The Game Doctor

[The Game Doctor has been a legend in the electronic gaming industry since he debuted in the world's first video/computer game publication, "Electronic Games" in 1981. He has answered software-related questions in more than a dozen magazines and gaming sites. As a long-time fan of POSTAL, he has made periodic pilgrimages to the gopostal.com site and now returns to answer questions for The Urinal. Doctor, your patients await… The Gimp]

Bone swah, dear patients, the Doctor is just back from the VGExpo out in the wilds of Philadelphia . Now I know that I didn't think Philly had "wilds" but this show was out in the middle of nowhere and far from the asphalt, tall buildings and extreme pro wrestling most of us expect from the City of the Brotherly Shove.

Whatever, I had a great time, signed copies of my new book, "Confessions of The Game Doctor", which debuted at the show (and can now be acquired for a mere bag of shells – that's $21, American) at RolentaPress.com. But hey, I'll be shoving that book down your throat enough. No, the reason I mentioned the VGExpo was because one of the folks who bought a book also asked me an interesting series of questions.

Those questions follow:

Q: Which licenses are you most surprised never showed up in videogame form? What was the biggest waste of a license? And have there ever been "jonahs" or licenses that were bad luck for more than one publisher?

A: The minute I saw "Road Warrior" in the movies, I got on our agent, Barry Friedman , to score the licensed for someone so the design house that Arnie Katz , Joyce Worley and I ran at the time (Subway Software) could design it. But while very few licenses escaped Barry 's grasp, that one did. "They just won't sell it," he would repeat to me every time I bugged him about it. And I guess he was right, since to my knowledge no one else has ever acquired it, either, despite the fact that it's made to be a video and/or computer game.

This shameless early 90's rip-off from Mindscape was as close as we ever got...

The biggest waste of a major license had to be IBM's signing up the entire Peanuts cast to help push its failed mid-80s PCjr system – which was also supposed to be known as "The Peanut". Except for some stupid corporate reason, they never pushed the machine under the "Peanut" name and I don't even recall them using the characters to market it. Not that it lasted long enough to matter.

The only bad luck license I can think of is Pink Panther, who was licensed to as many as three companies in the early 80s (animated characters were popular and relatively easy to render, even given the memory limitations of the first generation programmable videogame systems), including U.S. Games, one of the first VCS third party publishers.

For a while there, it seemed as if every time we attended the twice-yearly Consumer Electronic Shows (CES) some new company had a Pink Panther game. But one by one, they all went out of business or dumped the game before more than a handful, if any, made it into the stores.

I'd be interested in knowing, in fact, if any of those VCS Pink Panther games escaped because I know at least one of them got as far as the EPROM beta testing stage. Plus, at least two of the companies that had the license gave us stuffed, five foot tall Pink Panther plush dolls. On the way back from the airport after one CES, I insisted the cab driver let Pink ride shotgun with his head turned to look out the window and his elbow resting on the window sill. I, meanwhile, sat in the back seat enjoying the reactions of the passing motorists. The cab driver was laughing so hard I thought we were gonna go off the rails on our way home from LaGuardia…

And with that semi-amusing anecdote (I saved the really amusing anecdotes for my book), we wish you an apocalyptic, Last Days kind of holiday season from the entire Running With Scissors crew. Cause that's the kind of guys we are.

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Okay, gang, that's it for the Holiday Apocalypse Edition of The Game Doctor. We'll be back next month, just like the guy who reads your electric meter. In the meantime, in between time, you can find answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions, check out the official GoPostal.com site. But send any new questions regarding RWS, the POSTAL franchise and anything else that occurs to you to: GameDoctorKunkel@gopostal.com.