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PlaysWithWolves

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Posts posted by PlaysWithWolves

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Most people @Tommy Tallarico designated "haters" were people who were originally interested or tried to help him.
    He proudly proclaimed early in the Q&A thread he was an "East Coast Italian with a Napoleon Complex".  That may have worked in his favor as a 1990s bad boy, but not so much as a 2020s family-friendly console maker who has zero consoles to his name.

     

    1 hour ago, Rowsdower70 said:

    And moderators of forums on how not to treat forum members at the behest of some self perceived celebrity. 

     


    I know I got into righteous indignation mode back then and probably could've handled things better (three years later I'm still on "temporary" mod preview), but I'm not sure people realize the complete shift in AtariAge policy enforcement that happened with crowdfunded consoles of questionable existence with the Amico.🥴 Some of us got booted from the Q&A thread just for asking why SmashJT flip-flopped on his Amico views after meeting Tallarico.

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    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    I think you guys are forgetting that Kennedy got to start with a completely clean slate with Chameleon, despite having basically the same idea with RetroVGS.  And while the Amico should have been easy from an Android box perspective, they designed (then redesigned) the controllers, wanted custom guts and some 60-odd or so LED lights; that is to say unlike the Chameleon, his challenge was mostly in the hardware itself.  Atari was headed down the exact same path until they got an eleventh hour influx of cash. 


    Personally, I always knew the Amico wasn't for me but was happy watching the process.  I didn't even care if Tommy Tallarico--who I'd never heard of before--embellished too much, because I knew one day the product would have to stand on its own. A CEO who couldn't take criticism while promising the world just added to a growing sense of something not being right.  I also tend to care less if someone lies to venture capitalists than "Regular Joes" who send pre-order or crowdfunding monies, just because the latter is rife with problems.  

    It's basically the "Duck Test". If you don't want to be called a duck then stop looking, sounding and acting like one. And boy was he a loud quacker.

    • Like 9

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    On 3/23/2023 at 10:41 AM, Bill Loguidice said:

    I would say bottom line is that empty boxes or no, selling them in that manner absolutely implied that all of those games were close to completion and fully playable with no potential for show-stopping bugs (I know that's why I ordered them). Based on all we know now, it's unclear how far along any of those games were and how stable and far along the actual platform itself was. That's bad faith business, period, and clearly borders on scam. It's just a question of how "knowing" the scam part was.


    In July 2021 he claimed there were forty-two ratings approvals and showed a few in a graphic in his thread and elsewhere.  That's Tommy math that fourteen games got three ratings each; PEGI, USK, ESRB.  I don't know how complete a game needs to be to submit for ratings, but they weren't all 100% finished. That very day he posted a video showing they were redesigning pack-in game Cornhole's controls, and a later video had downgraded graphics. Around Crayola Experience time in late August, even Tommy and Mike Mullis were admitting bad lag in Dynoblaster. I'm not sure but I think I heard similar about Moon Patrol from a former fan, but by October's Thanksgiving Point show it still wasn't 100% (Starfox text). 

     I can believe some of the games were complete since IE got them in nearly finished states and tacked on multiplayer. Evel Knievel and Rigid Force Redux Enhanced come to mind. Brain Duel was probably a simple Einstein Brain Trainer reskin. It's indeed hard to tell because of the former CEO's penchant for embellishment and questionable relationship with the truth.

    So, that's basically a bunch of words to say, "I don't know either!" :grin:

    0thmhvx670d71.jpg

    • Like 2
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    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, Rev said:


    Bomb Squad looked interesting I guess. 
     

    You think it will be ported to Switch and Steam and how will the controls work?   Since it could only of worked on Amico…you know. 

     

    Yeah, I've often thought it could've been a showcase game for the Amico.  It had potential to use all of the quirky, expensive and seemingly-unneeded aspects of the console like the LED lights and a controller screen used more than just a button.  Maybe even the 64-point controller disc, if they put enough thought into the game design.

    But really, they needed more than just a single game showing off those features and it probably should've been a pack-in.  Imagine getting the NES Deluxe kit with the light gun and R.O.B. and having to buy Duck Hunt and Gyromite separately.

    • Like 6

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    6 hours ago, digdugnate said:

    I see that 'You can't compare Intellivision with the "Big Three"" argument all the time and I think it's a ridiculous point to argue, much like I think it's ridiculous to argue that the pandemic is still affecting their capacity to produce.  I argued this last year, too, where folks were all like 'Oh, the pandemic is going away soon and then it's off to the launchpad for the Amico!'; I got swatted down for daring to have an opinion that... turned out to be a fact instead.  But no sour grapes or anything! :P

     


    IE was short-sighted and it still amazes me there are defenders even after all that's happened.
    Also, money is a finite resource--meaning that all of those companies are competing for that money.  I didn't understand the argument either. 

    • Like 4

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, MattPilz said:

     

    This is what I would consider unethical conduct. I purposefully added myself to the Founders list and then paid $100 down on the heels of Phil's live stream this February where launch dates were said to be committed by the end of that month and the deposits fully safe and refundable. I then spent a month of time attempting to get a refund after waiting many months for any activity on that front, and received no correspondence so had to pursue a formal dispute to get that reimbursed. It's very unfortunate and certainly not a good look for the company going forward.

     

     


    Oh, right. I'd forgotten they opened up the Founders list later on to fill canceled spots. 
    Unfortunately, @Morpheus still isn't in that group unless he specifically contacted Intellvision and got put on "the list" and was accepted.

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, SegaMasterSystemPunk said:

    You saying something is clearly not a scam doesn't make it clearly not a scam. There is a large difference between trying and failing, compared to lying and failing. I will not say they never intended to launch anything,  but they lied about what they had and what they were going to do time and time again, and from day one. That makes it a scam. That is just how the word is defined. 

     

    I'm not sure why so many retro gamers imagine the definition of "scam" only means "take the money and run". 

     

    Also, this excerpt:

     

    chrome_screenshot_1660473646178.png

    • Like 2
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    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    6 hours ago, the1hatman said:

    Hard to say about the timeline. An LA Times article from 1997 makes it sound as if he arrived in 1991 although it could be read as his arrival and start of his work in video games were actually at 2 different times (arrival 89, start date 1991)...

     

    Enter Tallarico, who in 1991 was a struggling musician and avid video game fan. Hoping to crack into the recording industry, he left Springfield, Mass., and came to Southern California with $500, a bag of clothing and his keyboard stuffed into his beat-up Pontiac Fiero. A month later, he had no money and no job.

    “I was sleeping on the sand at Huntington Beach, eating whatever I could get for free,” Tallarico said. “It was getting pretty bad, then I landed a job selling keyboards at a music shop in Santa Ana.”

     

    So that could coincide with the pier being rebuilt by 1991 and him living there after 2 years of trying to get a foothold into the industry. The living on the beach aspect of the story appears to have been around since at least 1997 though, for what it's worth.

     


    Hard to tell what's true and what's not.  Most stories I've seen have him at a age 21, with this one even saying that he just turned that age. The pier rebuilding was started Oct. 1990 and finished July 1992, per wiki.  It probably doesn't matter if any sort of curfew was enforced.  I do appreciate trying to figure out the truth. I don't have any interest in lying when I feel he does that well enough on his own. :)

    BTW, I have doubts that a Fiero that was 3-8 years old was "beat up".

    • Thanks 4

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

    Who is the “you” and “your” that you keep insulting? AA is a website hosting an online forum mostly populated by random dudes in their 40s. It isn’t the Illuminati. Who the hell has the emotional bandwidth to be angry at a retro web forum? 


    Almost everyone in this thread has spent years being skeptical of the Amico so your choice of language and venue makes even less sense. Maybe instead of victim shaming you should reserve your hostility for TT and IE.
     

    Did you just come here to yell into the void at random people? You seem like you’d be fun at parties.


    Hey, there was an overzealous fan of Tommy's who was also a mod that was overly-protective of him.  He'd also have an interesting (to be polite) way of viewing one's words in a way different than intended. I can understand if they wanted to keep Tommy's main thread a "safe space" for him, but it bled into other threads where people tried to have an honest discussion about Amico. Other fans would come in and literally get the thread shut down instead of simply ignoring it. Tommy himself couldn't stay out and despite some other mods threatening to thread-ban him, it never happened. His posts that got deleted were arguably a bad look and could easily be interpreted as once again protecting him (from himself).

    I'm not saying both sides did it perfectly--I, myself, went too far in my righteous indignation (mostly toward that moderator) a few times. I'm just saying that the skepticism was mostly off AtariAge and there was a reason for it not being here like it was for RetroVGS and Chameleon and some other crowdfunded products.  The turn was so sharp it felt like a record scratch.  I think in a statement Albert even admitted things could've been handled better. 

    • Like 7

    Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

    in Modern Gaming Discussion

    Posted · Edited by PlaysWithWolves

    39 minutes ago, zapzapzac said:

    I can find no evidence either of them have ever won an Emmy. Edit: Art of Play did not win an Emmy. GameTap News did not win an emmy. Victor Lucas does not claim an Emmy in his Twitter profile. Extremely, extremely verifiable info. Turns out, the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Emmy's keep records.

     

    It's a regional Emmy outside of their normal market and, I'm told, about as meaningless as an Orange County award for Best Innovation.
    I think it's important to note we'd not even be talking about this if Tallarico hadn't woven it and many other tales into Amico's lore. I'd suggest it's these kinds of things that get us to "Trust us! We have 600+ years experience!" (paraphrased).

    [Edited for grammar.]

    • Like 5
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    Prologue - Games Band us Together

    in Atari General

    Posted

    Thanks for following up with this.

     

    Background on the joystick controller would be nice, since it seemed to be the only thing Atari had working before their crowdfunding campaign.

     

    Also any thoughts on the ribbed console  design since there's not much out there.

    • Like 1

    The Atari VCS Controversies Thread

    in Atari VCS

    Posted

    7 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

     

    Ah, cool, thanks.  I wonder where the story came from that Atari claimed to have written their own 2600 emulator.

     

    Possibly from Atari themselves at E3 2019 (emphasis, mine):  https://www.pcworld.com/article/3402456/whats-inside-the-atari-vcs-ryzen-emulator.html
     

    Quote

    Atari’s betting big on its back catalog again, but in a frankly kind of bizarre way. Wyatt’s apparently created an entire Atari emulator for the VCS from scratch, which is a good start. Instead of just giving VCS purchasers those old 2600 games though, Atari is...selling them. Piecemeal. We were shown a store demo, and classic Atari games seem to run about a dollar per.

     

    Once you have them, you can pop open the emulator at seemingly any point—even (though we didn’t see this in action) while waiting through load screens for a different game, which sounds smart! I played a bit of Space Invaders, and it played like the Atari home version of Space Invaders.


    E3 2019 was where they had a bunch of empty Ataribox cases made to look working, one transparent mockup and a black box that only we at AtariAge called them out as using a PC:

    post-39941-0-46932700-1560457854.jpg

    • Thanks 3
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