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ASTEROIDS? Help you with staff


management?


To be clear, “Asteroids” is a space-themed multi-directional arcade game designed by Lyle Rains, Ed Logg, and Dominic Walsh and released in November 1979. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers about to crash into you, while not colliding with, or being hit by, the flying saucers throwing counter-fire at you. It was a game created and released by a computer-based home computer company, Atari. So how is it that this video game can actually help your career? The game was very one-dimensional and took a short time to learn the basics. The player controls the single spacecraft as random seeming objects (asteroids) move toward the space craft. Now to master the game at that time, you need to recognize the repeating patterns and maneuver the spacecraft away from destruction. Shooting the incoming shapes and moving the spacecraft away from the shapes wins the day. Each level becomes progressively harder and harder. Growing difficulty occurs as the asteroids pick up speed and the flying saucer likewise increases its speed. The likelihood of one of the asteroids or spaceships eliminating you from the game becomes greater and greater.


All that said, I had never heard of the game. Until I talked with a neighbor named Andy who was enthralled with the game. With over 70,000 arcade cabinets all over the US, Andy was the perfect age to be on the leading edge of game players. There was so much going on in the world at the time that a typical teenager was not in tune with the news.


Jimmy Carter was President, Jane Byrne was Mayor of Chicago, and the Cubs had another average year. Bell bottoms had run their course the year before. Billy Martin was named as the Manager of the Oakland A’s, Magic Johnson was still in college, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister, and Larry Holmes was the heavy weight Champion of the World. Mohammed Ali officially retired. Emerson Lake and Palmer, the rock group, also retired.


Andy probably had no clue any of that was going on. Like most teenagers, they live in a world of their own. He was having too much fun just hanging out with friends and playing all sorts of games. Andy saw his friends getting into a little trouble in the real world with too much free time on their hands. He clearly attributes the game Asteroids, which gave him an escape from his friends, with keeping him out of trouble. Shooting and breaking up pieces of asteroids at every turn helped him avoid colliding with real- life opportunities for mischief. Little did he know, this was preparing his mind to manage the deviations that would come up in his career one day. He probably was not even aware of how this game was preparing him for his future.


Andy went on to college and admits to this day that he found an asteroid machine in the student center. He


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