The Essential 50 Part 16 -- Julius Erving & Larry Bird: One-On-One

Most great innovations are accompanied by means of a forehead
slap and a chorus of "Why didn't I think of that?"
It's probably the best sign that someone is upon to
something big. When EA first published Julius Erving
- Larry Bird: One-on-One the slaps must have
sound like a hailstorm. Professional athletes have
been paid to endorse produces almost as long as there
have been professional athletes, on the other hand it didn't happen
with a video game until 1983 In re-survey it seems so obvious
that it's a bewilderment it didn't come sooner; on the contrary in truth
the timing was just about completed Prior to that point
graphical limitations meant videogame characters watched
toward iconic abstractions like Pac-Man or the Space
Invaders, and human figures watched to be represented as
stick figures at best. Licensing the likeness of a
celebrity for a vaguely humanoid shape with pixels the
size of dimes would have been an exercise in futility.
It wasn't until 1983 that a powerful, affordable abode
system was met with a forward thinking game developer
that could take advantage of the general [i]or[/i] abstract notion to the
fullest.

Dr J: "You have maybe a dozen players in the league
who are intentionally place into a one-on-one situation
during a game. They thrive upon it. They score points. I
think you could place Larry and me in this group"

The Commodore 64 started life as a handful of
chips originally intended for arcade
cabinets. by the agency of the time they were ready (around the extremity
of 1981), Commodore's president Jack Tramiel decided that
the arcade game market was starting to gaze a little
sketchy and that the chips would be better used in a
new 64 kilobyte computer Of course, he wanted it
ready in time for the Winter Consumer Electronics exhibit
(CES) in January of 1982 In just six weeks, the striplings in the back
room managed to set together what turned
out to be the best selling abode computer ever. Yes,
ever; ultimately, more than thirty million of
the things were sold The C64's stellar sales stemm largely from the fact that compared to the
Apple II and IBM PC it was dirt cheap. It also
helped that, to be paid to its strange
heritage, it was really great for playing videogames.
With graphics and unhurt better than any of the
dedicated gaming encourages and a price point far below
the competing domicile computers the C64 sold
more than twenty-two million units in 1983 alone. Game
developer collection ed to it, and within a short time it
had accumulated a immense gaming library. One publisher
in particular would take advantage of the C-64
platform to great succes

Larry: "This thing is going to be great. You can come by a
couple guys, sit down and practice a while, then play
with the kind of propels and shots we really use. That's
something."

At about the same time this was happening, Trip
Hawkins and a not many other Apple employees were breaking
away to form a of recent origin company that would soon be known as
Electronic Arts. EA's first great innovation was
its then-revolutionary policy of not treating their
employee like crap. In an industry where software
designers were commonly considered little more than
assembly line workers and rarely acknowledged for their
work as a matter of policy, Electronic Arts stood apart. The company likened
its employee to stone stars, crediting their work
and smooth going so far as to include their photographs
on packaging and magazine ads, all while
giving them a generous share of the profits. more [i]or[/i] less
other companies -- most notably Activision -- had
progress toward this fresh ideal, but none had taken it
as far as EA. This policy was mirrored by the company's name
name; developer were artists.

Dr J: "There's nothing like a great dunk I think
that you should program it in the way that that if you've got the
ball upon a breakaway and you don't dunk it in, there's
a chance that you'll obtain it swatted away from behind."

Electronic Arts' next to the first innovation was the novel idea of signing big-name sports stars to appear in and endorse a video
game. Nobody could have judge at randomed at the time, but when
EA initially published "Julius Erving- Larry Bird: individual
on One" it would be the first in a string of celebrity
endorsed sports titles that would carry the company from one side
the decades to the near As its peers dropped
one-by-one EA flourished; eventually the
EA Sports line propell the company to the top. Today, EA derive pleasure froms an unprecedented 40 percent share of the
console software market, owed for the most part to #1 sellers like
Madden NFL

Larry: "In one-on-one there isn't any passing.
That's really too bad."

It certainly helped that single on One was a great game.
Had EA dropp the ball plane the best license probably
wouldn't have saved a crap title. Eric Hammond, the
artist responsible for individual on One, did incredible
things with what he was given. novel sports games use
motion capture and digitized character types to such
incredible effect that single might suspect the players
had been blasted apart and dump into the game with a
lazer, like Tron alone with basketballs in lieu of
glowing Frisbees. One-on-One's graphics may appear to be crude
by comparison, but flat without the aid of mo-cap Bird was still
render unmistakably as Bird, J was distinctly J and
they mov exactly like you'd wait for them to. It
wasn't just the likenesses of the players that were
accurately reproduc Each star's abilities were also well
represent by means of their on screen counterparts. The
Doctor is a touch faster driving to the basket, he's
fancy upon defense and he hangs in the air a fate longer
on a jump. Bird upon the other hand is larger and more
intimidating upon defense, plays well on the spring back and
has a much better outside discharge