The Studio
Rocketdog Interactive was founded in September 1997 in a loft on Folsom Street, San Francisco. Five people. One idea. A startup simulation game that would let players live through the dot-com era: the boom, the hype, and the inevitable crash.
Maya Chen, the studio's founder, had left EA earlier that year. She recruited Tanya Okonkwo (programmer, MIT dropout), Dave "Hutch" Hutchinson (art director, ex-advertising), Samira Patel (writer and designer), and someone known only as JT (QA, office manager, everything else).
They called the game VESTED.
The Game
Development began in January 1998. The concept was simple: found a tech startup in 1990, make decisions every quarter, try to survive until 2001. The interface would evolve with the technology, starting as a DOS terminal and ending as a sleek corporate dashboard.
They demoed it once, at the Oakland Indie Showcase in August 1999. A folding table. A hand-drawn sign. One reviewer called it "too cynical."
The game was never released.
The Crash
On March 10, 2000, the NASDAQ peaked at 5,048.62. Rocketdog's sole investor, a dentist from Palo Alto named Richard, pulled funding two months later when his portfolio collapsed.
On June 11, 2000, at 3:47 AM, Tanya burned the final build to a CD-R. She labeled it "VESTED_GOLD_MAYBE_FINAL_v2".
The office closed on a Sunday. Maya took the framed Netscape IPO chart off the wall. Nobody took anything else.
The Recovery
In September 2024, the CD-R surfaced in a $47 eBay lot listed as "90s Tech Memorabilia." It contained a working build, a README written at 4 AM, and 784 events spanning the entire dot-com era.
The game has been restored and completed. The original vision is intact. The interface still evolves. The bubble still bursts.
The studio's original website has been preserved.
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