Long before Lucas and Spielberg's Raiders Of The Lost Ark appeared in cinemas in 1981, it was widely expected that its archaeologist adventurer Indiana Jones would be a big draw. This was certainly the case, so much so that Raiders became the most profitable and one of the best reviewed movies that year. An adaptation was soon licensed for the Atari 2600, and as Raiders director Steven Spielberg was a keen gamer he wanted to meet prospective developers.
He first met Yars' Revenge creator Howard Scott Warshaw. They hung out, and Howard won over the director by joking that he might be part of an advance alien scout party making movies to convince humanity that they mean us no harm. "I had an interview with Spielberg because he wanted to choose the programmer for Raiders," Howard recollects. "We chatted for a while, and then my weirdness kind of took over. I told him about my theory that he was an alien! I think he just loved that, because the next morning when I got to work he had talked to Warner or Atari and had said that he didn't need to see anyone else. I only saw him twice more during the entire development. He would come to Sunnyvale and I would give him a demo of the game, and then we would have lunch together."
