to give you all that space. We’ve got to know you can use it well.” So I had to do a 2K
game.
And I did one calledWizard, which I think was rather clever and worked in 2K.
Although I got it done in record time, I finished it just as Atari was starting to get its 4K
games out. Everybody started realizing that the 4K games were not just a little better,
but immensely superior to the 2K games. So there was a feeling that anything that was
marketed is going to be compared against the 4K games, and my design as a 2K game
just couldn’t compare with a 4K game. So the other designers ended up saying, “This is
a very nice design, for 2K, but it just doesn’t cut it.” They wanted it redesigned for 4K. I
could have redesigned it for 4K and gotten it published, but my feeling was, “OK, look.
I’ve done my game on the VCS, now I’d like to move on to the computer. So let’s not
screw around here.” So I argued that, “Look, this was designed as a 2K game, we’re not
going to simply add features to it. If you want a 4K game, we start over; that’s the only
way to do it right.” And mumble-mumble, I was able to sneak past it and be allowed to
go straight to the Atari 800. So that game was never published. And I had no regrets.
So your biggest commercial success while at Atari wasEastern Front (1941). But
I understand that you had trouble convincing people that a wargame would be
successful. Were you confident a lot of people would like it?
No no, I didn’t really care. My feeling was, this is the game I wanted to design, so I did it
in my spare time. This was nights and weekends. Meanwhile, I was doing plenty of
other stuff at work. In October or November of 1980 I was promoted away from game
design. I was basically the first hardware evangelist. I did for the Atari what Guy
Kawasaki did for the Macintosh. And, actually, I was successful at that. I did a very good
job of attracting people to work on the Atari, because it was so much better than the
Apple and all it needed was a good technical salesman. So I traveled the country giving
these seminars, handing out goodies, and so forth. And I generated a lot of excitement
among the programmer community, and the Atari really took off. There was this explo-
sion of software about a year after I started that task. I take primary credit for that.
So anyway, I started that task in October or November of 1980, and as part of that I
was putting out these software demos to show off the various features of the Atari. And
I told myself, “I’m finally going to take the time to teach myself this scrolling feature
that everybody knows is in there, but nobody has actually gotten around to using.” So I
sat down and started messing around with it, and within a couple of weeks I had a very
nice demo up and running. I built a big scrolling map and I thought, “Boy, this is pretty
neat.” And by the standards of the day this was revolutionary. It went way way way
beyond anything else, just mind-blowing. And I remember taking that to S.S.I. which, at
the time, was the top wargame company working on the Apple. And I showed it to the
fellow there, and he was very unenthusiastic. He said, “Whoop-de-do, this will never
make a good wargame.” I think it was some kind of prejudice against Atari, that “Atari is
not a real computer.” I was kind of disjointed, and I thought, “Jeez, what a nar-
row-minded attitude.” So I decided, “I’ll do it myself.” I did this game in the classic way
that many games are done nowadays: I started off with a cute technical feature and said,
“How can I show off this wonderful graphics trick?” So I said, “Let’s build a game
around the scrolling.” I went to work and builtEastern Front. I had it working by June of
’81, but the gameplay was awful. It took me about two months to finish up the gameplay.
260 Chapter 14: Interview: Chris Crawford