Pinball Construction Set
He followed Raster Blaster with Pinball Construction Set, a more general tool which allows users to create arbitrary pinball tables, including how the components are wired together. The project required him to write a mini-paint program, a mini sound editor and save/load systems. Some of the components he already had, which he developed for Raster Blaster.
By 1983, however, the computer game publishing arena had become too complex for Budge, who did not really want to be an entrepreneur. When he was approached by Electronic Arts (EA) founder Trip Hawkins (whom he had met when they both worked at Apple) to publish his games, he discussed the idea with Steve Wozniak[citation needed] and signed on. With EA's distribution, Pinball Construction Set eventually sold 300,000 copies over all platforms. EA marketed Budge and other early EA developers with publicity photographs by Norman Seeff, an appearance by Budge on Computer Chronicles with Hawkins, and author tours to computer and department stores.
Shortly after this, Budge disbanded BudgeCo, which he says was something of a relief for him, since he was really just a programmer and was not interested in being an entrepreneur.
After Pinball Construction Set, Budge attempted to create a "construction set construction set," but abandoned the idea after determining that it was too complex a concept. Royalties meant that he did not have to work, and EA eventually gave up asking Budge for another project.