Atari legality

[Skatepunk60]

I heard a rumor that whenever anyone makes a new video game they have to pay atari royalties for inventing the first video game could someone clear this up for me THANKS

[liquid_sky]

I beleive you are thinking of Ralph Baer, the inventor of the first videogame. He owns the patent and recevies royalies. I beleive Matell didnt pay and he took them to court (am i wrong?)

 

Here is an article writen by Mr. Baer that helps tie up the many loose ends I didnt mention.. mainly about who made the first videogame http://www.pong-story.com/inventor.htm

[Rhindle The Red]

All I have to say about Mr. Baer is read the following quote from his own article:

quote

To qualify as a video game, you have to have to pass one major test: Can you play the game on a standard home TV set or a TV monitor ?

 

This is, of course, a legal definition and has little to do with reality. Baer brings up this issue because of a lawsuit by Nintendo to try and get out of paying for the patent (which I beleive has run out now, they do, you know). Nintendo used Willy Higginbotham's video game as an example of why they shouldn't have to pay for the Baer's patent. But the legal status of the type of video game the patent covers (which doesn't relate to Higginbotham) is irrelevant to the greater discussion of what is the first video game.

 

Baer has a lot invested in this (beside the financial aspects). He bills himself as the 'Father of Video Games.' Never mind that he divies that up in the article mentioned, it is the way he always is billed for things like CGE: 'Father of Video Games." If Willy Higginbotham made a video game before Baer did, what does that make Baer? Even in the article where he divies up the title, he carefully points out that he was still first. He made the patent before either Steve Russell made Spacewar (to be the "Father of Computer Video Games") or Nolan makes Computer Space (as the "Father of Arcade Video Games"). But Baer is the "Father of Home Video Games" in Baer's estimation. And being first, he is still the "Father of Video Games" overall.

 

But not if Willy Higginbotham made one first. Hence the ridiculous definition of a video game. If Baer's definition is correct, then all Game Boy, Lynx, Game Gear, etc. titles are not video games. If they are not video games then (pardon my French) just what the Hell are they? Call Famitsu and tell them to take Pokemon off their best sellers lists, cause Ralph Baer says they ain't video games.

 

The final tenent of his disqualifying Willy Higginbotham as the "Father of Video Games" is, perhaps, the most insulting. That Higginbotham deserves no credit because he didn't intend it to be a commercial product. This is a slap in the face of an academic (whose mind obviosuly was not on the almighty dollar) from a shameless self-promoter who never did anything to really advance the industry.

 

The fact is, Baer or no Baer, video games would have happened. I'm not sure that's true if there were no Nolan Bushnell. Baer saw a novelty product. Nolan saw an industry and a household institution. If Baer had not come along, Nolan would have found another way (or the same way from a different source) to fulfill his dream. If Nolan hadn't come alond, Baer's plans would have ended with the Odyssey. A moderately successful novelty item, over after its first run.

 

As a final note, compare this statement from Mr. Baer's article:

quote

I came up with the concept of playing games on a standard TV set or TV monitor in September of 1966.  

 

to this one from his interview with Good Deal Games

quote

My brother-in-law, reminds me, however, of an incident in my lab on West 181 Street in 1949. He swears that I demonstrated to him a spot being bouncing back-and-forth on the screen of my DuMont oscillioscope in response to a couple of push-button switches.....he called a tennis game...and I promptly forgot about that.

 

Seems Willy has been creeping into the public's consciousness, so Ralph found an even earlier date for 'his' invention, so he could still be first.

[mos6507]

From a legal standpoint, Baer is the first to successfully issue a patent which defines the raster-based videogame. This is different from the vector-based Tennis or Space War games. The word itself encompasses a lot of territory going beyond the raster television including vector graphics, digital LCD displays, and even LED electronic games, depending on who you ask.

 

If you want to argue about who contributed more to videogame history, I'd have to say Nolan did. This is because Baer never completely left the world of his "state machine" pong architecture. While Baer was developing the pong on a chip which would be used for so many machines like the Coleco ones, Atari was evolving beyond pong into driving games, games that started using ROM and microprocessors and had more varied gameplay with better graphics.

 

Atari's engineers really set the standard for the industry, both in the arcade and the home.

 

Baer's contributions ended with things like the underpowered O^2 and oddities like the KidVid. He had some great ideas for mixing analog audio and video with videogames, but he still clung to analog-electronic-thinking instead of programmable microprocessors.

[rolenta]

To say that if Ralph Baer didn't invent videogames, someone else would is true. However if Edison didn't the light bulb, someone else would have. If Bell didn't invent the telephone, someone else would have. Give the man his due!! In 1949, when he was hired by Loral he was told to build a television set form scratch. He wanted to add a game but his managers weren't interested. This is completely ridiculous to say that he made this up just so he could 'better' Willy Higinbotham.

 

And to say that Baer contributed very little afterwards is also ridiculous. The man has over 150 patents in his name. He was working with random access storage on videodisks long before CD-ROMs were available. He invented the technology used to take a digital photo of someone and insert it into a game (that technology was used in the arcade game Journey). And he had nothing to do with the O2.

 

He also told me the story about his brother-in-law seeing a demonstration of a videogame back in the late 40's/early 50's but he truly doesn't remember this. He did not make this up just so he could better Higinbotham. He couldn't care less about Higinbotham. And he'll be the first to admit that Nolan Bushnell was the father of the videogame INDUSTRY. But let's call a spade a spade. If Bushnell had not attended that Odyssey demo and got the idea for Pong, you have to wonder how the industry might have evolved.

[Guest]

Len.... Thats true, but Nolan already had the idea of a driving game in mind first. The TV Tennis seemed an easier game to create and have Allan Alcorn build as his first game, so even if Nolan had not attended the Odyssey demo, it would figure he may have persued the driving game idea which would have probably taken much longer, but would've come out regardless. I don't think sZ

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by rolenta:

This is completely ridiculous to say that he made this up just so he could 'better' Willy Higinbotham.

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I disagree. My opinion is based on many articles and interviews with and about Ralph Baer. His references to thinking about video games prior to 1966 only began to appear after several video game web sites and magazines made reference to Higginbotham and his game. It seems incredibly coincidental that he should suddenly remember (or be reminded of) conceiving of video games in 1948 after a reasonable counter claim was made to his being first. Even now, his own web site merely mentions the 1966 patenting of video games and has no reference to 1948. I just find the validity of his story hard to accept.

 

This does not even touch upon my other point: the dubious nature of how he defines a 'video game.' The definition he uses (given above) stems from a court case where Higginbotham's game was shown to have no relation to Baer's. But does that make it not a video game? Compare Baer's definition to this from the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:

quote:

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video game

n.

An electronic or computerized game played by manipulating images on a video display or television screen.

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The only possible reason I can think for Baer to doggedly stick to his definition is to keep the claim of Higginbotham at bay.

 

I'll give him credit where it is due. I just don't want to give him more.

 

I'll just call him "The Father of the Video Game Patent." That much is clear.