Sex, Drugs and Video Games! My 90s Virgin story- London & LA

[zapiy]

Sex, Drugs and Video Games! My 90s Virgin story- London & LA



Back it HERE https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/10 ... o-cbobhgnl

About this project

It was watching The Wolf of Wall Street that finally did it. The time had come to throw caution to the wind and fess with another beer and vaginas true story. I knew there was another true tale festering for 20 years, that was just as bad (or good, depending on your morals) that needed to be told. If I had a £ for everytime that someone said that I (or someone) should write this up, I wouldn't be on KS! That is my story of Virgin Interactive in the 90s, London and Los Angeles. When Richard Branson and brother-in-law  Robert Devereux lit a blue touch paper under Virgin Games 2nd incarnation in 1991 (it changed it's name to Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1993 ) they unleashed a company,one that would break every rule of 'computer games publishing' to take the industry beyond whatever else the competition were up to or trying to get to. Risk adverse was a phrase that didn't enter the lexicography. And when competitors tried copy our style: adrenaline fueled rampant risk and audacious fuckery, we would raise the ante as the company launched Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker, Cannon Fodder, 7th Guest, Cool Spot, Lion King, Command and Conquer, Resident Evil, Blade Runner, Doom 2, Screamer, Heart of Darkness, Thrill Kill (banned)....we had 6 successive campaigns banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. Sachets of nose candy were sent to the press. The dealer, in his white Porsche, would come to our offices as requested and set up shop in the foyer. Clubs were closed for refurbishment, wrecked after launch events. I had to wade in and apologise to a bank manager after one of the secretaries sat on the photocopier without underwear and faxed the picture to the wrong number. And man, she was cute too! Brand value - iconoclasm. Company behaviour - hedonism. The many iconic developers of those games will lay bare their own unique Virgin stories. With CD Rom - that we thought would rule the world until something called a PlayStation popped up -we confronted the music business and in a way, they capitulated.  We released singles and albums with a music label, EXP, run by former Undertone Feargal Sharkey, until Viacom, the barbarians at the gate, said to stop, well kind of "I would like to go to London and chop Tim Chaney off at the knees" - Tom Dooley Viacom COO to US President Martin Alper (RIP). It was the end of The Thatcher Decade in the UK - the mirage of the 80's bubble had burst,unions nobbled, privatisation gone mad, inflation and unemployment at boiling point, Superpower # 1 and Superpower # 2 signed the arms limitation agreement that led to the decade's most momentous event -the fall of the Berlin Wall. We didn't see walls, perimeters.. Yet the 80's seemed an age behind us - another lifetime, their time, then, Lambrusco, bad hair, new romantics, yuppies, Filofax, Live Aid, Mandela : now came the 90's - the real progressive, permissive society (wrongly revered as a 60's phenomenon) :, e-hedonism, lads and ladettes, Morse, Grunge, World Wide Web, email, O.J.Simpson innocent, Princess Diana's death gave our generation another John Lennon moment,Hip Hop, Rachel haircuts, Seinfeld and the interactive bittersweet potion of power, pints, pills, powder and plants would accelerate us to new highs and heights. VIE was destined not to make it out of the decade but would do their damnedest to try. We were not The Who who said they wanted to die before they got old, but got old instead - we were Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain although Virgin fell 10 years short of joining the '27' club.  Or as David Brent would say - "Live fast, die young? No. Live fast, die old". And tell the story. Real life - Virgin '90's - told here. By 2015 video games were generating $74B a year. We had a hand in helping that along. This book will rightly immortalize our unique legacy in this great industry of ours.

[Shadowrunner]

That sounds like it would be a great read!

[Saturn]

Now that sounds like a party! Dealer in the white Porsche setting up shop in the lobby lolol. Smashing clubs and having to close for renovation, wow! Sounds more like Motley Crue on tour :15:)

So many iconic references in there. If I wasn't hemorrhaging money on my Jeeps, I'd back it too.
Sure hope it sees completion