■ “We all could see using a vertical monitor was a problem,” says coder Warren Davis, “and if we could see as a conversion kit – and in 1986, there were far more vertical monitors in arcades, thus increasing the potential market. Yet when the game was almost complete, Williams decided to create a bespoke cabinet for the game after all, alongside a kit. “That always puzzled me considering the directive we’d been given at the start,” sighs game designer John Newcomer. “Who knows why they changed their minds. This is why letting the sales department dictate design parameters was a very bad idea. Around 1990, when the design team was pitching sports and fighting games, the sales team was saying we should do a horseshoes game because President Bush played horseshoes at the Whitehouse in his free time. You can’t make stuff like this up.”
