The Entrepreneur

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The Entrepreneur is a text-based business simulation game created and published by Peter Molyneux.^[1] The first game of his career, it was released in 1984 and failed commercially with only two copies sold.^[2]

[edit] Development

Peter Molyneux conceived the game while managing a company dedicated to selling floppy discs; he believed that including games on the discs would improve sales, and later decided that the games were the main selling point.^[3] This led to the creation of The Entrepreneur, a text-based simulation about running a fledging company.^[4] "In those days you could literally call a game 'Space Blob Attacks Mars' and sell about 50 million copies. So what did I do? I did a business simulation", Molyneux later said.^[3]

Molyneux self-published the game by duplicating hundreds of tapes on two Tandy Corporation recorders. After taking an advertising space in a game magazine, he prepared for the game's success; he later stated in an interview, "I was utterly convinced that this game would sell tons. I thought, 'You know, this letter box is just not big enough. It's just not going to fit all the envelopes.' So I cut - and this is no joke - I cut a bigger letter box". However, the game received only two orders, one of which Molyneux speculated was from his mother.^[3]

[edit] Importance

Due to the game's commercial failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impact Systems—a company that designed office databases—with his business partner Les Edgar. Commodore International confused the company's name with TORUS, a more established company that produced networking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with eight free Amiga systems to help in porting the networking software.^[1]^[3] "... it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn't know who we were", Molyneux later said. "I suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, 'If this guy finds out, there go my free computers down the drain.' So I just shook his hand and ran out of that office".^[3] Taurus redesigned the database system for the Amiga, and after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, the program was released and became a moderate success. Using money earned from the program, Molyneux and Les Edgar founded Bullfrog Productions.^[1]^[3]

In 2007, GameSpy commented that the economic gameplay mechanics in Molyneux's upcoming Fable 2 are a descendent of The Entrepreneur. "I'm a little concerned that it's Molyneux sneaking in a remix of his first game, Entrepreneur", the writer stated. "I would rather see all the time spent building an economic model of that depth and breadth go into a better combat system, or more locations, or a sensible morality scale".^[5]