Techtite's What Went Wrong --- When Entertainment Goes Awry!

As of 1993, CD technology had only begun to be noticed as a gaming platform. However: could such a game platform become as standard as CD audio or VHS tapes? Such was the quest of Trip Hawkins, whose 3DO company promised to make a "standard" in CD gaming. While this was a bold idea for anyone to attempt: Trip Hawkins was, after all, the founder of Electronic Arts, one of the oldest game companies still in business. Years later, one might ask how well Trip did in this new "standard" of gaming. Well; Trip helped make a unique game system, yes...but it would only last two straight years, and to be brutally honest, it didn't do well at all.

What Went Right? What if a game "standard" meant that you could buy not just one system for one game platform, but any game system you wanted, not unlike VHS tape recorders? These games would be available on any system which had such compatibility, just like Dolby Sound on a stereo system. That's a cool idea...!

Such was the dream of 3DO. Founded by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, this wouldn't be a mere game system; it would be a standard. Instead of any one company making one compatible game system, every electronics hardware company could make a 3DO system, if they so wished. Imagine a game "standard" as frequently seen on shelves as VHS cassette recorders would be! Coooooool.

For the most part, this dream worked. Panasonic quickly released the first system, with Goldstar following suit the very next year. In addition, PC computers could play 3DO games via an expansion card offered by Creative Labs (of "Sound Blaster" fame). Several additional companies showed their own plans to make additional 3DO systems. It can be said that, had 3DO survived, at least half a dozen separate "3DO's" would've been available in very little time.

What sort of 3DO games are we talking about? Well, consider these the vanguards of DVD technology. Although DVD wasn't yet on the horizon, nor even first-generation MPEG (think: "VHS"-quality DVD), the video on the 3DO was the best available in 1993. A demo disc with system purchase showed fluid video clips of cartoons, movie trailers, and more. Consider: this was a day and age when DVD wasn't even considered possible. Seeing full motion video from a tiny disc was pretty impressive back then. Even to this day, what the 3DO could do via 1993 technology was simply astounding.

The best part was that 3DO allowed games to incorporate such video, within a 3D game engine. Yes, I mean, within the game. Even modern games must "jump" from a video movie clip, back to a 3D game interface, and back again, in order to have full motion video within a game. 3DO was different; video could be placed within a game at will, even within a 3D game environment. This was 3DO's best sales pitch, and even to this day, it was a very good one.

Such games were, if not widely played, certainly memorable. In a 3D flight sim called Shock Wave, the bottom middle of your cockpit showed full-motion video messages from your fellow pilots, in real time, while flying your ship! Compare this to even games in modern day, where a video clip can be shown, or the game can be played, but not both at once. This 3DO technology more or less peaked with Killing Time: a 7th Guest style house, set in a fluid 3D game engine, yet the ghosts were still full-motion video. You could even walk closer/farther from the ghosts, to get a better view of the video scene being played. You can imagine how unique --and fun-- such video games were.

Even games "ported" from other systems looked at their best on 3DO. Night Trap was a grainy, low-resolution coaster on the Sega CD system at the time, but when it was ported to 3DO...wow. It wasn't the best game in the whole world, admittedly, and yet the video capabilities of the 3DO system made the game the interactive movie it was intended to be. Likewise for the under-appreciated cult classic, The Horde, whose story --seen within video cutscenes, which even guest starred Kirk Cameron-- is still one of the most well-acted and hilarious pieces of video comedy ever incorporated into a video game.

You can imagine how much fun game designers had with the unique video hardware 3DO offered. From Killing Time's full-motion video ghosts to the amusing, CGI-enhanced characters you met in the "virtual" world of Immercenery; I have never played such imaginative games as I did on the 3DO, before or since. If any of my classic game systems were to break down, this would be the system I'd miss the most, if just because no other system can easily play such games at all.

What was that...? "No other system" can play 3DO game titles? I guess that means the dream of making 3DO a "standard" didn't work, huh; a good time to jump into...

What Went Wrong? Here's the truth: I really liked the 3DO; probably for the exact same reasons it failed. At its very core, it put all its eggs in one basket --full-motion digital video-- and although 1993 was too early and too pre-DVD for such an endeavor, it was as good as CD games got that year. I will always enjoy my memories of Twisted: the Game Show, Escape From Monster Manor, Immercenery, etc. They were unique, stylish, and fun. That's the truth.

However, for each good idea 3DO did right, one little mistake dragged it down. The system's imbalance of good ideas vs. little mistakes was not unlike a finely made pizza which someone sneezed on. Every time the 3DO could've been a delicacy of entertainment, one little snafu would make the dish almost unpalatable. Let's pursue what I mean, one small mistake after another...

Good idea #1: to make 3DO to gaming what Dolby Sound was to stereos, or VHS was to video tapes. The mistake: IF this dream was to reach fruition, Trip Hawkins should have attempted to sell 3DO technology to other game system manufacturers at the time: Sega, Atari, Nintendo, and so on. Instead, 3DO was sold as a "competitor" to these game systems, not a compliment. Consider how easy it would've been to make CD drive add-ons (or the like) for at least two or more of these systems, to make them 3DO compatible. No such drives were ever planned. Ergo, right out the door, 3DO had some major opposition.

Good idea #2: 3DO systems were sold by multiple electronics manufacturers, not unlike VHS tape recorders. The mistake: these companies wanted their own units to sell, not their opponents'. As a result, not one 3DO system on the shelf was compatible with another(!). Furthermore, Creative Labs' "3DO Blaster" would only work with their computer CD drive, and not, say, the CD drive already in your computer(!). Hey; wasn't the whole idea that 3DO was to be a game "standard"...? Tell that to Panasonic and Goldstar, whose systems, aside from games, were barely compatible. This made accessories practically impossible to make for "all" 3DO systems, so few third-party manufacturers even bothered to try.

Good idea #3: In a CD gaming concept unheard of (yet) in 1993, the 3DO systems would have battery-backed-up memory to store all game saves! The mistake: this memory was only 32K! To give you an idea of how small this is: even a low-density, one-sided floppy disk can hold around 400K. To make matters worse; it was months before 3DO even offered a memory manager for this memory, meaning that any save game in that memory was there to stay...and there was only 32K to work with!!! The methods 3DO game designers used to "keep the peace," with such little save game space to work with, were pretty annoying. Among the worst was Shock Wave, which after a certain number of retries, deleted your save game data! Um...guys??? The idea is to: Save. The. Game!!! If I can't save my files permanently; what's the point?

Good idea #4: Trip Hawkins' battle cries spawned numerous Average Joes, adamant to help promote the 3DO. The Mistake: While many an entertainment concept would be nothing without its fans, it's important for such fans to be humble. The misinformation of these Joe's rants slowly ruined 3DO's very integrity. One guy posted on every viable message board at the time, his self-proclaimed, "complete" list of "over 100" 3DO titles coming out "within six months"; 75% of which would be, to this very day, nonexistent vaporware. However, if there was one problem with these Average Joe's rants, it wasn't the misinformation; it was the arrogance. I'll never forget one of my last posts on any 3DO message board, where I politely complained about the aforementioned flaw of Shock Wave deleting your save game data. Responded one fanboy: "Well, I don't remember game saves being mentioned in The Bill of Rights!" Excuse me: WHAT?!? Yes, game saves are not protected by law. And yet, everyone else saves games, normally, on every other game system. 3DO gamers could not. Stick that in your Bill of Rights and smoke it.

I'm running out of good ideas to list here. So, let's just cut to the chase: it's December, 1993. 3DO has just recently been released on store shelves. What is the definitive game played by everyone? Doom. No, not Doom on the 3DO (at least, not for two more years), but Doom on PC's; the same PC the 3DO fanboys insisted was "obsolete." Good call there, guys. Doom dwarfed every single game on the 3DO upon launch. 3DO's first holiday season came and went...and no matter how loud 3DO fanboys cried otherwise, it wasn't looking very good.

Then came 1994; the first full year of 3DO on store shelves. In addition to all the above mistakes, one thing hurt 3DO dearly: even two holiday shopping seasons later, 3DO would not yet have a "definitive" game title. Sure, there were good games, but nothing that would tempt the agnostic gamer to shelve out $399 smackers to play it. What's worse; intended jewels in the 3DO crown, like Jurassic Park Interactive, turned out to be major duds. Making matters worse were the Average Joe fanboys, who unlike Chicken Little in a meteor shower, insisted that the sky was not falling. I'll always wonder if the typical 3DO owner had told Trip Hawkins something was wrong this early in the game, if something could've been done about these faults, very early on. No; the typical 3DO fanboy was too busy telling people that "game saves are not mentioned in the Bill of Rights." Yeah...and neither was 3DO's future, pal.

Not unlike the Sega Dreamcast, a Playstation would be this console's demise. The Sony Playstation (One) would lack every single mistake 3DO made. The vast differences in system quality seemed hard for even Hawkins himself to ignore, who began heralding his next system, code named the "M2." However, in doing so he made it seem as though even the 3DO's founder felt that the original 3DO system wasn't any good. Game designers cancelled 3DO projects left and right, as they waited to see which --if any-- 3DO system to make games for.

It is anyone's "chicken-and-egg" (which came first) choice as to what did in 3DO the most in the following year (1996): all the game designers canceling game projects, all the lessened interest of a system receiving less and less new games on store shelves, or the simple cause-and-effect of less 3DO systems selling. By the end of '96, you could stick a fork in every 3DO system; it was done. M2 technology was sold dirt cheap, and 3DO became a software-only company. Such was the sad end of "3DO" the game system.

There's no denying that 3DO, very easily, could have been something far more than it ever became. Maybe 1993 was too early to release such technology. Maybe the hardware should've put less eggs in only one basket, with stronger 3D game engine support, among others. Oh, and yes: that infernal 32K save game memory should've been bigger! However, few people can say that the system was "bad," really. It was simply a dream that, with too many little holes, couldn't stay afloat.

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An Analysis Column, by Techtite

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