Although today we know him for many other things, not all of them exactly good -and some quite reprehensible-, the billionaire Elon Musk was introduced to the world of programming thanks to the video game and, in fact, a good part of his first steps began precisely there.
Today, waiting for it to finish rompernos Twitter and see how far his other futuristic fantasies go, we wanted to get closer to his beginnings before PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX or Starlink, when Elon Musk combined his regular job with a position as a PC game developer and Sega Mega CD.
The beginnings of Elon Musk in the world of video games
“Part of the reason – maybe the reason – I got interested in technology was video games. I probably wouldn’t have started programming if it wasn’t for video games or I wouldn’t have been as interested in computers and technology if it wasn’t for games.
I believe that video games are a gateway for children to become interested in technology. It has much bigger side effects than people can ever understand.”
During a talk about his beginnings and the relationship with video games during E3 2019, Elon Musk He recalled that his passion for video games, still present today to the point of being inspired by Cyberpunk 2077 for his infamous Cybertruckwas precisely what led him to enter the world of programming.
His first experience with the code, in fact, dates back to when, at the age of 12, he created a kind of clone of Space Invaders called Flavor in which you have to shoot an invading ship while trying to dodge its attacks. It’s not that it’s a big deal, really, but if you’re curious to try it, you can play the first video game of Elon Musk via this page.
For some strange reason, a local magazine decided that this was worth sharing, so they paid Musk $500 for the source code and shared it on one of the pages of the publication. It would be a few years before he got paid to develop video games again.
One stumble after another
Hand in hand with one of those projects that seem destined to change the video game industry but then end up in nothing, Rocket Science Games bet on the talent of Hollywood to try to join the world of technology. There they were, without going any further, from the designer of the mythical Loom to artists behind hits like Star Wars, Alien o Conan.
And there the friend fell Musk as a junior programmer, participating in what would be the first great game of a company whose name, in a certain sense, became a kind of premonition for what would later be the rest of his career. The first appearance of him in the credits would be for Loadstar
Despite the fact that visual level managed to drink more good than bad from those successful movies, at a playable level it was the flattest thing you could throw at your face, so together with the poor reviews and a Mega CD that was not too happy either, the setback at the sales level was more than considerable.
They fared no better with the next attempt, also with Musk in the credits, hand in hand with an idea that sounds better than it really was, a game of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.
Actually it was another FMV with a lot of kinematics and the occasional shot that followed the same scheme of Loadstar and, like that one, the barely 20,000 copies sold finished putting the last nail on the coffin of Rocket Science Games and, of rebound, of the career of Elon Musk in the world of videogames.