Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

Line hackers gathered at places like Danny's, they would compare notes and findthat they were in agreement: 30 percent was fair, and 20 percent was not.Br0derbund and Sirius were still offering higher royalties. Some of the hackershad been approached by an exciting new company called Electronic Arts. Itconsisted of ex-Apple people who promised to treat hackers as culture heroes, likerock stars.Ken and Dick had tried to convince them that 20 percent was a fair figure in lightof the drastically increased costs of promoting and testing and distributing a gamein this new, more professional stage of the industry. On-Line was increasing itsadvertising, hiring more support people, boosting its promotional staff. But theprogrammers saw Sunderland and his regime as bureaucracy, to which, as hackers,they had a generic allergy. They missed the days of Summer Camp andhandshakes for contracts. John Harris, for instance, chafed at the idea of paying alawyer to help him negotiate a six-figure contract ("They charge one hundreddollars just to read it!" he howled). Harris and the other On-Line hackers wouldsee all these managers and support people being hired, just to do the same thingthat the company did before release the games that the hackers wrote. From theirpoint of view, it seemed to indicate another hacker sin inefficiency. Along with anemphasis on the sizzle of marketing rather than the substance of hacking.For instance, On-Line spent a lot of money for colorful new boxes in which topackage their games but did not see fit to include the name of the programmer onthe package. Ken had thought it sufficient to give that credit only in the instructionmanual stuffed inside the box. "The authors should realize that this will give usmore money for advertising and royalties," he said. It was indicative of a new"professionalism" in dealing with authors.But to listen to the conversations at Danny's during the fall of 1982, it was clearthat an atmosphere conducive to hacking was far more important to thoseprogrammers than a mantle of "professionalism." And the consensus was thatalmost every programmer was thinking of leaving.Even if Ken Williams was aware of a potential programmer exodus, the problemseemed of little concern to the founder of the company. Williams was busy hiringa staff of programmers quite different from the potential detectors. Impatient withthe hackers who had come to him with their assembly-language skills and unevenwork habits fully formed, Ken decided to try an alternate source: he would utilizethe messianic power of the computer to create programming gurus where noneexisted. After all, the now testy hackers who were complaining about the royaltycuts had come to him with, at most, the experience of a game or two. Now theyfelt he owed them the world. Why not find people before that first game, peoplewho had some programming skills but were not yet assembly-language wizards,