Hey! Listen! Quotes

“Ron Gilbert, took inspiration from Sierra games like King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry but, more than just the game, what Maniac Mansion (and Ron) gave LucasArts was the underlying engine created for the game, SCUMM‡. This would form the backbone of future hits for the company such as Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Maniac Mansion sequel Day of the Tentacle, two Indiana Jones games (one based on The Last Crusade, the other an original adventure called The Fate of Atlantis), Sam & Max Hit the Road and, most famously, The Secret of Monkey Island. Humour permeates all these games successfully in a way it rarely has before or since. Monkey Island’s ‘insult’ sword-fight is perhaps the best-known example, but there are many more. The jokes even operate between games;”
― Steve McNeil, Hey! Listen!: A journey through the golden era of video games

“In all seriousness, you can’t underestimate the allure of the arcades. My younger brother once became so engrossed in an arcade game at the Butlin’s holiday park in Bognor Regis that, in preference to walking away from the game, he wet himself. He was twenty-six years old†.”
― Steve McNeil, Hey! Listen!: A journey through the golden era of video games

“As Atari already had a side-business in distributing pinball machines*, they were able to install the first Pong prototype that August (1972) in one of their locations, a downbeat little bar called Andy Capp’s, in Sunnyvale, California, which was notable only in that it had an unusually large games room – several pinball machines, a jukebox and a Computer Space cabinet. To give you some indication of what sort of environments Atari operated in initially, Steve Bristow (another old contact previously employed by Ampex) was brought in to collect money on the route, and would frequently take his wife along for the ride, carrying a hatchet. She would have taken a gun, but they couldn’t get a permit.”
― Steve McNeil, Hey! Listen!: A journey through the golden era of video games