Point of Origin: Vol. III, No. 47

This September 24, 1993 issue of Point of Origin is interesting because it includes a firsthand account of displaying Origin games at a tradeshow; you can find relevant portions quoted below. On a sad note, this is also the Point of Origin which includes an article on Brian Smith and his amazing spaceship model.

A very special thanks to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum for making this resource available and to Electronic Arts for sending them to him in the first place!

• Bueno: San Diego is a nice article about showing Privateer at a convention:

  First of all, I would like to thank Dallas and Jean-Marc for letting one of the Privateer team members go with me to the San Diego Computer Fair. I feel that it was a valuable tool to let someone from the PD group see what occurs at one of these shows.

  In my opinion, the show was extremely successful. There were approximately 30,000 attendees from all walks of life. We took 1000 copies of sales fliers for Strike, WCA, Shadowcaster, Pacific Strike, and Privateer and they were gone the first day! We, of course, were the loudest group in the building and were requested several times to please turn down the volume (which we politely declined to do). While Ben Potter would demonstrate Tactical Ops, I would have another customer play WCA. For the younger crowd, I would lock-on missiles and destroy ships for them. For the older group, I would turn the guns down when an approaching ship got within range. This was the only way to ensure the line waiting to paly would move!

  When we would demo Privateer, the crowd would go nuts. They didn't really like the intro that much, but once they got into the game, they got mad when we would change back to Strike. The sound effects were a real crowd pleaser... The two most asked questions at the show were: 'When is Privateer really going to ship.' and 'when is Ultima 8 going to be available?'

• In Print quotes several magazines on Wing Commander: " PC Games includes Strike in a six-sim write-up... An FX review shows up in the same issue. (Suddenly, it's making a comeback.) 'Like pretty much everything else this company does,' Peter Olafson writes, 'FX is spectacular.' He calls it 'required viewing.'... If you're an avid reader of Point of ORIGIN (and hey, who isn't?), you'll remember from issue #45 that Multimedia World magazine's Readers' Choice Awards were due this month. Contrary to earlier reports from the mag, Wing 2 did not beat out Wing 1 for Best Arcade Game--they tied! That makes this the second year Wing 2 has picked up that honor; the first year for Wing 1. Wing 1 gets its solo glory as Best Simulation, beating out... who else... Wing 2. Multimedia World's readers nominate and vote for their favorite outstanding title in the Choice Awards. Congrats (once again) to all involve in both projects. "

Point of Origin
Vol. III, No. 47 - September 24, 1993 Contents In Print
"Bueno!" San Diego
New Hires, Departures
Off-the-clock: with Brian Smith
Dear Point Man