fultonbot

The latest crop of interviews have been very interesting. Nice work guys.

I think Atari made some missteps that helped the C64 gain a foothold. In 1983 the 1200XL was an expensive dog, and when James Morgan became president, he paused production of the other XLs. They pretty much gave 1983 away to Commodore, and that was a very important year. The C64 was cheap, and Atari computers were hard to find. I recall looking with my dad for an 800XL for most of the fall and winter up until Xmas 1983. We finally found one a day before Xmas in one store Even if they were superior, Atari shot their computers in the foot. Quality is one thing, but price and availability are quite another.

Yeah, I agree with the "Quality Sells" motto. I couple years ago I read all the Atari VCS game reviews in Arcade Alley and Electronic Games up until the month that the VCS version of Pac-Man was released. The VCS Pac-Man was the first game in EG that received an overtly negative review. Almost all games before that time were not "reviewed" as much as they were "enthusiastically described" in the magazines. So even if Pac-Man was not the worst game ever, and even if it did not "kill Atari" it was the first crack in the wall. The magazines moved from an "enthusiast press" to a "critical press" and the Atari was not ready to face that "marketing" could not trump "quality" going forward. IMHO of course.

I got mine at age 13 in 1983. We are the same age. By the way, in 1983 I had no idea Atari was having any trouble financially, or anything else like that. All I knew was that the local computer store carried those "big boxes" for the 8-bit computers (I have three of them sitting behind me at work right now) with amazing versions of the (mostly) crappy arcade games I had on the VCS, and I wanted to play them badly. It was obvious to me that the computer was the future. Video and computer games made-up most of my entire world. Atari was at the center. It was inconceivable that just 6 months later it would pretty much disappear.

I understand. I was just trying to process it and start a conversation. For me it's always been a kind of "mourning" about Atari. It's very hard to explain why the company had such an affect on me, but I've spent 32 years trying to figure it out. These interviews the guys from the Antic Podcast are doing are amazing and cathartic. So many perspectives, so much insight. Questions are raised with one that are answered with another some never answered at all. All I can say is, "keep it up" Antic guys. I'll be listening and thinking, and processing. Thanks.

I'd watch that! Brilliant!

I have no reason to not believe Mike. I just think he never really understood the true cost or effort that would go into this project.

Alan Hendricks was a really interesting interview. He did a great job confirming the "Steve Ross killed helped Atari with E.T." thought-line. He also confirmed that Atari got complacent with technology, and that was the worst thing they could have done. I think the mast fascinating part was the whole bit about the "Sales Meeting In Monte Carlo" that Kassar promised if they reach $1 Billion in sales. Kevin wanted to get a little insight into waste, and Alan wondered if the trip was "appropriate" and then ultimately decided to himself that it *was*. After thinking about it a bit, the thought struck me that the two things things are not necessarily independent of one another. Atari did become complacent with technology, and one of the reasons might be that the sales staff was rewarded so highly for doing the same thing. If you received a huge trip to monte Carlo and you did it by the pushing the 2600 so hard, would that then give you the false impression that doing the same thing the next year would result in the same reward? Maybe it would if they were selling soap or breakfast cereal, but they were selling an entertainment technology is an incredibly fast moving industry. So instead of taking a chance on new tech (i.e. pushing into the home computer industry as the next big thing, making the 5200 cheaper and backwards compatible) they played it safe, imagining further debauchery at the $2 billion dollar sales meeting in 1982, and repeated what had worked before...but it didn't.

I decided to brush the dust off the old blog and write a review of Atari Vault. It's been a looooong time since I've felt the need to write about retro games. Atari Vault : Multi-Player Breathes New Life Into Age-Old Games

So now it exits out of a multi-player games and says "Game Over" instead of abruptly going back to the select screen, but there is still no way to see the final score, request a rematch, etc.

I tried Warlords (arcade) and it feels like the keyboard controls have been fixed. Not sure if they did any work on gracefully ending multi-player games yet though.

It does need a better way to match-up players. Maybe a thread at Atariage.com or chat room could be used to get games going? I'm new here, so slap me if that is out of line.

After playing Atari Vault for a few days, I've completely changed my opinion. Yes, the game selection is a bit "lacking" of exciting new material, but the total presentation coupled with the high score lists, and the multi-player make the this a must-have (for me anyway). The online multi-player itself breathes new life into many of these games. I have not played such intense sessions of Combat!, Surround, or Outlaw for 37 years. The multi-player does feels like a beta version, (i.e. the abrupt ending of contests, the inclusion of games like Basic Math that can't be played multi-player even though you can set-up a game) but it mostly works, and points towards the future. I'm looking forward to what comes next.

This looks amazing. Can't wait to see more.

So far multi-player competitive Surround and cooperative Space Duel are the best things I've played on Atari Vault.

Silly me. It turns out Basic Math is only for one player, but you can still try to start a multi-player game. Oh well.

I've tried all-day to get someone, anyone, to play a multi-player game of Atari VCS "Basic Math" with me, but there are no takers. Two games almost started, but both bombed. I'm not giving up though. Waiting for a 3rd taker.

By the way, it's sad to see that Battlezone is missing from this collection. Too bad Atari sold that one off. On the other hand, Math Grand Prix is not really missed.

So I think there might be a list of other people who wan to play, it is displayed right after to click on the multi-player button...I think. I saw one poor sap in there waiting to play Pong.

There is online multi-player...if you can find someone to play against. I got in 3 games of Outlaw this morning, almost by chance as the matching system give you absolutely no information at all about how many people/what games people are playing. I never found anyone to play arcade Warlords, Street Racer or Home Run though.

Sorry Bill. I know that AtGames is serious about their products, but from what you just said, I just don't see the same from the new Atari. I realize their heart might be in the right place, but but I just don't think they have the resources to pull this off. I hope I'm wrong. By the way, I just went to the Atari.com site to see if they had any support forums or discussions about this product and it appears that the link their "forums" goes to a feature page about "Alone In The Dark". http://forums.atari.com/ So the answer is "no"

Okay, from what you said above it felt like you had a close relationship to Atari, but maybe you were referring to AtGame when you said "we're" above. As far as "diminishing returns" with DLC, I'd use Pinball Arcade as a good model. They use Kickstarter to fund licensed games, and continually release new packs as DLC and appear to be doing quite well. It's nice because it keep all the games in a single interface. Pinball recreations are a different animal for sure, but it does appear to work.

By the way, any reason why Radar Lock is in the collection but not Solaris?

The re-hashing is really my complaint. My initial reaction born out of 25 years of buying these collections. But, like I said, the multi-player might save this and make it epic. I played one game, and it did work, but was a little buggy but encouraging. Played a 2nd multi-player game. Also got my butt kicked. But it worked well. I think my problem is that I'm using the keyboard, so it my keystrokes exit-out of the game as soon as it is finished,

Maybe put together a Steam friend's list of Atari Age Atari Vault Players?