost, lower-power chips for Nintendo DS and Wii. __The aftermath:__ Unprecedented success. Although everyone expected PSP to crush the Nintendo DS and break Nintendo's stranglehold on the portable gaming biz, it was Sony that got steamrolled. Wii repeated the success of DS two years later, outpacing its rivals. Declining Wii sales might indicate that Nintendo's console could have a shorter shelf life than Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 but, then again, had Nintendo gone ahead with a straightforward console upgrade it would never have regained the No. 1 slot to begin with. *—Chris Kohler* *Image courtesy Nintendo*
08playstation3
Five Hundred Ninety-Nine U.S. Dollars ------------------------------------- __What happened:__ Having conquered no less a competitor than Microsoft, Sony was convinced that its position at the top of the videogame industry was so unshakeable that it loaded up PlayStation 3 with expensive components, sure that customers would line up to buy a $600 game console. __Why it was risky:__ There was no evidence gamers would dig that deep. Expensive videogame machines like 3DO had always been total flops. But PlayStation 3 was the first $500-plus console that came with both a very strong brand name and a band of loyal consumers. Plus, including a Blu-ray player in every box, though expensive up front, could pay off long-term. __The aftermath:__ A (qualified) disaster. PlayStation 3 limped into the marketplace in last place. Sony took it in the shorts at launch, but the console didn't disappear overnight. Then again, Ken Kutaragi, the Sony exec who masterminded the PlayStation 3, did disappear overnight. After a total management overhaul and aggressive price and feature cuts, PlayStation 3 is significantly more viable now — although Sony would surely have preferred not to have been forced to dig itself out of this hole in the first place. *—Chris Kohler* *Image courtesy Sony*
09apb
Crackdown Developer Bets the Farm on MMO ---------------------------------------- __What happened:__ Realtime Worlds, developer of Xbox 360 sleeper hit Crackdown, chose as its next project a massively multiplayer cops-and-criminals game called APB. __Why it was risky:__ Crackdown came out of nowhere to capture the hearts and minds of Xbox gamers, and suddenly everyone was very interested in the next game from the Scottish upstart, which was formed by some of the first creators of Grand Theft Auto. The much-hyped APB promised a Grand Theft Auto-style experience against real players online, but Realtime's gameplay formula was, to say the least, unproven. __The aftermath:__ Perhaps the single biggest disaster of 2010. APB launched full of glitches and without much redeeming gameplay to inspire players to power through them. It quickly became apparent that Realtime really had risked a lot on APB, as the company ran out of money shortly after the release of the game. In a matter of weeks, Realtime was shut down and publisher [Electronic Arts pulled the plug on the game](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2010/09/apb-bites-the-dust/), offering players refunds and other such reparations. Shoulda just made Crackdown 2. *—Chris Kohler* *Image courtesy Realtime Worlds*
