June 20, 1990
Just found out something interesting from Alan Weiss. He says SunSoft is interested in licensing Prince for up to four formats (NES, GameBoy, and in Japan NEC and Genesis). But they’ve been told to wait while Broderbund New Ventures considers doing it themselves.
This puts things in a new light. If you look at the bottom line (as opposed to what strategically benefits New Ventures), both Broderbund and I would actually make out better if they take the SunSoft deal.
In a continuing effort to gather meaningless statistics about my own life, I figured out that I’ve spent about 3,800 hours, or the equivalent of two years’ honest work, on Prince of Persia over the past four years.
July 3, 1990
Prince sold 500 units last month on the IBM, 38 on the Apple. That’s about as dead as can be.
July 6, 1990
Charles Milne called to say this year’s NYU class is overfull and there is nothing he could do for me even if he wanted to. So that’s that.
July 15, 1990
Broderbund Picnic Friday. Corey showed up for it. Six years since my first one.
Robert submitted D-Generation to both Broderbund and EA. EA called him almost immediately and said it was “really hot.” Way to go ‘Bert!
It’s agonizing watching Prince fight for life.
I can’t walk through the halls at Broderbund without getting congratulated by people from QA and Tech Support I’ve never met before, telling me what a great game it is. Denis Friedman says it’s getting great press in France. I even got a call at home from some kids in Columbus, Ohio, who were stuck on level 12. But when are stores going to start stocking it? When are people going to start buying it? AAARGHH!
I don’t care if Prince does die. I’ll bounce back. Sure, I could use the money, and it would be nice to be vindicated for the last four years of work; but I’m young. Most people my age have no savings at all and have never had a success like Karateka – or even In the Dark, such as it was. And some of them are going to become successful screenwriters and directors. So I have just as good a chance as they do. *sigh*
Failure really does weigh on the heart. Even the shadow of failure weighs, a little bit.
I hadn’t realized how spoiled I was by Karateka’s success. If I’m going to survive as a filmmaker over the long haul, I’d better learn to deal with failure a lot better than this. Maybe I need to care less about commercial success and concentrate more on fulfilling my own artistic goals. Spending a year hanging out with impoverished intellectuals in NY might be a good thing.
July 18, 1990
Dinner with Tomi and Florence in Mill Valley. Florence thinks Prince is going to be a big hit in Europe. And some rather startling news (from Doug): NEC Prince has already shipped 10,000 units in Japan. Could that be?? It’s only sold 7,000 units each on Apple and IBM in the U.S. to date.
July 20, 1990
After Spanish class I drove to Forest Knolls to see Danny, who’s just about finished with Amiga Prince. Then, back at Broderbund, sat around Brian’s office for a companiable three hours drinking champagne and beer with a group that eventually dwindled to Brian, Rob, Lance and myself.
“I’m tired of hearing about the good old days of Broderbund,” Rob said, when we went out for Mexican food. “I think of the ‘good old days’ as when Robert was here.” It was just how I felt.
A new review came out in PC Resource magazine that calls Prince “one of the three or four best PC games ever.”
Meanwhile, the new Broderbund entertainment catalog relegates it to half a page towards the back, between Centauri Alliance and Joan of Arc.
I’ve got to start learning deep-breathing meditation exercises, or something.
Karateka was a gift from the gods, a windfall. Without it, I couldn’t have done any of this. I’d have had to get a job like everyone else I know. The question that nags at me is: have I made good use of this opportunity? Or have I blown it?
I feel like if Prince fails, I’ll be a failure.
No point looking back. What can I do now? I can do what I can to help speed the Mac version of Prince, and try to encourage Broderbund to:
- license it for Nintendo and GameBoy
- bundle it with SoundBlaster
- change the packaging
- advertise it
and, in general, try to galvanize the powers-that-be into giving it the attention and promotion it deserves.
