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However, there may be conditions in licensing agreement that if the copyright owner "developer" such as in the case of a corporate entity ceases to exist or otherwise goes out of business, a handover clause where the intellectual property is turned over to the publisher. Agreements with those kinds of clauses exists. This is similar to clauses used by record label companies may have with music bands. After all, the language of such licensing agreements were based directly off of music industry. Since, the industry was so new in those days, the licensing agreement template were based on the music industry agreements between record company (publisher) and music band (developer/author). Clauses like what I am saying was common like what happens if the lead vocal of the band dies because of overdose on narcotics and the band disband. It was to protect the record label company from such sudden situations. This contract clause is the equivalent of a corporate will, a contractual assign. Sometimes there is a related reversionary clause where the intellectual property is reversed back to the surviving authors as a collective or their respective estates or successors. However, that is very uncommon. So, what was the exact terms of the licensing agreement between Activision (publisher) and Imagic. It could mean that Imagic doesn't own its IP anymore except maybe the trademark/name. The copyrights, however, may have been contractually signed over by contract clauses that are automatically self-executing when the condition that triggers the clause exists. Historically, in those days, the publishers wrote the licensing agreement much like the record label companies. So they basically set the terms of the agreement so it is not uncommon for the agreement to benefit the publisher/record label. It's how they did business in those days.
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I prefer they get the Atari Games catalog, and numerous other games associated with the coin op and Atari consoles/computers as well as potential catalog of games that were popular on Apple, Commodore, Amiga, SEGA and other consoles, MSX, and several other systems associated with the era. In addition, there should also be arrangements with homebrew and new games.
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Right but in any case, all the above in some manner. They could even go for some of the titles associated with the era from 70s to 90s era that were associated with other consoles and computers. Even Atari made/published games for Atari but some of the other non-Atari stuff. Even remarketing those brands and their trademarks.
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First, I would do both options. Do both concurrently. Battlezone might take a little longer or the other might but it would build their portfolio. Additionally, having complete rights to Atari name and all associated trademarks from both the arcade and consumer division so they can return to a consolidated rights to the brand. In turn, with acquiring the Atari Games catalog as the IP owner, they could license a number of those titles to Warner Bros. game studios. Develop a working relationship with Warner as they have resources to make good games but they could also pick up some Bally Midway stuff from the era as well.
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You may find some on the Atari VCS discord server. https://discord.gg/atarivcs or https://discord.gg/gx7fdQmwzr One of these should work. Whether they will do such an AMA is hard to say.
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Fair enough. I'm relieved that you meant it as a joke and not seriously or were some petulant adolescent making a ridiculous Crack against 50+ year olds. I am sure that many 50+ year olds, there are shifts in priorities.
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Actually, the graph is more accurate because is does drop off after the arcade days but there are people familiar in one way or form to Atari up to about the Atari Jaguar days. After that, Atari is hardly known by younger individuals. Once you get to sub-teen, it really doesn't matter because 80-90% of them doesn't care about what happened before they were born except what is taught in school. Guess what, video game history isn't something public school and even most private schools don't even teach because it isn't "academic" enough. It doesn't fit the prescribed curriculum program. Video game industry is not something that academic ivory tower folks think is legitimate areas of academic study. Matt_B, just because someone is 50s, they are most likely not looking to retirement homes or incontinance products. Not for another 25-30 years. The standard retirement age is not the age most at that age go into retirement homes or looking for such products. People who get the medical health care and take care of themselves are likely to live until 85-105. Retiring at 65 and then spending the next 15 years going on vacations and stuff. They may downsize their homes from one that had 3-5 bedrooms to a 1-2 bedroom house because their children are grown up and out of the house. Retirement homes (facilities with certified caretakers) are if or when they no longer can care for themselves. This varies but typically, most will not need to be in such facilities until they are in their 80s if they manage their healthcare well. Most will only be their in the last 5-10 years of their life and with good care of oneself, that would begin around 85 to 95. While it is true that people are beginning to prepare and get their affairs together for their retirement in their 50s, but they aren't looking at retirement homes & incontinence products. They may look at downsizing their home to a smaller home. Your young age and comments are a bit off color and demonstrative of age discrimination against those who happen to be older than you. Try not being so adolescent. However, people tend to learn about the history of video games and such when they get into college and if you get into a video game design degree (and closely related degrees), you'll learn about Atari in video game history much like a subject covered in art history course sequence. There is even programs on Amazon Prime Video on the subject. You just can't expect grade school to teach it.
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True. Of course they were kind of introduced to the idea by us. They got hyper excited about it. The idea was new to them. Being that they got into this after WW II. We had mascots in games for like 50-60 year and so it was kind of been there done that with Americans but it was new fad thing for the Japanese. So we just are a little less flamboyantly excited about mascots. It's last week's toy to us. It's a new toy to them. We still get excited but less so on average.
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We had a major part to do with it after the end of WW II. This is perhaps why it was successful in both North America and Japan. They were perhaps a little more hyper about it than the U.S. but even today, it connects. Surely more so with the kids, teens, and young adults but some of us either grew past being as enamored and hyper excited regarding mascots or just never into the sports. Nintendo of America was targeting children and younger teens. The same traditional audience as Disney. Nintendo is the "Disney" of video game industry. Especially then with content standards to g rated movies. I have a copy of Nintendo content restrictions like no blood, pornographic, etc. from the NES/SNES Era. Games had to be FAMILY FRIENDLY... the FAMILY COMPUTER after all.... FAMICOM. This was especially the case by Nintendo of America. While the Japanese release were less restricted, the North American version had to meet this strict requirements in order to be published by Nintendo of America.
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Yes but it is also not 1982. It is 2023. Connect multi-generationally. Don't be stuck in the past. Atari to remain relevant needs to not just look to those 6 year olds back from 1972 - 1982. Got to not just aim to game development only for those 49-59 year olds.
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Right, I agree that many Japanese game console companies and developers prioritized it. Sequels with modern gamers (not always... but) tend to need characters that are easy to like or remember or player attach to the characters like those from movies and cartoons. Having a story makes it easier to franchise. I agree that Nintendo (namely the American company Nintendo of America, a subsidiary of the Japanese based parent company Nintendo Co. Ltd.), and others from Japan had really put an effort in franchising their characters and game and this approach to game design with memorable characters. I propose that Atari (with third-party developers) develop and employ this strategy and build franchises. I don't say all games have to be. A game can be successful without memorable characters and story. They tend to be one-off successes. However, sequels tend to inherit some story. Games aimed towards 6-12 year olds, the story should be easy to grasp. Games aimed for more mature audience would have a more sophisticated or potentially complex story but even an 8-14 year old should grasp the essence of the story as in the 'big picture'. We should have a good array of games. Atari should strive along that front. Atari can approach things similar to Sega and Nintendo and Sony/Microsoft and take lessons from all of them. They do good for a reason with the games. There is a reason. Especially when you look at the third-party developers that makes these gems. Atari has their arcade games era games and arcade ports legacy and there is that recipe but you have to adapt and apply lessons of others who succeeded and learn from mistakes including those made by others.
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While it is true to a point as far as game design tradition goes but in reality to the player, the video game design tradition that Japanese companies.... "the Nintendo-style" video game design tradition of the player getting attached to the main character was equally if not more popular in North America as is or than in Japan. The "western" tradition or you can say the Arcade tradition that Atari and others has developed, was invented around coin-op machines where players were usually only a few minutes... as long as the player's supply of quarters or tokens lasted. The early Atari consoles were very limited in capacity of the ROMs to have the story. However, the "Nintendo style" of game design came about as a result of the video games market crash of 1983. The were introducing a new video game console in 1985, with more ROM memory in the cartridges. Nintendo decided they have to make a different kind of game with story, characters that people would get attached to. It was mainly the Nintendo of America that pioneered this new approach to video game design. They studied the prior years, that console players played longer stretches of time. Not limited by the quarters in their pocket. Where did Nintendo get the idea for this new approach to video game design..... they got it right here in the U.S. and studied Americans and looked at the Disney films, the cartoons on TV and live action films, the had characters. Characters with a story, background. Early famicom games before 1985 were arcade ports. Donkey Kong.... the Mario character at that point was a largely nameless, storyline character. They develop the story over time with the franchise of super mario bros. The evolution to the game design style where players get attached to the main character that has a story, an identity... from that point and into the 16 bit Era. We saw characters with a name. It was successful in the world not just Japan. Mainly U.S. With arcades, the main character were more or less nameless or otherwise generic archetypes. Hero, you must save the damsel in disress from the big hairy monster. Any of these generic archetypes can be elaborated with a story and deeper in-depth story plot. With an arcade coin op game, you don't have the time to reveal the story. The player may have only a few minutes and the next player comes to the controls. With the consoles, the players are likely siblings and the play longer game sessions. This non-timelimited gameplay of consoles allowed for games at a slower pace, with story and so forth. How we have games like Zelda, Castlevania, and many others.
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Atari during Tramiel's era squandered that opportunity but then Atari was ran like a Commodore computer company but with the Atari name and logo. Jack Tramiel was never big on video games. He was into comuters and related to it better and understood how to sell computers and to a degree, did fine there but was kind of not well gripped with the video game business. He didn't really bring in video game designers or looked at Nintendo in what they did. Commodore's success with Commodore 64 and games was the computer was low cost, it had decent gfx and sound and third-party game developers took the cake in making computer video games. There was somewhat a difference in how video games for computers were made and approached compared to consoles. If Atari got the rights or license or something for The Great Giana Sisters, that could be sticking a thorn in Nintendo's side. There's an actual story behind that. Work out a deal with THQ and who knows. Trace down the IP ownership because Time Warp Productions created it and Rainbow Arts published it and somewhere along the lines it was absorbed into THQ. I think some of the titles are now ar Ziggurat Interactive. So, something there, Atari.
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It has nothing to do with them being Japanese companies. It happens to be popular in North American market as well as happens to be popular in Japan. They noticed how characters relate. They wanted to make games with story and depth and is part of the result of Nintendo's strict quality standards. They say what happed a year or two before the NES release in North America. It was part of their response the video game crash in 1983/1984. Nintendo and then SEGA and various others started to do likewise. When you have a character, a name, a story, the player relates to the character like they did as children playing with their GI Joes. They were also aiming for that age group. 6-12 year old players were Nintendo's main target audience as they were being the Disney of video games. Disney has their portfolio of highly protected characters that are recognized. This was a large part of Nintendo of America's strategy and Nintendo Japan greenlight that strategy and well they succeeded. Sega chose to target more of your 9 to high school teens. Part of it was Sega's less strict policy on content guidelines.
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I agree. Having them pulled from this site and what not made legal sense to protect them from exposure. Then they can have time to review them and determine if they want to publish them and if they don't, the homebrew person can then take the legal risk of self-publishing. Atari would not want to license their trademark to products that can get them sued by someone else. They should do their due diligence. Like you said, legally distinct titles that are not "derivatives" other than it follows certain genre style like horizontal scroller or SHMUPS, and such.
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Yes. A very good point. This is why I would be skeptical if it were. They need a larger customer base. These new consoles like the 2600+, VCS, etc. makes some sense but they are also targeting games made to run on newer platforms. This is where they need to work on. Careful managing of resources for retrogaming but also on mainstream platforms like Steam. Tapping retrostyle and even making games that uses say... CEL/Toon shading with outlines to follow the cartoon and animation styles like they have on their box art and such. Expanding their portfolio with in-house and third-party games. Even creating a potential mascot character for franchises. This isn't something solely Atari have to do. It isn't like they have to do that themselves.
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There already exist C compiler optimization but even then it sometimes not as good as hand crafted machine languages for simpler processor with as simplistic instruction set. C and C++ was intended for more complex processors like the 68K processors. Trying to clean up some of the messiness of C compilers kind of is more work than having hand coded the optimized code. Perhaps, someone can make some AI gadget to some of that. The problem is using a GAME ENGINE, which means using something like Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine 4 or 5, you got all this library for a bunch of stuff that won't even be used. You are better off using SDL. Your best using the graphic tools to make bitmaps and sprites that are designed for the specific platform and use maybe cc65. That's what people been doing for the past 20 years. For SNES/Super Famicom, I would use something like those suggested here: https://wiki.superfamicom.org/ - guess what, it uses the tools of cc65.... namely the assembler. There is also a host of tools like linkers and packers that would be used. These tools are purposefully made for these systems so the whole toolchain is optimized for the workflow. In a C compiler, it has to have libraries needed to target the compile for a particular computer, not just the CPU but the computer. Otherwise, you'll run into a nightmare of errors and failed compiling. Likewise, also the macro assemblers. These are what you use. For Commodore 64/128, if you want to make graphics, cross-platform (and not use an actual C64 graphic program inside the emulator) - there's examples here: https://commodore.software/downloads/category/79-graphics-tools For some video modes to use like in a title splash screen, you are better off coding it by hand crafted ML / Assembly. This way you got fine tooth control and manipulation of the raster interrupts. You know, like UIFLI. For SNES, there are tools like YY-CHR for graphics/tiles. Suitable for a number of consoles. The tools were intentionally are made for these platforms. If you done game development for these systems and modern, you will know what I am talking about. For music on SNES: https://megacatstudios.com/blogs/retro-development/creating-music-and-sound-for-snes-games-a-crash-course-in-snes-gss and https://megacatstudios.com/blogs/retro-development?page=5 These guys have modern tools for cross-platform development of NES/SNES and possibly some others in the retro game development process. What you will notices these are collectively an SDK toolset. With these consoles and computers, you need tools for graphics, music/sfx, and programming. There's no drivers. You make the code to read the inputs from joysticks, gamepads, light pens, graphic tablets, mouse, keyboard as well as code to load content from disks/discs, cassettes, etc. as well as store or write to like how you will record the save data. You must code the business end of a game.... the core.... the logic, input/output handling, etc. You may have to design how save data is recorded and structured and how it would be read back. There's no OS. The OS is the game more or less. It's 'bare metal' programming as it is sometimes called. Literally. This isn't something "modern game engines" like Godot or Unity is designed for and is more likely to cause more headache and trouble than it solves or addresses... for this kind of application. When you make a retro-style game to be used on modern platforms natively, then that's fine. That's what these tools are intended for. I think you should understand where I am coming from. When it comes to graphic design for these old platforms.... maybe something simple....like graph paper and color pencils might work. That's how Mario was designed. With a 65c816, you have 256 and only 256 opcodes. There's only 256 hexadecimal values that represents every operation in every addressing mode provided for each type of operation. In Assembly language for 65c816, there is even fewer mnemonics. The 6502, 6510, 6507, 65c02, 6502C, 65EC02, 7501, 8502, etc. has even fewer legal opcodes and a number of illegal opcodes but only with 8-bit hexadecimal representation for each opcode. These are simple enough processors that a reasonable person could reasonably learn to do machine language programming. It is a unholy nightmare to learn how to do machine language programming for recent generations of Intel x86 processors from as far back as the Pentium to current. Instruction set architecture on these more newer CPUs are far too large to memorize. It isn't something you would want to do on 32/64 bit Intel/AMD CPUs. Jim Butterfield wrote some of the best books on learning 6502 machine language programming. God bless that man.
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There are tools, yes. There are cross-platform development tools. However, you have to use tools for developing for the specific platforms. I did also state, modern game engines. There weren't such "game engines". The term and concept barely even existed at the time. You used collections of subroutines and apply it. You build your conditional logic routines, your routines to set the registers of video chip for the particular video modes, especially the VIC-Ii chip and the video chip used in the MSX AND TI and other chips. GTIA/TIA and ANTIC in Atari 8-bit very unique. Still, you had to program and still do. Game playability requires some optimization in routines to perform the tasks in a timely manner. You have to pay attention to the clock cycles used and available per frame cycle. GB Studio is for Game Boy. It is not for many of the other platforms. While there are tools to develop for these other platforms but if you are going to get people willing to buy, you are going to need to get to machine language level and manually code optimized routines or it will result in sluggish joystick controls, graphic glitches, and general slowness. No commercial video game for Commodore 64 was being made using BASIC by any major studio in the late 80s. They would compile the BASIC code to P-code or machine language in 1984-1986. From 1987, the core of video games were machine language. As for this AI stuff, whose going to pay for an AI generated video game. However, ChatGPT isn't going to make more optimized subroutines and machine language code than demo scenes have already done. They achieved and produced the most optimized performing routines possible to be done with the absolute smallest number of clock cycles as well as invented subroutines to create entire games/demos on absolutely the smallest memory footprint possible. Any commercial machine language game would be expected to perform at least 75% as performant on each routine and subroutine as the most optimal by clock cycle as the most optimized routine or subroutine of the same type ever made for the platform. In some older retro systems, you have to be attentive to memory footprint more. It is part of the culture, you can say. If I make a game for C64 to sell for $20-$90, it must be made at the level of quality, depth, etc. of the best commercial video games from 1987 to 1995. That's the base line. That isn't something you put together on the weekends for a couple months. You have a LOT of work to do. Game would need to fill a 1581 floppy disk 70-85% at the very least or multiple 5.25" floppy disks (1541 formatted). No amount of AI is going to make a game created in GODOT 4 for a Commodore 64. There are tools to make cross-platform development easier. I do agree on that. Many traditional games don't have stuff like camera objects. There's no 3d space. Even Godot is underneath, a 3d game engine simulating 2d. It is that which blows the amount of memory in a C64. You couldn't possibly make that work in the memory footprint. There's a different process and tools needed. I am aware of those. A commercial video game for C64 and NES, would require 3000 to 5000 or so hours of labor for a game created by a team of 1-3. An SNES game would take about 1.25x that amount for a project typically produced by a team of 1-3. Games like Chrono Trigger would take a team of 25 to put about 12-18 months. Many commercial games for SNES in 1994-1996 required project teams of 15-25. At least half the team was full time on that project. Modern tools and computers aren't going to reduced labor time by more than 15-20%. Only about 10-15% of the time was time spent waiting for files to load or be saved. Most of the time is limited by the humans typing code, artist making the graphics, etc. So, yes, game development process is still limited by the human element. People in the retro games just aren't going to spend money on games that were 80-100% computer generated code, graphics, etc. People want the art of the coder and the art of the graphic artist. Computer generated games are worth $0.01 or less. If someone is going to buy a game that I developed, they want that that I created it, not some bot generated video game.
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You can't use Unity or most modern game engines to make games for NES or SNES or similar era hardware. It would exceed memory resources of said systems and for a lot of genuine reasons. Simple fact of hardware. When I wrote that, I was talking real hardware or games to run under the emulation not running on modern. Context of what I said matters. Making a "recharged" (in other words, a remake) of games on new systems are not the same as making games FOR the respective original computers and consoles (using real hardware or an emulator). Making a new game for an actual Commodore 64 or game running inside a C64 emulator is not the same thing as remaking a game made for a Commodore 64 and remade to natively run on a new system. That was what I was referring to. That's true. I was just running some general number but even then, it still not going to make much difference. They still need to make $20-$30M in revenue from games to make sustainable income. None of the board of directors are the kind to run a retro computer boutique hoppy shop business. People who tend to run these retro computing shops don't do it for a living. They usually are operated by 1-3 individuals and net income after expenses is maybe about the income of a public school teacher/teaching assistant. They aren't going to make executive salaries... in most retro businesses because you are relying on maybe 5,000 to 15,000 customers world wide. People like the board of directors, they do basically a pro forma analysis. Hobbyist / homebrew guys tend to do such. It's all about passion not investing. Many game developers making games for retro computers like making games for a real Commodore 64... have a day job. I looked at that myself. Looked at all the people actively using a Commodore 64 or emulator is maybe 10,000 or so (worldwide). That's the people who would buy the games. They would be the ones that would know about it. Here's the reality, you are lucky to get 10% of that customer base to buy it. Cartridges, for example would cost ~$50 or so and then you have to tack up $15-$30. Market price ceiling for games is about $80 because people don't want to pay more than that amount for games.... period except maybe 20-50 individuals per 10,000. So you see, you're luck to get 300-500 purchases. Revenue is likely to be in the $9,000 to $15,000 range. You might be especially lucky to get 1000-1500 purchases for any game. So, a game may get you $15,000 to $45,000. That's not enough to pay a team three spending 40 hours a week for 9 months or the equivalent at 20 hours a week for 18 months even at minimum wage. That's a far cry from making the kind of living to professionally make a game that runs on real hardware like a real C64 or Atari 400 or 800 or ST or NES, or SNES. When you make games that actually runs on a Super Nintendo in 65c816 machine language, you are going to be coding the game in an ML monitor or 65c816 assembly language tools. You can't use Godot or Unity for that. Those tools don't target such cpus in the compiler and they aren't meant to be used for that. I know because I have done computer programming for these systems back in the 80s. You may use some C compilers. However, Godot, Unity, or UE4/5 are not designed for the types of video and sound chips of these classic systems. You must use the right tools. Making retro-style game on modern systems is different than making games FOR the retro platforms of the 1980s/90s.
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Here's the thing, they have to market themselves for more than just retro classic Atari consoles and computers. They may have to target Apple II and 68k and PPC macs, Commodore 8 bit & Amiga, and NES/SNES/N64, SEGA master and genesis, TI-99/4A, and others as well as those using emulators. Only then, you might yield enough customers from retro to pencil out. The Commodore 64 community shrunk to the point that Creative Micro Designs ended developing hardware for C64. You see, you never going to get 100% of the target market to purchase. A few hundred sales a year... even gamed, makes it undesirable for investing months of time for a project team of any size working diligently to deliver commercial quality games even by the standards of mid to late 80s and early 90s. You had 16 bit PCs at that time and 16 bit consoles in late 80s to mid-90s. We're going to be judged by the standards in the later end of 8 bit and 16 bit, respectively as well as 32/64 bit consoles of the 90s. New SNES titles would need to compare to titles like Chrono Trigger and other titles in the last 2-3 years of Snes on the global market. This isn't going to be weekend slap together work. C64 titles would need to be real effort. Games that uses one or more disks. Significant work. You can't use modern game engines. Nope. Machine Language. Most likely, you'll develop using an emulator. You can make it a download or provide using microSD and use the micro-SD to SD card adapter like a disk sleeve with a label on the card adapter. Then, you use stuff like SD2IEC as a low cost accessory that is easily obtained or made as traditional floppy disks are basically becoming rare. Most of your community will have some replacement accessory to that of original floppy drives. This would require knowing how to deliver with current available media to these platforms. If I was making a new commercial C64 game, I would likely be using an SD solution. Some SD solution for hardware would support full size SD cards but also microSD so I would use microSD with card adapter. So it would work on SD2IEC, chameleon, and Ultimate Ii/II+, and similar devices using disk images stored on the card. Yeah, the card would be overkill in capacity but, I would use what I can for physical media at a low cost. Actual cartridge would cost a bit just for the enclosure and pcb to be made even if I used 8k to 32k rom chips. Amiga disks images on SD. Pretty normal. Floppy disks are not manufactured any more, IIRC, mostly NOS inventory until supply last. With consoles, it's cartridges. Part of why retro consoles are made so you can move over to the newer console that allows you to use newer media instead of the expensive to make cartridges. For SNES, I have a SD2SNES card. So I could make new games for SNES using SD cards instead of manufacturing compatible cartridges. Patents expired, Nintendo. I can make cosmetic changes that would mechanically fit and SNES/Super famicom without the Nintendo trademarks but SDs are a lot less hassle. Atari would face those issues. To sustain revenue of $25-$30M a year, Atari needs to sell enough games and collect publisher royalties. This is where you need to make enough to close the cost gap and have a operating profit not running in the red. How many games do we need to sell to generate $20M in contribution margin over cost. We are looking at close to 10-20 million units of sale from games. That is not just one title but a host of titles. In a given year, what is the average number of titles (or collections bundle) are bought each year per customer. Assume maybe that's 3. So, that needs about 3.5 to 8 million customers each year and market sector of at least 12 to 25 million. You need a community of 15 to 35 million world wide to market to, realistically. Is there that many? That's the hard part. That is why I think they should not have all their eggs in the retro market basket. Part of the figure is based roughly on Atari collecting ~20% of the sales revenue as publisher which is around industry norm these days. Atari needs to be able to reach out to a marketplace of a lot larger to publish games to. To pull enough revenue from their 20%. Publishing games should be the thing that generates the revenue to pay the bills, employees, etc. and even absorb losses from some of the retro hardware projects. The games published will need to subsidize the costs and still make a net profit after all expenses are taken out.
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Anyone notice the changes on Songbird Productions website?
Wildstar replied to WesleyrpgAust's topic in Atari Lynx
Copyrights don't become public domain until it expires. That's a long time into the future. When it comes to trademarks, whoever actively holds the trademarks registered in each country holds the trademark rights. It is not illegal or violate copyrights or trademarks to refer to a product is for a particular product. Just would need to place notice of trademark reference and credit. Use of the actual logos that are registered trademarks is something that can be sued over. But plain generic text reference that a product is for Atari Lynx or Atari Jaguar is actual statutory exceptions of fair use that no IP holder can restrict. There is also 100s of court cases to this effect. You don't need a license from Atari to say your game is made for Atari Lynx. There are limits to trademark law. However Jaguar or Lynx logo, yes, you would need to obtain permission/license from whoever currently owns the trademark rights. Many games for Commodore 64 did exactly that and not used the logos. BOTTOM LINE: Just don't use the logos that belongs to Atari or anyone else if you don't have the license/permission to use it. -
Again, adding them adds payroll expense but they need to increase revenue. I'm not opposed to Atari having a role in the retro community but they'll need to build on publishing and revenue from that has much more room to grow with a linear increase in cost. This is where the higher margins are to absorb some of these activities that have low margins. Hardware manufacturing is a high cost low margin type of business. The contribution margins per unit sold is relatively low but video game as with software, especially digital downloads have nearly zero per unit cost to manufacture and that large contribution margin can yield product profits. As publisher, your investment is in marketing and associated cost of getting the product delivered and such. They don't necessarily dump huge sums of money to develop the product so they can make bank. The developers themselves have the huge development expense. EA makes our like bandits, the individual studios might not as much. If the game doesn't sell as well... Atari may well profit but the developer didn't breakeven. The risk is borne more on the developer than necessarily the publisher. It's the reality of the video game industry.
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Part of the issue of losses relates to Chenais Era which sounded good on paper but didn't materialized. One reason to act as licensing / publisher is reduced expenditures and if done right would be better yield and grow capital that can do more. Leveraging Atari brand recognition to enhance publishing of quality games by less known studios. There are plenty of good studios and indie developers but their name is not as recognized as say, Atari. This in turn helps those studio and in return Atari gets some piece of the revenue from sales which boosts Atari's coffers. This doesn't mean they drop supporting retro niche but it does allow them to grow... over time. It can over time allow growth of human resources. The key is game quality. Good quality games tend to sell better than cheap garbage. Not making any particular statement regarding current projects. Get the publishing down well, I think Atari can do fine. Some of the more capable studios may even publish through Atari at some point.
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Regarding them being in business, they would still be competing but with retro businesses and this would not sustain them or the staff. Most retro businesses are boutique shop scale businesses with a few little larger but if we are talking 6000 to 18,000 customers, they can't sustain payroll of 24 or whatever their current number of employees. Eventually, the VCs / angel investor(s) would pull their funding and investment including any money from the CEOs family. In short, they would have to cut staff or close up doors. Simple reality. Business is business. That's why you leverage the knowledge, skills, and experience of third-party developers who knows how to make games for modern systems and so forth. Publishing is ultimately marketing / advertising for the target audience. Any marketing professional knows this. You look at what works and what doesn't for any given market of customers. It involves researching. It involves observing the competitors and learn from their actions. How they market. How they advertise. How they connect with the customers. Learn from their successes and failures. You have to be like a chameleon and adaptive. Jack Tramiel knew this and succeeded with Commodore. He just never felt the same with Atari as with Commodore but he darn well knew how to market, sell, and quickly adapt to compete and do so aggressively. That's how he built Commodore from a little shop into a billion dollar business surviving IBM and TI. Video games are different products and actually less aggressive because each game is its own creative work unless you are just copy cat cloning. Guess what, game designers can not be lazy and merely copy cat. They must put real effort of creativity. That's what part of my responsibility as game designer-developer. Atari can learn how to play and adapt with the ebb and flow of the video game industry or they don't. If Atar's goal is to grow, they can not on the niche market of retro computing alone... at least not much and isn't exactly what the people they have as board of directors and as employees. Yes, they have already done the retro stuff but how long can you lose $3M+ a year until you are broke? You build a track record by doing. You gain experience and learn by doing. Yes, there are those track record. Atari isn't going to get Mr. Carmack, Eugene Jarvis, etc. Therefore, either learn "how to play" and produce. Learn how to publish and build the portfolio of games. Third party developers, too. No, you're not going to make a AAA 3d game overnight or out of a small studio. Not going to happen. Atari does have some professionals with experience in the video game industry so they know thing. However, this doesn't mean you can't make games that are good, enjoyable and something people will pay for. This doesn't mean you'll get $70 for the game. You might get $5-20 for a modest game, usually. Incrementally, you make better and more advance games as you increase human resources to put towards such project and deliver. Atari doesn't have to do this in-house. 80+% of the games Nintendo publish is likely third-party developed. Atari can focus on publishing and make select games in-house. That would be a smart thing because they don't need to directly employ game designers and 3d modelers, animators, etc. making dozens of titles to sell. They don't need to. That is what the third-party studios do as the game developers. Atari with a limited game development staff can work on select projects. However, they would need to employ people who know how to publish and market games. Publishing games doesn't require the skills to develop games. It's more contracts, licensing, marketing, and business. Developing games requires the skills needed to take the idea and make the game... the product. Where publishing is about how to market and sell the product. Ultimately, would go hand in hand. I think for now Atari is best equipped at the moment for publishing than developing games. Good thing is Atari does have people employed that has a clue about this industry. Looking on at the board of directors might lead you to think they know nothing. They don't need to intimately know the video game industry. They employed people with some background in video game industry. It would be the individual developers/studios making the games that needs the know how and this experience or learn how. They also are the ones that needs to have the human resources to put their project together. They need the know how. Atari needs to have the know how to effectively publish games as a publisher in the publishing role. That's how I would leverage the Atari brand.