Atari making games for other systems.

[moycon]

Hey, I know we talked about the games Atari made for the other systems... Intellivision, Commodore 64. But does anyone know why? I mean Atari seemed to have a big problem with other people making games for the 2600, they even took Activision to court. Was it out of spite? Like when M-Network made games for the 2600, Atari said "fine 2 can play that game" or was it more an issue involving $$$? Does anyone know?

[AtariDude]

You may not know but Activision was started by 4 former employees of Atari. They were getting tired of some of the corporate politics that was going on with the company and decided to form their own company and thus took knowledge that they had gleemed as designers of Atari 2600 games to use for their own company.

 

I don't believe that Atari ever learned that it helps to make partnerships with other companies to assist them with the distribution of their products and then charging a licensing fee. Nintendo did this and they gained the loyalty of 3rd party publishers. If Atari had done the same at an earlier date, they would have gained a loyalty that Nintendo would not have been able to break as they did.

 

Atari saw other companies as competition for precious shelf space and customer's money. They wanted to have an exclusive in this important area and it upset them tremendously when an outside company could make money at Atari's own game. That is why they were constantly suing companies for infringements on their patents.

 

An example of this would be Odyssey's K.C. Munchkin which bore a strong resemblance to Pac-Man. Atari sued and K.C. Munchkin had to be taken off dealer's shelves as a result. A friend of mine had that game (might still have it for all I know) and it was a lot of fun and it was most definitely a Pac-Man clone despite Odyssey's claim that it was otherwise.

[moycon]

Yes I read all about the court cases with 3rd party developers in Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames. But I guess thats my question... They hated other groups making software for their platform...So why the turn-around? Why did they start doing it? Was it to get back at them? Or was it just for the $$$?