Adventures In Role Play
Time magazine article from Aug 2004.
Cordelia Chan – Dragon or Schizophrenic
Your first impressions on meeting this icon of the games industry is how average she appears to be, but right from the outset any preconceptions you may have about her will be quietly demolished and any thoughts of coercing her into divulging insider information will evaporate as so much fog on a San Francisco morning.
Born to a Chinese mother and father of European descent in May 1973 she quickly demonstrated her natural talent for being the center of both attention and chaos. At the age of 5 she was enrolled in the local Gung Fu class in an attempt to curb her violent tendencies, after failing to pull her punches in a street brawl with kids several years older than herself. It can be said this was of limited success as she again failed to pull her punches in two incidents at the start of her freshman year at Berkley, although in both cases these were acts of self-defense against what to the casual observer would be significantly superior odds, although by all witness accounts viewed by her as minor inconveniences.
The upshot of these two incidents was the formation of the Phoenix Dojo, an enterprise setup to enable her to pay her living expenses, her tuition fees being covered by her scholarship. Whilst the dojo proved to be a success, her first real venture into business occurred the following summer when she acquired the lease to Wang’s Motorcycles, although to an outside observer there was no logical reason for to do so, the business at that time being under investigation by the IRS and Federal authorities as a suspected Triad front. Within 3 months of taking over, and following a controversial TV advertisement, commissioned by herself, in which she used her sex to her advantage, profits were up by 70%, and the IRS placated. They were to drop all investigations 2 years later and, by all accounts, have had no reason to re-open any investigations since. Whether the Federal Authorities have any open investigations into the business is unknown.
Not content causing a riot as a result of her TV advert; she turned her attention to causing a riot amongst the socialite fraternity by dating philanderer, womanizer, asset stripper, and venture capitalist Marcus Trent. What is more interesting from an observers perspective is that it appears Trent, well known for dropping women faster than hot potatoes, appears to have chased after the young miss Chan, even after she demolished his penthouse apartment following an incident outside the Purple Dragon night club with her mechanic and sometime lodger Michael Brent. Insider gossip confirms that the relationship lasted well into the year, even after her transfer to Nagoya University in Japan in the September of that year. Rumors persist even to this day of an ongoing fondness between the pair, as testified by the publicity stunt staged by her and several friends in October of last year, in which Trent acted as publicity agent and media manager.
Her three years spent in Japan appear to be unremarkable, unless you consider her first year spent as the personal guest of indicted Yakuza boss Daichi Sato to be of significance. Her return to the US in 1996, saw not only the formation of Mizzurian with venture capital supplied by Marcus Trent, but also her acquisition of the lease to the Purple Dragon club, another institution under investigation by Federal Authorities due to suspected links to Triad organizations. Her transformation of the Purple Dragon club appears to mirror the meteoric rise of Mizzurian, who scored a number 1 hit for 6 weeks in the video games chart with their first release “Arkonan”.
In fact the fortunes of the Purple Dragon club and its owner appear to mirror that of her company. At the time Mizzurian suffered its first reversal in fortune when its third title “Mocking Bird” flopped amidst a huge outcry over its subject matter, the Purple dragon club was twice raided in operations to gather enough evidence to make indictments for “Running a house of Ill repute”, “living off immoral earnings” and fraud stick, all of which were subsequently dropped.
The question industry observers now ask is will the sudden disappearance of Ms Chan, in circumstance mirroring those of her father, have a significant impact on the release of Nexus, Mizzurian’s new title scheduled for Christmas release. Only time will tell.
Author: Juan-Qiangwei Wong
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