![]() But despite the price hike and the lack of deep interaction, Dragon’s Lair causes a sensation in the arcades. While the compelling attract mode lures passersby with the promise of the ability to “control the actions of a daring adventurer”, a player can merely decide at certain moments when and in which of four directions Dirk should move or use his sword. The game is the first arcade system to hit the market with filmed, animated action, but it is barely interactive. On Dragon Lair‘s release, I remember being incensed by the increase to 50 cents a play in a decade or so, among games costing $1.00 or more, I’ll be thinking back to how good I had it at 50 cents. Explaining the reasoning behind this price increase, at the time Director of Marketing Frank Ballouz said, “50 cent play has been needed by the industry for some time to help offset the rising cost of manufacturing and to help increase location revenues…” Operators, however, quickly realized they weren’t going to get away with charging that much at the time and reverted the machines back to 25 cent play. In 1980, Atari had set Missile Command to cost two quarters by default when shipped from the factory, although that IS for a 2-player match. It is NOT, however, the first game to be set to cost 50 cents per single play by the manufacturer. Since the units cost on average an unprecedented 4,300 dollars each, twice the cost of a conventional cabinet, it comes factory-set to cost 50 cents a play. Cinematronics manufactures and markets the game, and by doing so phase out the vector game division on which they built their fortune. 1984Įxcited arcade operators, sensing a game that might be the solution for their sagging collections income, finally get their chance to purchase it when Dragon’s Lair starts arriving in quantity to distributors just after July 1. Space Ace! 1983ĭirk the Daring behind the coloured 8-balls, Dragon’s LairĬrowd gathered behind Dragon’s Lair player at 1001 Plays video arcade. Image circa 1990īe the envy of everyone in the lunch roomįlyer for Dragons Lair, and coming soon…. Bromley further contributes to Dragon’s Lair by offering further instruction on game design.ĭragon’s Lair demo model on display at 1983 AOE.įrank Ballouz, then Marketing Director at Atari, tried to introduce 50cent play before Dragon’s Lair, with Missile Command. With Coleco paying half of that fee upfront, thusly does Bluth and Starcom get the money to finish the game. His company has a laserdisc add-on planned for their immensely popular ColecoVision home game console, and, possibly sensing another huge system-seller like they had in Donkey Kong, licenses the home game rights to Dragon’s Lair for $2 million, along with first right of refusal on any future games from Starcom. Financial disaster continues to loom over the project until Eric Bromley, VP in charge of R&D at video game company Coleco, shows up at their door in April, having seen the prototype footage. Utilizing his filmmaking and narrative skills, he ensconces himself in the lab with Dyer’s team and they redesign the game in about four days, emerging with something closely resembling what ends up in the arcades. So far having pumped $600,000 into creating animation that is indeed lush, Bluth is alarmed to discover that on the technical side, the game play is just not there. What’s not well-known is that the project is in trouble. A prototype version is shown at the spring 1983 AOE show in Chicago, creating a large buzz around the game from operators. ![]()
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