May 25, 1990
Lunch with Lance today, and a meeting with Ann Kronen about Prince 2. She’s not willing to commit to a sequel until Prince proves itself in the IBM marketplace – i.e., until its trajectory makes it clear that it will sell at least 100,000 units.
I reminded her that I’m going to NYU in the fall, so if I don’t do it this summer, I won’t be free to start until next June at the earliest. This left her unmoved.
Lance, meanwhile, assured me that he’ll do it… in his spare time if necessary.
Everyone is unhappy. Product managers are leaving in droves. Broderbund is going down the sink. Doug is travelling.
Prince just got a rave review from the largest entertainment magazine in France, Tilt (“the great Jordan Mechner, author of the unforgettable Karateka“… gotta love the French), which nobody at Broderbund will even bother to have translated to find out what it says. Tomi had to translate it for me.
It also got a good response at a “focus group” test Don Panek and Alan Weiss ran at the Northgate mall yesterday afternoon. I dropped in and watched the kids play it through a one-way mirror. All the kids said that if it were available on Nintendo, it would be one of the top two or three cartridges on their shopping lists.
But I’m more worried than ever that despite the incredibly enthusiastic reactions from the few people who’ve seen it, this game will sink without a splash. People at Broderbund don’t know what they’ve got. And I don’t see what more I can do that I haven’t already done.
I sure hope NYU lets me in. I don’t want to spend another minute here.
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I really wished as a kid growing up with Prince of Persia before playing Mario or Duck Hunt on Nintendo that more of my friends knew about it. Alas I wish Borderbound advertised this a lot because it would have become as popular as Mario is for Nintendo. Also I really see your frustration and I can really relate with on how things occurred with me during my high school through my university years. Thank you for sharing?
I was playing PoP years after its release on PC (I never got much far w/o cheats). All of my friends know this game, it is extremely well-known classics here in Czech Republic
I played it few days ago with my friends, it is still quite hard to finish. We ended in level 9 so far. Of course, I am more adventure gamer than arcade fan, but I played Jazz Jackrabbit, Captain Claw, Rayman and Eartworm Jim, and of course Mario and Prehistorik, and Prince is really special (not to mention he is the only real human being among these animal and funny “human” characters).