YSAC | Arcade Magazine: Games Night Lottery

Robin's shopping list
Spectrum (used)	Ł10.00
Games (Valhalla, The Hobbit, The Great Space Race*, Space Raiders, and assorted, mainly mouldy others)	ŁFree
total	Ł10.00

Robin was recently featured in Arcade magazine's "Games Night Lottery" feature in which each of the particicpants was fictionally allotted a fictional lottery win, and then challenged to spend it on whatever gaming stuff they could afford. Robin's prize? Ł10. So what are you going to do with your winning tenner then, Rob? "Buy a Spectrum, obviously. And shit-loads of games. It'll make me a very happy man."

Robin used to write for YS as the resident Sam Surgeon, as you'll already know if actually paid any attention to any of YS:AC (which you probably didn't). "The Sam Coupe was this crap Spectrum derivative that no-one bought. I didn't have one, even though I had to write a monthly column dedicated to the damn things. I fact I only had a go on one twice."

Rich's Shopping List
A development team's wages for about 2 years	Ł2.6million
Pre-production (half a million copies)	Ł4million
European marketing	Ł3million
"Miscellaneous" costs	Ł0.4million
total	Ł10million

Rich was also part of the Games Night Lottery. His Win? Ten Million pounds. After specially rigging the cards to ensure he scooped the "jackpot" (and reassuring him that the money would appear in his bank account the following day) he went a bit mad. After a few hours of debauched celebration, he decided to try to live out his lifelong nerd dream - to star in a videogame of his own. Here's a snippet of the conversation that took place between our Rich and Codemasters' public relations man, Rich "Nice Guy" Eddy.

Pelley:	(Enthusiastically)Hello, I've just won Ł10 million. Can I buy Codemasters?
Eddy:	Er, no.
Pelley:	Can I buy a stake in Codemasters, and then tell you all what to do?
Eddy:	We'd rather you didn't.
Pelley:	Can you put me in Prince Naz's boxing instead of him?
Eddy:	Go away.
Pelley:	But I'm absolutely wedged with cash! Can I go to the TOCA 2 development team and get them to write a game about me called Richy Rich's Magical Adventures In Groovy Land?
Eddy:	Call it what? Er, maybe. But you'd have to get your design approved through Richard Darling.
Pelley:	Can I buy Richard Darling's approval?
Eddy:	I really don't think so.
Pelley:	How much will it cost to write and publish my game then?
Eddy:	Depends how complicated it is. But even if you did buy the TOCA 2 team you'd have to finance people's wages for about 2 years. You'd then have to pre-produce about two million copies, advertising costs would run into millions. And you'd have to contribute to the company's running costs.
Pelley:	Erm...
Eddy:	You may make a return on your investment but there are never any guarantees.
Pelley:	Might I have enough money to buy Codemasters, sack everyone and employ all my friends instead?
Eddy:	No, you don't even have enough friends. Look, please leave me alone.

Click. Buzz. Rich looks around in puzzlement, then wanders down the pub and makes a Ł10 million indecent proposal to Robin's girlfriend.

* The Great Space Race was long considered to be the worst game ever. The instruction book is like a comic. At the time it cost Ł14.99, double the price of anything else.