Interview taken from Video News number 40 (December 1986) page. 10
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Mastertronic
How many of you, hearing the name Mastertronic not imagine one of those infamous multi-thousand tentacles, in positions of power in all countries Orbe terraqueous? We think a few.
So here we are traveling, to verify or dispel this impression. We depart from London on a cold autumn afternoon, with Casciago destination in the province of Varese, sure to take a stroll through the instructions sulla strada forniteci da John Holder, il "boss" della Mastertronic italiana.
Ma come si sa, tra il dire e il fare... Arrivati a Varese, sbagliamo fatalmente strada e ci ritroviamo sul lungolago; cominciamo a farc cogliere dalla disperazione, quando vediamo uno stupendo cartello indicare la direzione per Casciago: "finalmente siamo arrivati!" esultiamo dentro di noi...
Invece ci vogliono ancora una decina di chilometri di salita, senza trovare altre frecce indicatrici ai bivi che incrociamo; ad un certo punto entriamo in un paese anonimo dove avviene una scenetta esilarante tra noi, ormai in coma, e un passante:
"Scusi, è Casciago questo paese?"
"Sì" "per Please tell me where is Via Mazzini? "" And 'this! "
" And if you tell me how high is the number 15? "
" It' s that input, ten meters ahead! "The
situation is so funny that it uplifts the spirit, despite the labor of two hours away.
So here we are in the "den" of Mastertronic and the "boss" Fortunately we receive now, worrying about the reasons for our delay.
John speaks fluent Italian, with English inflection inevitable, and recently graduated from the University of Leeds, which admits reluctantly, perhaps because it theoretically does not link much to the world of video games (even if it is a cultural base ideale nel campo commerciale). John ci spiega che era venuto in Italia qualche anno fa per passare le vacanze, e qui ha conosciuto la ragazza che ora è sua moglie, per cui è venuto a vivere a Varese. Per quanto riguarda la Mastertronic italiana, in pratica è una sua creazione: qualche mese dopo la nascita della casa madre inglese, nel 1984, John capitò in una mostra alla quale partecipava la Mastertronic inglese e fu colpito dalla sua particolare politica dei prezzi.
Decise quindi di adottare quel marchio e di importare la linea Mastertronic in Italia, certo che questa politica di prezzi molto contenuti sarebbe stata in grado di sconfiggere i "pirati": non per niente sul mercato inglese Mastertronic ha conquistato la "leadership" with approximately two million units sold last year.
"What I'd like to get is a mentality like that now acquired in England or the United States, where a video game on tape is considered a commodity of any kind and is sold in department stores as a disc or cassette tape of music" we says John.
"Therefore, having expanded commercial speech to joysticks and imported models with micro-switch of similar quality to the bar, we also explored other major brands of software manufacturers to see if they were available for a serious talk on the Italian market. Once convinced that someone had to do a policy of low prices, with a price to the public within the 20,000 pounds, many others have accepted the proposal.
This explains how we can find nowadays original products marked Ocean, Imagine, U.S. Gold, Gremlin Graphics, Ultimate, Activision, Hewson, Melbourne House, Martech and others in Italy.
"Besides the fact that if you copy the programs are damaging the software, making an outright theft, the phenomenon of copies is negative in another respect: if one buys eight games for the price of one can never have quality games and in the end will change from game to game and be bored instead of fun. "John continues." You mean that this causes an alienation from the game at large? "we ask.
" Exactly. We must instead create a culture of the game: better to buy a good game per month and fun to discover all its secrets. "Confirms John.
John is trying to do his best: he has set up a business structure very fast, capable Italian market to offer video games to coincide with the release on the UK market! Another ambition of John would be able to market video game programmers Italians, but unfortunately all of the projects that has so far received only one was of good quality received his consent.
That is something to ponder on the way back to Milan!
Maurizio Miccoli
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